A Tale of Two Cities: Will West Cambridge Stick East with the Sullivan Courthouse?
Is East Cambridge heading towards a spring of hope where local voices are heard by the City Council, or a winter of despair where western Cambridge dictates our fate?
East Cambridge has reason to expect despair. On Wednesday, the City Council votes on the First Street Garage lease, which if approved would allow a waiting developer to finally remediate the sick Sullivan Courthouse and turn it into something useful for the neighborhood. Councillors voting “yes” will be fighting for the rights of residents to not be forced to live next to an unmaintained environmental and economic hazard. Councillors voting “no” will be defending the rights of…commuters from Acton to keep their publicly-subsidized, below market-rate parking spots. And therein lies the source of our despair; despite the obvious moral imperative before the Council, by all accounts this vote teeters on the edge of a knife.
This vote wouldn't be close if the desires of East Cambridge residents were given the same regard as our more privileged western neighbors. New analysis shows that Cantabrigians’ desire to see the Courthouse remediation plan move forward depends on how close one lives to the derelict, leaking building. Residents spoke for nearly five hours at an overflow Monday City Council meeting last week. Supporters of the current remediation plan spoke passionately about safety and the renewal of their often-overlooked neighborhood. But who were those supporters? According to analysis conducted by Cambridge resident Dan Eisner, who identified each speakers’ home on a map, most residents who spoke in favor of the plan live in the shadow of the tower. Speakers who were actually from East Cambridge spoke out Monday two to one in support of the First Street Garage lease.
Two thirds of the night’s total speakers supporting the lease were East Cambridge residents, those most affected by the their government’s ongoing negligence, most concerned about the Courthouse’s potential dangers, and with most at stake on Wednesday’s vote.
East Cambridge’s support for the Garage lease was even more apparent from the letters the Council received before Monday’s meeting. A count of letters from residents who identified their homes on a Courthouse-adjacent street (Spring, Thorndike, Second, and Third Streets) reveals that supporters outnumbered opponents by nearly four to one. Add in Otis Street and it’s more like seven to one.
But, most in attendance felt Monday’s discussion was evenly weighted by the end of the night. So, who were the residents who rose in opposition? Well, they were overwhelmingly people not from East Cambridge. People who don’t have to raise families next to the building. People who live far from its hazards and blight.
Residents from Mid-Cambridge to the Highlands packed the chamber to lament the loss of parking spaces…on the other side of town.
Central Square and Cambridgeport delivered staunch opposition; not one resident turned out to support their eastern neighbors who begged the Council for a clean neighborhood.
For every two residents living outside of Area 1 who spoke in support, five spoke in opposition. Seventy percent of Monday’s total speakers opposed to the lease lived outside of East Cambridge.
East Cambridge residents have long felt treated like a second-class community compared to their western neighbors. A former ECPT president recently asked of the Courthouse, “Would this building exist in this condition in West Cambridge?” The idea that it would is absurd. If a known toxic building started leaking out onto Brattle Street during election season, City Council candidates would be tearing the building down with bare hands and seizing the Charles Hotel for use as a refugee resort and spa. The city wouldn’t sleep until our wealthiest single-family enclaves were safe.
East Cambridge enters any political fight against west Cambridge at a disadvantage, made worse in this case by the bizarre need for a super-majority Council vote to approve a simple parking lease. If Wednesday’s vote fails, it’s expected to fail with five votes in support and four votes in opposition. So the will of an apparent majority of East Cambridge residents and a majority of Cambridge’s democratically elected representatives could be blocked by a minority of City Councillors serving as the voice of people who don’t live near the Courthouse. A simple parking pass lease will join the the Electoral College and the judicial filibuster in the pages of America’s undemocratic contortions designed to defend the principle of minority rule.
What do we call it when those who have the least risk but the most privilege hold an outsized share of political power? When two parts of Cambridge are treated like two different cities? When western Cambridge can force East Cambridge to live next to a neglected asbestos monolith for years to come? We should call it injustice.
Hopefully, it’s an injustice our Councillors will help us avoid on Wednesday.
