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I want to just begin with where your story and relationship to Allston Village Main Streets began, and in that vein, where your relationship to Allston began.

My grandparents moved to Brighton from Italy back in 1970 when my mom was three, so my mom grew up in Oak Square. My grandparents lived in Oak Square until my grandma moved in 2021, so my whole life I would come to Allston-Brighton as a kid, going to my grandparents’ house for lunch every Sunday, playing at like the water park in Herter Park. We went to the pool that’s now closed by the IHOP. My mom’s cousin and my grandma’s sister still live in Lower Allston, so we would go to Lower Allston all the time. So I always thought that Allston-Brighton was filled with old Italians, the only type of people that I hung out with. 

Then in college, I went to school in DC. Every summer, every Christmas, I would come back here, and my relationship with Allston was going out to the bars, taking like a $60 Uber from my parents in Melrose to the Model to go out because like it was the best neighborhood to be in college and go out in.

And then fast forward a couple of years, I’m living in DC; I’m working at a business improvement district; I’m feeling homesick. I’m finished with DC as the city and come back to Boston, and I start looking for jobs that are similar to what I used to do, which is working at a business improvement district, and I found out about main streets as a concept, just in general. There’s like 20 main street organizations in the Greater Boston area. I think I had lunch with someone from Somerville Main Streets, who told me that there was an open position here in Allston at AVMS. It’s a lot like working with the community, beautification, making sure we remove graffiti, making sure the street looks nicer, putting on events, all the stuff that I did in DC at my job, and just less funding and more independence than one employee.

So I interviewed, and I got that job in August of 2019. I’ve been here since then, so it’s coming up on seven years.

Could you describe the Alex that was at the beginning in 2019 versus now? How did you evolve over the years? How did your relationship to the neighborhood evolve?

There are two different ways that have evolved. First one is like how I worked here because I’m the only full-time employee. All of my bosses are volunteers. It’s a board of directors. I had to learn how to find motivation from this job, because my motivation at previous jobs was to not get yelled at by my boss. I didn’t have somebody saying, ‘Hey, we need you to do this, can you do this right now?’ It was, ‘Hey, we want to try to increase our reach, or we have this idea for this new program,’ but you’re the executive director, so it’s up to you to make this a successful program. 

The first six months of the job were just like meeting people, learning how the organization functions, learning about the neighborhood, learning about how all of the movers and shakers in Allston-Brighton. Then the pandemic hit, so all of the plans that we had for 2020 programming were pushed aside, and we had to be quick on our feet with providing emergency services for people out of work or businesses that needed PPE and COVID relief information. It was like a hard reset for the first year and a half. That’s my relationship with the organization is able to find motivation through the work that we do. 

It feels really good when you think of an event or a project or a program and then you work on it, and you have a successful program that you finish, and then everyone’s like, ‘Wow, thank you for doing that.’ It’s like one of the best feelings, and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been around for so long. 

And then, the relationship with the neighborhood has also grown and developed over the years. I honestly kind of felt like an outsider when I first started this job. There were a number of people that cared really deeply about Allston-Brighton, super passionate about making sure that people can afford to live here and afford to own a business here and work here. They saw artists leaving; they saw music venues closing, so they felt a little bit of anxiety for the fact that the neighborhood was changing. To most people I was just some outside person that came from DC. I didn’t really have an established adult relationship with the city yet, with the neighborhood yet, and so I did feel a little bit like an outsider for like the first year or so, and I had to do a lot of work of like getting people in the neighborhood to trust me, business owners, community members, advocates. 

Through the work that we did, through the relationships that we developed, I gradually started feeling more and more like an insider, more and more accepted by the neighborhood, and by now, I consider Allston my home, even though I don’t live here. I feel a real affinity for the neighborhood and responsibility to the neighborhood. I think that’s why I’ve been able to stay for so long, because I really care about the work that we do, and like the people that live and work here, and want to see it continue to flourish and grow.

I’m sure there’s so many fulfilling moments from this job, and also learning moments, so I want to ask about both. What particular memories come to mind when it comes to this job?

During COVID, we’d change all of the events, so the Taste of Allston, which is normally in person outside with a bunch of vendors giving out food, was online in 2020 and we gave raffle off gift cards for the month of October. The next year, 2021, we hosted the Taste of Allston outside. COVID was basically over, but the impact of COVID was still there.

A lot of the restaurants that had participated in the past years couldn’t afford to participate. They didn’t have the staffing; they didn’t have the revenue, so we didn’t have a single food vendor participate in the taste of Allston, so we were like “Jesus, what do we do?” We ended up getting the food vendors that would have participated to donate trays of food to the Taste of Allston. Every half an hour, we would get a new batch of food donations, and then we’d have our volunteers pass out that food, and then a half an hour, that would get depleted, and half an hour later we get another batch of food, and then pass that out. It was really stressful, and I got a lot of PTSD trying to plan an event where we didn’t have any taste of Allston food vendors, it ended up working out as a really fun event. Since then, it’s gotten bigger and better. 

A couple years ago as part of the Rat City Arts Festival, we had an ISD [Inspectional Services Department] rodent control walk at night, where Ricky and a few rat rangers were dressed in like ranger outfits with rat nets and 70 people walked around all with ISD. They would bring us to like a different alleyway and say all right this is how rats get into this alleyway and this is how to prevent rats from spreading or this is a rat nest. People were cheering when they saw a rat walking around, like walking down the street. It was like dusk. They would see a rat, everyone would go “Rat!,” and start clapping like that. I was like this name really means something. People really respond to it positively, negatively. That group was quite positive, but that’s when I realized ‘this name needs to stick around,’ because people get such a response out of it. The marketing is really strong for this kind of music festival. 

From running this sort of role, what lessons about life or about people might you have had just about creating relationships or working in a business district or the difficulties that you might see like owners go through? 

What I’ve learned is that it’s incredibly difficult to be a business owner. I can’t imagine owning a small business. These owners are working seven days a week, all day, every day. They’re always concerned about money; they’re always concerned about their employees; they’re always concerned about ‘oh, like we need to make rent this month, we need more customers.’ There’s a million things going through their heads. I respect business owners so much. 

We have these programs that will help small businesses, marketing ideas, events that would promote them, and a lot of the business owners, they’re more concerned with the day-to-day operation of their business, and sometimes I’m like, ‘oh, they’re missing these opportunities that are right there for them, just because they’re so busy, so preoccupied with their business.

What I would recommend to businesses is find a business partner: if you’re a passionate person and you want to start a small business and your passion is that small business, find a partner that can operate the business side of things.

Why did you you decide to step down as executive director of  Allston Village Main Streets?

You know, over the past couple of years, I’ve never really thought about leaving. In 2022 when Michelle Wu’s administration started, all of the main streets in Boston received additional funding for programming and for salaries and extra people, and so after 2023 I was able to stay and I got a salary bump, and it was great. If that hadn’t happened, I probably would have left a couple of years ago, just because there was a limit to the salary that we could have been making. 

I’ve really never been actually actively looking for a new job. I love what I do here, and I love the organization, but in May this year, I saw the position open at the Central Square BID [Business Improvement District], and I’ve known the director there, Michael, for a few years. I knew we talked every once in a while, but I didn’t have a formal relationship with him. I just saw Central Square BID open in 2019, and I used to work at a business improvement district, so I understand what that organization is about and the services that they provide. Once this position was open, I saw that it was a step up in every single job duty — it was managing more people, it was managing a larger budget, it was managing more ambassadors, it was streamlining the organization.

When I was interviewing, I met the team and some people on the board, and they seemed so similar to people in Allston. They had the same kind of energy, the same passion for their district, their neighborhood, and they had a lot of really cool programs that they were doing, and I was excited about stepping up to a bigger organization that had more programming, and I was excited that they were interested in me, you know, having me bring my experiences from Allston to Central Square. They seem like really great people. 

I’m very excited about working with them, and it’s bittersweet leaving Allston Village Main Streets, but it had to have happened at some point. Seven years is a long time to stay at one job, especially when I started when I was 24 and I’m 31 now, and I just got married. It seems like a perfect moment to start a new chapter of my life, and I will still be a part of AVMS in a volunteer capacity. Eventually, I’d love to join the board, because I feel very responsible for the success of the organization, and I’d love to provide assistance to whoever comes next with what I’ve learned and ideas, and all that kind of stuff.

The executive director role is still out there for people to take on, and what pieces of advice for that would you might have for folks who would be interested in something like this?

For this job, if someone’s interested in this position, or just in AVMS in general, or learning more about Main Streets or organization, I would say I recommend that you have a level head and that you don’t get in your own way. I’ve seen a lot of projects fail because while the director or whoever is running the project is really passionate about it and is really pushing for it, the appetite might not be there from the community. If the community is not a supporter of the project that you’re working on, it’s never going to be successful. I’d respond to what people in the neighborhood need and are requesting, and base your work off of that. 

You need to be able to talk to anybody, business owners, students, old people, young people, kids, families, immigrants, people that might not speak the same language as you. You have to be able to know how to talk to everybody and how to be a friendly face for everybody in the neighborhood, because it is the entire neighborhood, all your stakeholders are everybody in the neighborhood, and you want to be as democratic as possible.

An old director of a different Main Streets group told me this when I first started — I think he had done seven years and he was about to leave, and it was my like first month — and he was like, “all right, here’s what you’re going to want to do, you’re going to want to spend the first two years getting to know the neighborhood. It’s getting to know the people, the businesses, getting to have them trust you, getting to be like a presence in the neighborhood, understanding the demographics and how people in the neighborhood work together. And then you want to spend at least three years developing your own programming and having your own voice be put into the neighborhood.” 

I was like, that sounds like a long time, but it’s true. It really took two years to fully get ingrained in the neighborhood and become a presence in the neighborhood. So be patient and be willing to work with anybody, and willing to try things. 

Were there moments when it was really hard to build trust with certain folks? I think in general it’s helpful for neighbors who are moving in. How do we make a community? How do you meet people?

Go talk to people in person. With businesses, if you call or email somebody, it doesn’t have the same impact as going in person — shopping at a business, eating food at a restaurant. That’s how to gain businesses’ trust. Show up, be in person, be a friendly face. With the community, it’s “what can I provide for the neighborhood, advocacy wise, programming wise?” — that’s a benefit to the neighborhood. How can I get those community members to understand that’s what I did? I put this on, or I helped secure this, or I was instrumental in advocating towards this. And how do I prove that I am capable of doing that again and again and again? How do I become a leading voice in the neighborhood? And it takes a long time, like I said — it’s just constantly talking to people, being a friendly face, showing up. It’s a lot of showing up, going to every meeting.

Patience — just making sure that you don’t get discouraged. When I first started, our Twitter account was promoting a street cleaning thing, I had people commenting under our tweet, being like, “Oh, this kid doesn’t even live in Allston, what’s he doing talking about it,” stuff like that. And I was like “I don’t even know who this is. How do they know who I am and where I live?” But just don’t get discouraged about that. It hasn’t happened in five years.

What dreams did you have for AVMS that you accomplished, and then what dreams do you have for the organization that are not yet fulfilled?

I think one thing that I’ve really been proud of in this job is the ability that we’ve had to help local advocates and people that have ideas for projects develop those projects, find funding for those projects, and make those projects a reality. Allstonia is a good example of one of those. Clinging Block is another one. Rat City Arts Festival, we’re doing a Tiny Doors project. We’re doing a Laurels and Street Mural. We’ve worked with pollinator gardens. All of these projects were ideas from people in the neighborhood that didn’t know where to find funding, or didn’t know, or they had funding, but they needed a nonprofit to back them up, so that they could get the funding secured. So that’s what I’ve honestly been the most proud of — I’ve been able to get people to understand that AVMS is an organization that will help if you have a cool idea and is willing to try something new. We have funding for things. We have a nonprofit status, so we’re able to receive grants, and we’re able to be a fiscal sponsor for organizations and individuals, and we’re interested and willing to help.

Some things that I’ve tried to do that haven’t worked: back in 2021 I wanted to do an Allston Porch Fest. Somerville has a porch fest, Watertown has one, and JP has one. Why doesn’t Allston? I tried to organize a group to start thinking about a Porch Fest, and it didn’t work. A lot of people were like “I’d be interested in there being a Porch Fest, but I’m not going to help out.” At the time, bands don’t make any money from a porch fest, that’s the whole point — there’s an organization that facilitates bands playing on people’s stoops. And I got a lot of people being like, “How dare you not pay your artists for music.” I was like “All right, there’s too much headwind for that.”

We — me and Maddie — tried to work on a sculpture in Allston, installing a big welcome to Allston or 02134 sculpture. It was going to be a music sheet that had 02134 and some music notes. We’re going to install it on Brighton Avenue. We ran into a lot of barriers with permitting. The city’s process for getting a sculpture installed is very complicated, very costly, and in the end wasn’t worth it. Maddie left when we were in the middle of working on this, so I kind of just shelved the idea. 

What I have for a dream for the future — and I didn’t really get to work on this — I want to have the world’s biggest something in Allston: world’s biggest deck of cards, the world’s biggest rap, something biggest something, the world’s biggest musical, the world’s biggest paintbrush. I feel that’ll be cool. 

Do you want to shout out any people that have helped you on this journey?

I’ll shout out our board of directors. There’s 11 people on our board, and they’re all volunteers, and they all spend at least a couple of hours a week helping with our programming, with the direction of the organization, budgeting approvals, you know, bouncing ideas off of. They’ve been amazing, they’ve trusted me, and let me grow our programming. They never say no, they’re always “how can we make this happen?” So they’re amazing, so I’ll just say them all: you have Scott, Alicia, Devin, Paul, Lizzie, Ricky, Cecilia, Nicole, Adam, Adam, and Brandon, so those are the current board of directors. 

Genesis, currently she’s our program manager, and she started back in February. She’s been doing an amazing job. I’ve been helping train her on, like a lot of admin and programming things that are going to be that she’s going to be picking up when I’m gone. There’s so many people in the neighborhood that have helped me through the years that I don’t want to say one of them for fear of missing a bunch of others. Then there’s also our volunteers; we have a bunch of one-off volunteers that help us do programming, do events, and make the neighborhood look nicer. There’s been dozens and dozens and dozens throughout the years, and what we do wouldn’t have been possible without them.

What are your favorite spots in Allston that you’re still gonna come back to?

I’m still gonna come back to Union Cafe, still gonna come back to Garlic and Lemons, still gonna come back to Dumpling Kingdom, I’m still gonna come back to to the Model, still going to come back to Turkish Luzuri, to like one of my new favorites, Yoma Holdfast Prolific. I’m still gonna buy weed at Prolific, still gonna go shopping at Ritual Arts. I’m very excited for Vivant Vintage to open up here. I’ve been seeing their construction and it’s been great, and if there’s any other ones that I’ve forgotten, oh, and I’m still gonna go on date nights with my wife at Ariana [Restaurant], because that’s one of the best places I’ve ever eaten.