Springfield Repulican, Oct. 24, 2009
By NANCY H. GONTER
ngonter@repub.com
NORTHAMPTON - The owners of the Green Street Cafe, which is engaged in a legal battle with its landlord, Smith College, have collected more than 3,000 signatures in support of their restaurant.
Owner John A. Sielski said he and his co-owner and spouse, James Dozmati, started the petition drive because they wanted to know if there was support in the community and to let people know their business is still open.
Green Street Cafe has been open since 1990, except for eight months in 2007. The owners lease the location at 62-68 Green St. from Smith College. The owners intend to present the petition to Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, or her opponent, Michael A. Bardsley, should he win on Nov. 3, to enlist the city's support in their battle with the college. The business has sued Smith College in Superior Court, claiming that Smith breached the lease agreement by closing a 16-space parking lot leased by the cafe on Arnold Street. Smith filed suit in July in Northampton District Court seeking to evict the cafe because it has withheld rent.
Green Street Cafe has not paid its rent since April except for $650 in August, but Sielski said the money is being placed in escrow. The five-year lease, signed in August 2007, calls for the cafe to pay between $2,409 and $2,928 a month for the 2,436-square-foot restaurant space, plus $650 for the parking lot. Smith argues the commercial lease does not allow rent to be withheld, according to court documents.
Kristin A. Cole, Smith College spokeswoman, declined to comment because of the ongoing legal issues.
Sielski said he and Dozmati knew that their customers were supportive, but wanted to gauge public support.
"The main reason was Jim and I felt we needed some support. We were feeling quite alone out here except for our customers, who we know love us," Sielski said.
Sielski and Dozmati hired two young men to work on the petition campaign in downtown Northampton. They will continue to work up until the Nov. 3 election. They were amazed at their success.
"They said it was easy. All they had to do is say 'Green Street Cafe' and people wanted to sign," Sielski said.
Sielski said he is scheduled to meet with Smith College students on Sunday and said more information about the cafe's efforts can be found at www.greenstreetcafe.blog spot.com
Much of the drama started in 2003 when Smith College began working on plans for a $73-million science center nearby. Sielski and Dozmati believed the construction process would hurt their business.
While the case in Superior Court has no dates scheduled, the district court case is scheduled for a status review on Nov. 5.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Northampton's Green Street Cafe, in legal battle with Smith College, gains 3,000 petition signers
The Springfield Republican, Oct. 23, 2009
By Nancy Gonter
ngonter@repub.com
NORTHAMPTON - The owners of the Green Street Cafe, which is engaged in a legal battle with its landlord, Smith College, have collected more than 3,000 signatures in support of their restaurant. Owner John A. Sielski said he and his co-owner and spouse, James Dozmati, started the petition drive because they wanted to know if there was support in the community and to let people know their business is still open. Green Street Cafe has been open since 1990, except for eight months in 2007. The owners lease the location at 62-68 Green St. from Smith College. The owners intend to present the petition to Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, or her opponent, Michael A. Bardsley, should he win on Nov. 3, to enlist the city’s support in their battle with the college. The business has sued Smith College in Superior Court, claiming that Smith breached the lease agreement by closing a 16-space parking lot leased by the cafe on Arnold Street. Smith filed suit in July in Northampton District Court seeking to evict the cafe because it has withheld rent. Green Street Cafe has not paid its rent since April except for $650 in August, but Sielski said the money is being placed in escrow. The five-year lease, signed in August 2007, calls for the cafe to pay between $2,409 and $2,928 a month for the 2,436-square-foot restaurant space, plus $650 for the parking lot. Smith argues the commercial lease does not allow rent to be withheld, according to court documents. Kristin A. Cole, Smith College spokeswoman, declined to comment because of the ongoing legal issues. Sielski said he and Dozmati knew that their customers were supportive, but wanted to gauge public support. “The main reason was Jim and I felt we needed some support. We were feeling quite alone out here except for our customers, who we know love us,” Sielski said. Sielski and Dozmati hired two young men to work on the petition campaign in downtown Northampton. They will continue to work up until the Nov. 3 election. They were amazed at their success. “They said it was easy. All they had to do is say ‘Green Street Cafe’ and people wanted to sign,” Sielski said. Sielski said he is scheduled to meet with Smith College students on Sunday and said more information about the cafe’s efforts can be found at greenstreetcafe.blogspot.com. Much of the drama started in 2003 when Smith College began working on plans for a $73-million science center nearby. Sielski and Dozmati believed the construction process would hurt their business. While the case in Superior Court has no dates scheduled, the district court case is scheduled for a status review on Nov. 5.
© 2009 masslive.com. All rights reserved.
By Nancy Gonter
ngonter@repub.com
NORTHAMPTON - The owners of the Green Street Cafe, which is engaged in a legal battle with its landlord, Smith College, have collected more than 3,000 signatures in support of their restaurant. Owner John A. Sielski said he and his co-owner and spouse, James Dozmati, started the petition drive because they wanted to know if there was support in the community and to let people know their business is still open. Green Street Cafe has been open since 1990, except for eight months in 2007. The owners lease the location at 62-68 Green St. from Smith College. The owners intend to present the petition to Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, or her opponent, Michael A. Bardsley, should he win on Nov. 3, to enlist the city’s support in their battle with the college. The business has sued Smith College in Superior Court, claiming that Smith breached the lease agreement by closing a 16-space parking lot leased by the cafe on Arnold Street. Smith filed suit in July in Northampton District Court seeking to evict the cafe because it has withheld rent. Green Street Cafe has not paid its rent since April except for $650 in August, but Sielski said the money is being placed in escrow. The five-year lease, signed in August 2007, calls for the cafe to pay between $2,409 and $2,928 a month for the 2,436-square-foot restaurant space, plus $650 for the parking lot. Smith argues the commercial lease does not allow rent to be withheld, according to court documents. Kristin A. Cole, Smith College spokeswoman, declined to comment because of the ongoing legal issues. Sielski said he and Dozmati knew that their customers were supportive, but wanted to gauge public support. “The main reason was Jim and I felt we needed some support. We were feeling quite alone out here except for our customers, who we know love us,” Sielski said. Sielski and Dozmati hired two young men to work on the petition campaign in downtown Northampton. They will continue to work up until the Nov. 3 election. They were amazed at their success. “They said it was easy. All they had to do is say ‘Green Street Cafe’ and people wanted to sign,” Sielski said. Sielski said he is scheduled to meet with Smith College students on Sunday and said more information about the cafe’s efforts can be found at greenstreetcafe.blogspot.com. Much of the drama started in 2003 when Smith College began working on plans for a $73-million science center nearby. Sielski and Dozmati believed the construction process would hurt their business. While the case in Superior Court has no dates scheduled, the district court case is scheduled for a status review on Nov. 5.
© 2009 masslive.com. All rights reserved.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Meeting with Smith Students on Sun. Oct 25
John Sielski, co-owner and of the Green Street Cafe, will meet with Smith College students on Sunday, Oct. 25 at the Tyler House at 8 p.m. Sielski will discuss his efforts to persuade Smith College to keep their promises and continue to support the Green Street Cafe which has been in that Northampton neighborhood for more than 20 years offering wonderful food and jobs for the community and students.
In addition, participants will have the opportunity to sign a petition asking Mayor Claire Higgins to intervene and help save Green Street Cafe from extinction due to the actions of Smith College against the restaurant. The petition drive is gaining tremendous support with more than 3,000 signatures collected.
Sign the petition by stopping by the Green Street Cafe!
In addition, participants will have the opportunity to sign a petition asking Mayor Claire Higgins to intervene and help save Green Street Cafe from extinction due to the actions of Smith College against the restaurant. The petition drive is gaining tremendous support with more than 3,000 signatures collected.
Sign the petition by stopping by the Green Street Cafe!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Letter to the Editor the Daily Hampshire Gazette Wouldn't Publish
July 22, 2009
To the Editor:
I deeply admire what Smith College does as an educational institution of the liberal arts and I enjoy cordial relations with many colleagues at Smith. I cannot say the same about Smith’s postures as a landlord. Smith needs to show its competitive muscle in the academic marketplace, but its muscular approach to a local restaurant seems unworthy of the college and an unintended repudiation of the legacy of one of its distinguished alumnae, Julia Child.
In the current economy the challenges of running both a restaurant and a liberal arts college for women are daunting. By constructing a building for its engineering and microbiology departments, Smith is opening a new frontier for liberal arts colleges for women, once again setting the pace. Killing a successful and nationally respected local restaurant that happens to be a sometimes bumptious tenant bears the marks of corporate arrogance and blindness, a misguided exercise in tough love.
To many people I know, the Green Street Café is not merely a part of the food services industry, but also a mainstay of the greater Northampton community. It is here that doctors, lawyers, professors, psychologists, students and their families, lovers, poets, musicians, writers and artists come to eat and to share thoughts and ideas. Locals who dine here come from the hill towns and from across the Valley, from Springfield and Holyoke, Lenox and Stockbridge, and from New York city. Those who are not local will by word of mouth often end up at Green Street; professional actors from Hollywood to NYC when in town usually dine there, and are left alone to enjoy their dinners with friends or colleagues. Putting the Green Street Café out of business is, whether intended or not, an act of silencing a conversation that that larger community enjoys only in the intimacy and security of the restaurant on Green Street.
Let me give but one anecdote of how that community speaks to itself. Having played the piano at Green Street on a weekly basis for more than ten years, I have accumulated a lot of anecdotes about how this eating place generates a sense of community, but one example must suffice. Before the Spring, 2009, series of weekly poetry readings on Thursday evenings, I would offer an hour or so at the piano, and arrive early enough to have a light supper. Before one of those engagements, I was sitting by myself at a table near the piano when a woman wandered in, new to the restaurant, which at the time was nearly empty. She (let me call her “Ms. Nightingale”) was there for the poetry reading, she said. After scanning the empty tables upstairs, Ms. Nightingale elected to remain in the area near the piano, and I, in a fit of gallantry, invited her to join me. It turned out that she was, like me, a poet, but unlike me, a poetry journal editor from out of town. When she learned that I would be at the piano, she confessed that in her younger years she had had a good voice, and sung many tunes. Like what? I asked. She said she could sing the Schubert “Trout” Lied. We chatted while we ate, and while many poetry-hungry customers streamed by to take their meals upstairs. Finally, it was my time to play. Unexpectedly, as I took my seat, Ms. Nightingale came over to the piano, and suggested we try the “Trout,” which I knew by ear, but which was not in the show tune vein of my Thursday night programme. She sang with a lovely voice, and soon we were improvising around one show tune after another. A small audience had formed in the entry way and along the bar. As we reached the bridge of one tune, she blurted out that she couldn’t remember the lyrics to the next stanza, so I played the bridge by myself to give her time to remember, and was just about to reach the end of the bridge when a Smith College professor, who had been sitting at the bar, raced over to her with his iPhone, having successfully downloaded those missing lyrics. Ms. Nightingale sang the rest of the song, and when she had finished, and after the applause, people asked us how long we had been performing together, and people talked and talked.
This sort of serendipity is hard to come by. The Green Street Café affords many people their chance to be touched by such moments.
It would be an act of bravery on the part of the individuals at the top of Smith College to pull back from the brink of the destruction of a restaurant and the harming of a community. Smith College does not need to be remembered for the lesson it is teaching John Sielski, a local boy from Whately who attended UMass. It needs to be remembered for the role it plays in supporting a web of conversations that make the Northampton area vibrant and sustainable as a community, a role that the liberal arts plays in an institution of higher learning. If the Green Street Café is forced to vacate the premises on Green Street, the restaurant will die. Smith College, a venerable liberal arts institution of higher learning for women will have snuffed the life out of a restaurant for being, well, another home for the liberal arts. I pray that a greater wisdom will prevail at Smith.
Yours truly,
Bill Moebius
Conway, MA
To the Editor:
I deeply admire what Smith College does as an educational institution of the liberal arts and I enjoy cordial relations with many colleagues at Smith. I cannot say the same about Smith’s postures as a landlord. Smith needs to show its competitive muscle in the academic marketplace, but its muscular approach to a local restaurant seems unworthy of the college and an unintended repudiation of the legacy of one of its distinguished alumnae, Julia Child.
In the current economy the challenges of running both a restaurant and a liberal arts college for women are daunting. By constructing a building for its engineering and microbiology departments, Smith is opening a new frontier for liberal arts colleges for women, once again setting the pace. Killing a successful and nationally respected local restaurant that happens to be a sometimes bumptious tenant bears the marks of corporate arrogance and blindness, a misguided exercise in tough love.
To many people I know, the Green Street Café is not merely a part of the food services industry, but also a mainstay of the greater Northampton community. It is here that doctors, lawyers, professors, psychologists, students and their families, lovers, poets, musicians, writers and artists come to eat and to share thoughts and ideas. Locals who dine here come from the hill towns and from across the Valley, from Springfield and Holyoke, Lenox and Stockbridge, and from New York city. Those who are not local will by word of mouth often end up at Green Street; professional actors from Hollywood to NYC when in town usually dine there, and are left alone to enjoy their dinners with friends or colleagues. Putting the Green Street Café out of business is, whether intended or not, an act of silencing a conversation that that larger community enjoys only in the intimacy and security of the restaurant on Green Street.
Let me give but one anecdote of how that community speaks to itself. Having played the piano at Green Street on a weekly basis for more than ten years, I have accumulated a lot of anecdotes about how this eating place generates a sense of community, but one example must suffice. Before the Spring, 2009, series of weekly poetry readings on Thursday evenings, I would offer an hour or so at the piano, and arrive early enough to have a light supper. Before one of those engagements, I was sitting by myself at a table near the piano when a woman wandered in, new to the restaurant, which at the time was nearly empty. She (let me call her “Ms. Nightingale”) was there for the poetry reading, she said. After scanning the empty tables upstairs, Ms. Nightingale elected to remain in the area near the piano, and I, in a fit of gallantry, invited her to join me. It turned out that she was, like me, a poet, but unlike me, a poetry journal editor from out of town. When she learned that I would be at the piano, she confessed that in her younger years she had had a good voice, and sung many tunes. Like what? I asked. She said she could sing the Schubert “Trout” Lied. We chatted while we ate, and while many poetry-hungry customers streamed by to take their meals upstairs. Finally, it was my time to play. Unexpectedly, as I took my seat, Ms. Nightingale came over to the piano, and suggested we try the “Trout,” which I knew by ear, but which was not in the show tune vein of my Thursday night programme. She sang with a lovely voice, and soon we were improvising around one show tune after another. A small audience had formed in the entry way and along the bar. As we reached the bridge of one tune, she blurted out that she couldn’t remember the lyrics to the next stanza, so I played the bridge by myself to give her time to remember, and was just about to reach the end of the bridge when a Smith College professor, who had been sitting at the bar, raced over to her with his iPhone, having successfully downloaded those missing lyrics. Ms. Nightingale sang the rest of the song, and when she had finished, and after the applause, people asked us how long we had been performing together, and people talked and talked.
This sort of serendipity is hard to come by. The Green Street Café affords many people their chance to be touched by such moments.
It would be an act of bravery on the part of the individuals at the top of Smith College to pull back from the brink of the destruction of a restaurant and the harming of a community. Smith College does not need to be remembered for the lesson it is teaching John Sielski, a local boy from Whately who attended UMass. It needs to be remembered for the role it plays in supporting a web of conversations that make the Northampton area vibrant and sustainable as a community, a role that the liberal arts plays in an institution of higher learning. If the Green Street Café is forced to vacate the premises on Green Street, the restaurant will die. Smith College, a venerable liberal arts institution of higher learning for women will have snuffed the life out of a restaurant for being, well, another home for the liberal arts. I pray that a greater wisdom will prevail at Smith.
Yours truly,
Bill Moebius
Conway, MA
Friday, October 2, 2009
The Sophian-Editorial - The Green Street Impasse 9.24.09
The situation between Smith College and Green Street Cafe is getting out of hand. The Green Street Cafe was once part of a thriving Green Street commercial area and an important part of Smith community. Not long ago, the college and the cafe; enjoyed a collaborative relationship. Faculty hosted out-of-town professors and meetings at the restaurant, which billed Smith College directly for such events. The cafe was practically part of campus.But since plans for construction of Ford Hall began, businesses along Green Street have shuttered and the relationship between the cafe and the college has turned sour. Smith offered the cafe's owners a small sum to relocate, and when its owners refused the tedious moving process, the college decided to neglect acting as a courteous landlord. Now things are at an impasse with the cafe owing four months' rent to Smith College, its landlord. The Sophian believes that both sides are being a bit childish. The cafe owners seem to be blatantly refusing to pay rent to spite the college. Meanwhile, Smith seems too concerned with future plans for the cafe's 3,000 square feet - a pittance compared to neighboring Ford Hall, nearly 50 times its size - to care about working with the cafe.The college has every right to want its money, but the fact that Smith refused to accept Jan Carhart's offer to pay the rent owed shows the college's true colors. It's not just about the rent. Smith College wants Green Street Cafe out and it's doing what it can to make that happen. The college prides itself in having a good relationship with downtown, especially via the current BID project, but the college is letting a formerly thriving part of Northampton slip away. Smith has watched, and even played a hand in, the demise of businesses along Green Street. Now, it hopes Green Street Cafe will be the latest casualty. If Smith indeed has long-term development plans for the Green Street area, it needs to be honest about its intentions. And if that were the case, the Sophian would nevertheless see the loss of Green Street Cafe as a severe blow to town-gown relations. Really, we just want Smith College and Green Street Cafe to kiss and makeup. We know both sides have acted immaturely over the course of the dispute, but they both have so much to gain from working together. It would be a shame to see that relationship die.
© Copyright 2009 The Sophian
© Copyright 2009 The Sophian
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