A good read!
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Q&A: Midtown Arts Center Co-Founder John Traynor
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 1:54PM
The Midtown Arts Center is a project that is almost too good to be true. With all of the positive things happening in Midtown Harrisburg, the center has the potential to be a major catalyst for neighborhood renewal. Housed in the former Police Athletic League and Jewish Community Center on Third Street, the ambitious renovation calls for a art gallery, a 10,000 square foot theater, a restaurant, a cafe, a spa and a smaller, more intimate music venue. That venue — the Stage on Herr — opened this summer. I recently stopped by the building to talk with John Traynor, one of the three partners involved in the project. Along with Gary Bartlett and Chuck London, Traynor has rescued a gorgeous old building that had fallen well beyond the state of disrepair. Who knows where the project will go or when it will be finished, but Traynor, a true character, had some interesting thoughts on life in Midtown and the local arts scene. Here's what he had to say:
Spotobe: The history of how this project came to be has been fairly well reported, but can you give us a quick rundown before we get into the good stuff?
John Traynor: We came to Harrisburg by mistake. It’s kind of a well-documented story that you might have read. We were on our way back from Pittsburgh and we just turned off and we thought, “Oh this is a cute little town.” Not knowing it was the capital or anything, we came back three days later because we were intrigued by the city. We ended up purchasing a couple of properties. Residential stuff; we weren’t really thinking of doing an arts center or a performing arts center. After we had purchased a number of houses, renovated them and sold them, our agent with with Century 21 told us about this building. He actually knew the building because he worked for the City at one point in his career. He said, “Come and have a look at this building,” so we came in and of course there was nothing. It was a disaster in here. There were no lights and about five inches of bird s**t in the main theater and the windows were all gone. But we looked at the building and we said, “Wow, what an amazing building.” I understood that the City owned the building, so I asked to see Mayor Reed, had a meeting with him, and explained my idea. It was always, “Let’s keep it what it was.” It was a community center and we thought, “Why don’t we just try to restore the building and open it up as something that would benefit the community but be arts-based because that’s our backgrounds.
I had the conversation with the Mayor and the Redevelopment Authority agreed to sell the building to us. We purchased the building at the beginning of December of 2007. We started work on the building in March of 2008 and we’ve been rolling along ever since basically. At the beginning of this year, we were about 80 percent complete with the interior renovations and we ran into some unexpected things which you do in a project of this size. Things like codes and sprinklers and fire. That sort of thing.
Spotobe: So has everything gone according to plan? You said you had hit some small snags. Are you basically on the timeframe you wanted to be on?
Traynor: No. No. I’m very optimistic, so I would make announcements like “We’re going to be done in a year!” However, I didn’t realize the amount of red tape involved. Even just securing a liquor license. I thought we could do it in three months and it took six months. One thing after another and negotiations and trying to get everything through in a timely fashion. It’s taken longer, however; we’re here for the long run. It’s not a short-term investment. Whether it takes us eight months or twelve months or two years. It doesn’t really matter to us. It’s just a matter of getting the facility open. That’s why it’s important for us to at least open a part of it to start doing things and start having some promotions and fundraisers and that sort of thing. Now that the Stage on Herr is open — we’re open seven days a week — we’re running it basically on bar hours. We do happy hour from five to seven. We only opened at the beginning of July and July and August are slow months anyway, however, we’ve been putting on some really interesting acts and some really great music is coming out of here. So we’re trying. September, October, November, December we’re fully booked out.
Spotobe: You mentioned that you ended up in Harrisburg by a happy mistake. What was your impression of the arts scene in Harrisburg once you got here. Having lived in London and New York it was obviously a little bit different.
Traynor: I didn’t come to Harrisburg for the arts scene so I really had no opinion of it whatsoever. I didn’t know that there even was one. I bought this building and started this project and I didn’t even know the Whitaker Center was here. That’s how much I knew. I was pretty clueless in that regard. I just saw the building and its potential. I guess that might sound eccentric or crazy to some, especially with the sums of money we had to put into it, but wow, this is just such a wonderful building. It was really the space, the volume of space and the feeling I got that was, I wouldn’t say spiritual, but it was more of a gut thing. It was really the building.
Once I made the announcement about what we were doing, then I started to discover the art community here in Harrisburg which is relatively small. Now we have the ArtHouse Lounge, but they weren’t here when we started the project. Gallery Blue wasn’t here when we started the project. It was really Arts at 510. The Susquehanna Art Museum, but they’re more of a museum than a gallery. Progressive Galleries was doing a few small events out of the Maennerchor on an irregular basis or a monthly basis. There was the Manits Collective, but they didn’t have a home and they were moving. I really don’t know the history of the Harrisburg arts scene, but it was certainly small and scattered. It wasn’t as cohesive as it might be say in Lancaster or other communities. Saying that, we actually developed 1633 N Third Street. We turned it into a gallery and they turned it into Gallery Blue. She is the newest gallery and we sort of expanded that way. Even though we were working on this project, we had a few smaller projects we were doing. We wanted to make it an arts-based scene. We thought that will encourage people to enter the Third Street corridor and that’s what we’re hoping that this project will do.
Also the Midtown Scholar bookstore moving down and expanding and bringing in people will help. He’ll be doing music as well and having a little gallery and a coffee shop. That’s a wonderful addition too. Between him and us and the other renovations that GreenWorks are doing down there — though that’s more straightforward commercial, at least it cleans up that end of the street. If we all work together, we could actually make Third Street an excellent corridor for the arts.
Spotobe: Are you encouraged by the direction that Midtown is moving right now?
Traynor: With the HACC developments that are going on down there; the Campus Square stuff, that really makes that whole end of Third Street very nice and attractive. By removing some of the dilapidated housing that was there and the warehouses which they are tearing down currently, it’s really made an impact. I’m not saying that low-income housing isn’t needed. It’s absolutely needed. This was privately owned, Section 8 housing with slumlords. They’re the problem in Midtown and Uptown. They’re the problem in Harrisburg. The slumlords that don’t look after their properties and are just interesting in getting money from the state. The tenants suffer for that. They have nowhere else to go so they really can’t complain. I think it’s good if the City works on cleaning up that sort of blight and trying to make our neighborhoods better and safer. That’s what I see changing in Midtown. I’ve lived here about three years or so and I’ve had my issues with Midtown — there’s no question. But everyone has issues wherever they live. I see the changes that are happening. By us renovating this building—which was a huge white elephant all boarded up with no lighting, we put in security cameras and cameras on the streets and we have security here — we’ve made it safe. That only helps the neighborhood as well.
Spotobe: You mentioned earlier that your background was in video production, but you’re obviously interested in other things. You seem to have a pasison for urban renewal, did you have an interest in it before taking on this project?
Traynor: No. I only had an interest in self indulgence. Luxury. I was actually living in Spain. I had a villa which we turned into a small boutique hotel. I had a bar and I was promoting flamenco music in Spain. We were there for four years and decided we were going to come back to the States. I always kept a house in New York City, so we went back to New York City. But I was looking to do something outside the City. I didn’t want to be in the City all the time. I was done with that after working in production for so many years. It’s very high-pressure and a lot of work and I thought I’d like something a little calmer and quieter.
That’s why we came to Harrisburg, but that was only to buy a couple of houses, flip them and see how we liked Central Pennsylvania. Then we saw this. I don’t stop thinking. It was, “Oh, what can we do here, this is exciting. My background is film and television, I love art, I love music, let’s bring all of that.” My partner Gary was also in television and worked for the Guggenheim for a time. He’s also a designer and decorator, so we said, “Why not bring all those talents in?” Chuck London, who is our other partner, is currently a supervising producer for Comcast International based in Los Angeles. He’s still working in film and television but as soon as we get the center open he’s going to relocate out here and run the film office.
Spotobe: And are you going to run the day to day operations? Will you book the music?
Traynor: Yes, we do all of that in-house. As I said, we just opened a few weeks ago, so it’s building the brand now, as they say. We had Tim Warfield last night and we had a nice turnout for Tim. We’re doing open mics on Wednesday, which are phenomenal. We’re getting really good talent and it’s just a great showcase. Also we have a state of the art audio system.
Spotobe: That definitely helps
Traynor: It’s probably the best in Central PA at this point. People can argue, but I say it’s the best. We have great audio mixers. We’re using Dave Neale and Mike Banks, well-known audio people. Tonight (Ed Note: conversation took place earlier this month) we have Jeffrey Gaines and tomorrow night we have this DJ named Nine Lives the Cat out of London with Channel Surfer, another DJ. He just flew in from Europe so it’s the beginning of an American tour. Sunday we have Soul Comedy Cafe. September we are fully booked every friday and saturday night with live music. Every Wednesday there’s live music. Thursdays we are developing. We have Tim Warfield every second Thursday. Tim Warfield invites people in to play and they do a jazz jam session.
Spotobe: This area really has been a mixed bag when it comes to live music. The Chameleon Club is what it is, but its booking is up and down. There really aren’t a ton of venues.
Yeah, getting quality music costs more money. That’s the thing. We could do the Hardware Bar scene. The jam bands. I think that’s what you are referring to with some of the mediocre music. Some of these bands, you pay them 200 bucks or 100 bucks; they just want a place to play. Then you pack the place and you do drink specials. That’s not our scene. We absolutely do not want that. What we want to do is encourage people. What we want to do is have a place where bands want to play. That’s really important. A place where they are treated well, where they want to play, where they are happy and the audience is happy.
We want to mix it up. To do everything from blues to bluegrass to country to rock to indie to pop. Really mix it up. A lot of people don’t want to do jazz because there’s no money in jazz. They don’t want to do bluegrass because there’s no money in bluegrass; the bluegrass people don’t drink. Right? I think sometimes you’ve got to be eclectic. Certainly if we are going to keep to the spirit of what we’re trying to do, it’s not about just putting on the next best thing. I mean, it is. Once we have the upstairs open, we will have the ability to book national acts, because that’s just based on ticket sales. That’s when it’s a business. However, you can still choose what you’re booking in. We’re trying to do a singer/songwriter series brining singer/songwriters together so they have a place to jam and play.
Spotobe: The stuff that Messiah College has booked over the years proves that people will come here. There just has to be a motivation and an audience.
Traynor: I actually have been talking with Messiah College. The guy over there is probably one of the authorities on bluegrass music in that genre and they do bring in some wonderful stuff. Harrisburg has not traditionally been on the map for bands coming through. They play Philly or they play Pittsburgh or they’ll go down to Baltimore or Washington or even to Ohio and they all cross Harrisburg. Or they come certainly within grabbing range. If you pay attention to tour dates for some of the bigger bands, you can say, “Look, we’re a secondary market, but really, we have an area that is 200,000 if you include the surrounding areas.” Those counties are really undeserved when it comes to live music venues. Especially live music venues of quality. Obviously Hershey just does the massive stuff.
Spotobe: Appalachian Brewing Company does some good things.
Traynor: They do more local and regional. They bring in stuff. Frightened Rabbit was a great show, I heard. You know, ABC — as good the events they have had are — it isn’t really set up as a stage. We’ve approached this as a music venue space. This isn’t a bar that will have bands. That makes a big difference. That’s why we have the raised stage. That’s why we have the LED lighting. We’ve spent a lot of money trying to perfect this. The bar side of this, while it’s nice and brings in some money, the main focus is on making it a stage for bands. What’s interesting is, the other stages like the Whitaker Center are very traditional theater-style seating, but most young people, even middle aged people like myself, don’t want to sit in a theater and listen to a rock band. It’s like Pretenders show. They’re playing the Forum and they’ll get a great turnout, but I prefer to see a band like that in a space like this, where I can have a cocktail and sit up a table and get up and dance. It’s much more informal. It’s a professional stage with an informal environment. I think that’s the way of the future. Before, the Chameleon Club and all these other places, they’re always something first and music second. We’re music first and then the fun around it.
Spotobe: Thank’s so much for your time. I hope you get people to come out. Sometimes around here people like to complain that there’s nothing to do but when there are things to do, they don’t come out and do them.
Traynor: Well, the truth is, I’m not really focused on the Harrisburg market. I agree with you. Really we want people to come into Harrisburg who live on the outside of Harrisburg. A lot of people just want to go out and have a drink and whatever. We want people who are interested in music and we’ve been attracting those people. People from the West Shore and people from Union Deposit and the surrounding towns. We’ve had people come down from State College for some events. We’ve had people coming from Carlisle and York and Lancaster and you really want to draw from that market. If you really just worry about your local market, they aren’t going to turn out all the time. It’s got to be about something bigger than that.
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