The New Bedford Light’s recent report on the Star Store/CVPA is a eulogy to the demise of a hallowed arts institution that was the turning point in downtown’s renewal. A decaying building was transformed by state and university investment into a shining star, the home of an art school in a city with a very significant artistic heritage. It was a spectacular success, but nothing lasts forever.

Eulogies mourn the physical loss of a person who was important to the community. They usually focus on physical characteristics or anecdotes that highlight the person’s fleeting presence. Beyond the physical, there is the character, integrity, vision, and other outstanding spiritual qualities that shine despite the loss and endure in memory.

A year ago, New Bedford’s downtown and the city itself were hit hard when an interloper hastily closed the Star Store campus, throwing students into a vortex of uncertainty. Here was an academic from outside the city, completely unfamiliar with the story of downtown revitalization, totally unwilling to talk to the city about it, totally opaque to his students, totally incapable of composing a coherent story of the closure, and totally, almost obsequiously, concerned with impressing his boss.

His deepest institutional death wish for Star Store was further reinforced by the botched and utterly incomprehensible withdrawal of funding from Star Store by a local “leader” of the legislature, whose motive was apparently revenge fueled by hostility, if not jealousy, toward the developer of Star Store. Public interest aside, it was apparently time for revenge. Funding is the lifeblood of the university. Cutting funding for Star Store was like the father intentionally killing his child in an irrational fit of rage.

The execution of this action was shocking. Artwork, art supplies, equipment and furniture were haphazardly thrown into containers and taken who knows where, right in front of protesting students. It was a sign of total disregard for the opinion of the students and the public. As if the undertaker had taken the body out of the coffin during the wake.

He hastily called together craftsmen from the university to open a makeshift studio in a shopping centre amidst winding parking lots and winding driveways. The fact that he managed to do this despite the “studio’s” shortcomings is a testament to the prerogatives of the state in construction.

The local legislative delegation barely raised a voice in protest. One representative, the son of the man whose administration initiated the downtown revitalization, incredibly viewed the move as something of little consequence for the city.

But there were other witnesses to this institutional assassination: a governor too busy organizing her travel plans; a fawning politician for president who wanted to expand his power; the compliant board of trustees whose chairman in Fall River should be ashamed of his failure to stand up for the South Shore; most of the city council members who refused to participate in the student protests; city planning and economic development officials who kept a low profile; the downtown arts, restaurant, service and business communities who mostly remained silent; and a speechless Chamber of Commerce. What should have been an emphatic “NO!” turned into a mayor fighting for his city almost alone.

That a single academic, unknown in the community and completely ignorant and indifferent to the community’s difficulties, could so easily lay the keystone to 40 years of downtown revitalization is incredible – especially considering the many hundreds who have worked so long and tirelessly to restore some of the city’s glory.

The ivory tower excuses that followed were repeatedly and successfully exposed by The Light as poor and almost pathetic rationalizations. As the numbers and reasons changed over time, as the academic plight of students came to light and educators formed their wagon fortifications, it was quite obvious that the sloppy task had not been well thought out.

This magnificent building, externally renewed and gleaming, housing beautiful artwork and dedicated student artists, radiated a palpable energy to its downtown surroundings. It deserved a much better fate than that bestowed upon it by this mute stranger. As if the CVPA had been ambushed in the alley in broad daylight, dragged up the hill, and thrown out of town. As Light columnist Jack Spillane reported, there is still no indication of its ultimate fate. The silence from UMD does not bode well for the CVPA.

Yet her spirit and energy live on in her students.

Staff stories about artists Navarro, Napoli, Beigzadeh and Perry struggling to relocate their studios, cope with the university’s inadequate workspace, manage their domestic responsibilities, complete their pending work and campaign for the reoccupation of the Star Store document a unique, forward-thinking spirit that this city sometimes lacks.

Their intrepid youthful energy caught the attention of UMD volunteers and anonymous benefactors, who helped create a student studio and gallery downtown. Despite the university’s best efforts to stamp out CVPA’s existence downtown, it was as if the Star Store had created a clone of itself, unencumbered by the hidden agendas of isolated, indifferent, and irresponsible academics.

It is ironic that an adult outsider came to New Bedford and discarded the gem of downtown revitalization, while students from the surrounding area came to town, adopted Star Store as their creative home, embraced downtown in all its rawness, learned to love and respect the city, and reached out to it with their art studio. They persevere despite their painful loss and despite the indifference of the university. It is a testament to an unshakable spirit, an inner creative fire, ignited in that wonderful Beaux-Arts building on Union Street.

All things physical will perish over time, either through entropy or hostility, but ideas live on. Especially those that the arts give birth to. The students of CVPA cast an artistic veil over downtown and all of New Bedford, enriching its rich artistic heritage. There is little doubt that these student artists will endure, continue to stoke creative fires, and succeed in their quest to beautify our world. These kids are fine! They will succeed. The “grown-ups,” however, will move on, leaving behind the scars they inflicted, and shuffle out of town, driven by the empty, meaningless, thoughtless ambition that plagues our world.

Richard Walega is a former New Bedford city planner who served from 1977 to 1983.

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