S2E7: Creating Spaces for Struggle with Candice Springer and Desiree Arevalo
In Episode 7, The Move Podcast interviews Candice Springer and Desiree Arevalo, who manage WBUR’s new CitySpace arena in Boston. Co-hosts Ceasar and Ayushi explore the complexity and considerations involved in building physical spaces that allow for difficult conversation and mutual engagement — particularly across divided city residents. How can we build critical spaces and opportunities to allow for peaceful struggle, interdependence, and ultimately, understanding in a divided society?
S2E7 Desiree and Candice
Candice Springer: [00:00:00] [00:00:00] We’re focusing more on national and not local and you’re losing all of the stories about what’s happening right here at home and in your backyard. Building CitySpace was a way for us to deepen that connection.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:14] Hey, Ayushi.
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:19] Hey, Caesar.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:20] So, you know, we are in the greater Boston area.
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:23] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:24] And one of the things that’s really strange about the Boston area, and it may be true el- elsewhere, right?
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:29] Okay.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:30] But one of the things you kind of recognize is there are actually very few really neutral public spaces-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:37] Hm.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:37] … for people to come together and talk-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:40] Interesting.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:40] … and engage with issues. I mean, yeah, you know, the- the library does some things-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:45] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:45] … and there’s Faneuil Hall-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:46] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:47] … and, you know, the Prudential has this thing that it does thing-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:51] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:51] … and BU.
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:51] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:52] But, you know, everything has its history connected with it-
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:54] Yeah, yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:55] … but we don’t have anything that’s really like, okay, we’re just going TO create this [00:01:00] now-
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:00] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:00] … for the Boston that is now-
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:01] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:02] … and we’re going TO build it from the beginning to include everyone.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:05] That’s a really good point. Like, most spaces that you think about as being, like, sort of the coffee shop effect.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:10] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:10] Like, the original old school coffee shop effect are all just that. They’re originals and old school. [laughs]
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:15] Yeah. [laughs] We’re [crosstalk] .
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:16] Like, they’re not like- they’re not like a modern space that’s made with the intention of, like, bolstering civic life-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:21] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:22] … which is, you know, our jam, so. [laughs]
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:24] Yeah, right. And doing it in the midst of this complex public that we have.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:27] Right.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:27] And, lo and behold, one of the most established, uh, public radio stations in the country-
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:34] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:35] … WBUR has taken on that task, CitySpace. And so, we, uh, said, okay, this is unique-
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:41] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:41] … this is important. So, we invited the two people who actually have made this happen and are making it happen, uh, to our studio.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:50] It is such a treat to have Desiree Arevalo and Candice Springer here with us in the studio talk about this new exciting space.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:01:58] CitySpace, you mean.
Ayushi Roy: [00:01:59] CitySpace. [00:02:00] [laughing] So, I had the incredible opportunity to visit CitySpace, which was-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:02:08] Which is what?
Ayushi Roy: [00:02:08] … which is this um… Well, I’m actually going to let you guys talk about your space [laughing]. But I’ll start off by saying that it was really incredible to watch the effort being made to bring listeners out in the world in the ether into a physical room-
Candice Springer: [00:02:21] Mm.
Ayushi Roy: [00:02:21] … and creating this sense of community of who listens and what we sound like and what we can build together in a really literal way, in a way that I think is really rare. Like, podcasts and podcasters will go on shows or tours, but rarely do they have a set space to be able to speak-
Candice Springer: [00:02:41] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Ayushi Roy: [00:02:41] … and I thought that was really incredible to- to witness and I want to see the floor that, you know, maybe you will start talking about how this space developed, you know, what the idea for this space was, the very recent [laughs] programming information of the space.
Candice Springer: [00:02:58] [laughs] This is sort of [00:03:00] before both of our times, but WBUR CitySpace sort of, uh, was born out of this idea at WBUR that we need to continue to connect with our audience in more engaged ways. At WBUR, our, uh, listenership is, you know, pri- primarily older white affluent audience-
Ayushi Roy: [00:03:23] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:03:23] … and they’re aging up and they’re eventually going to start aging out.
Ayushi Roy: [00:03:27] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:03:27] So, you know, our… the main mission of WBUR is, one, to provide, you know, a- a source of independent journalism that you know and love and trust, but also, like, to continue to engage, you know, an, you know, a diverse group of listeners.
And how do we do that? Well, we do that on air. We can do that online with our, you know, reporting, and we can do that, you know, on demand with Alexa and Google Home and all that type of stuff. We could also do it in person. which we turned into onstage at CitySpace.
Ayushi Roy: [00:03:56] [laughs]
Candice Springer: [00:03:57] So, the idea was really born out of let’s [00:04:00] take all of this stuff, all this content that we’re doing on WBUR and translate it into a real experience in a building. Let’s continue that conversation in person. So, all of that content that you love and you hear on NPR and WBUR, we’re just doing that live-
Ayushi Roy: [00:04:14] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:04:14] … in front of an audience and allowing the audience to engage-
Ayushi Roy: [00:04:18] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:04:18] … in a way that they’re not quite able to do when they just listen or if they read a piece. You know, you can type in a comment, but sometimes you’re just shouting out into the void.
Ayushi Roy: [00:04:28] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:04:28] Whereas, at CitySpace, you have the unique opportunity to engage with hosts and reporters or, you know, podcast-makers and w- and also we just have civic conversations.
Ayushi Roy: [00:04:38] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:04:39] So, you know, we did a panel on gun violence. We did a panel on homelessness in the city of Boston.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:04:45] So good.
Candice Springer: [00:04:46] Yeah. So, it allows people who are really, you know, really care about these issues to come in and talk to not only, you know, their community, you know, fellow community members, but also to policymakers. So, the gun [00:05:00] violence event, we had Governor Baker there-
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:02] Wow.
Candice Springer: [00:05:02] … homelessness we had Mayor Walsh. So-
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:04] Wow.
Candice Springer: [00:05:04] … it gives you a unique opportunity to, you know, get in the room with some people that you see all the time who are-
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:11] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:05:11] … are working and advocating for you and ask them questions about what they’re doing.
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:15] And this is amazing because, you know, one thing that we talked about with The Move from season one is this idea of bringing the conversation from the town hall to the street corner.
Candice Springer: [00:05:26] Right.
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:26] And, like, besides the fact that you guys are, literally, on a street corner-
Candice Springer: [00:05:30] [laughing] Yeah. We are indeed [crosstalk] .
Ceasar McDowell: [00:05:36] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:37] … with, like, amazing location [laughs] and, like, beautiful, like, glass and, you know, all this stuff. Like, besides the fact that you’re, literally, on a street corner, you are moving the conversation away from these, like, formal halls of power into places that are more accessible.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:05:50] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:05:50] A lot of your events are free and it’s incredible. I mean, you have access to, like, thinkers or, in this case, like, elected officials that you may not otherwise have the opportunity to speak [00:06:00] to.
And even, like, for listeners here that, like, may not be able to visit the space physically, there’s an incredible way the space is designed that allows even people actually outside on the street to listen in.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:12] Oh, yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:12] So if you weren’t able to get a ticket or if it, you know, quickly, like, the tickets were sold out, I mean, despite being free, if they just were booked up, you can still actually view and witness the whole thing.
Candice Springer: [00:06:23] Yeah.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:23] Yeah.
I mean those are, are you talking about the speakers from outside?
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:26] The… Yeah, yeah.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:27] Yeah, that sound garden.
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:28] And that sitting area.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:28] [laughs] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:29] Yeah.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:29] So… And then, on top of that, I mean, we record all of our programs and then we upload them and we archive them on YouTube. And that’s for, you know, if it is a $20 admission-
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:40] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:41] … you can see it for free and you can still engage-
Candice Springer: [00:06:43] Yup.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:43] … online. It may not be in person-
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:44] Amazing.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:06:45] … but you can still capture that- that conversation.
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:48] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:06:48] We do get a lot of emails from people asking us if we’ve recorded it, even if they were in the room because-
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:53] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:06:53] … they either want to see it again or share it with somebody-
Ayushi Roy: [00:06:56] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:06:56] … you know, who wasn’t there, um, and continue that conversation way [00:07:00] past, you know-
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:00] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:07:01] … the street corner as you said. [laughs]
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:02] Yeah. And I mean, I- I’ve just been thinking about, you know, as I’ve been visiting the space and, kind of, you know, talked to you guys a little earlier, just thinking about how when we- when, you know, Caesar in, like, the design framework has talked a lot about, like, different ways of expression, I don’t know that we’ve ever had another, particularly audio medium, in the room with us ever before.
Candice Springer: [00:07:23] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:24] And so, it feels really meta to be able to like [laughing] speak to you guys and hear you guys describe your strategy to be, like, online, on demand-
Desiree Arevalo: [00:07:31] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:31] … onstage and, you know, kind of thinking, okay, well, what should we be doing as the move, right?
Desiree Arevalo: [00:07:36] [Laughs]
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:36] But- but- but also ge- getting tips, right, from a very well established organization, and you are, but also thinking about like what ways of expression can look like as a form of engaging people that don’t typically get engaged.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:07:49] Right.
Ayushi Roy: [00:07:49] Right? Like we’re expanding the community here. It’s no longer white and elderly or the sort of traditional listening pool for radio.
Candice Springer: [00:07:56] Exactly. But also there, we’re just, we live in an age of disruption [00:08:00] too-
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:00] Mm-hmm [affirmative]
Candice Springer: [00:08:00] Right? Like you’re constantly battle to get people’s attention. You know, whether it’s like, they want to Netflix and chill or they want to like [laughing] they want to go to Boston Calling
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:10] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:08:10] And it’s like, how do we get them to want to come here?
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:12] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:08:12] But al- that’s the selling point of CitySpace. It’s like, okay like, you’re having that conversation online, you’re reading these pieces, but you’re not talking to people.
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:19] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Candice Springer: [00:08:20] Like we- we’ve kind of lost that opportunity in this age of like, you know, what the golden digital age, you know, to actually just…
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:28] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:08:28] …be in a room.
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:29] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:08:30] And experience something together. Like we did this tribute to Mary Oliver, the poet who just recently died.
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:35] Wow, yeah. I love her.
Candice Springer: [00:08:36] And, it was amazing to just hear. We had a panel of poets who kind of read from her work and talked about why, you know, these poets mattered to them in their spaces, but also just to like… th-the audience was like doing these audible like um, [crosstalk] , Ahh it’s like as they were reading. And it was just like, Oh my god, like [crosstalk] [00:09:00] Totally, totally, and that’s something that you don’t experience-
Ayushi Roy: [00:09:03] Wow
Candice Springer: [00:09:04] You know, alone, you know? It was just like, and then like, some audience members like, “Preach”, you know. And it was like, okay, yeah.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:09:11] And it’s so great, I mean we have that. And then we have these policy talks.
Candice Springer: [00:09:15] Right.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:09:15] And then we have a Muslim Jazz Concert.
Candice Springer: [00:09:17] Right.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:09:18] And so it’s kind of touching on all of these different communities. So, there’s something for everyone. I mean that’s the goal. That’s what we’re trying to do and hopefully it’s being a team.
Ayushi Roy: [00:09:28] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:09:28] It sounds like it’s me. I wish I have been on the tour. [laughs]. So sorry. I missed it. I have a question, which is actually I usually, you brought this up about one of our, I don’t know if you talked to them at all about our whole design principles and what we were doing-
Ayushi Roy: [00:09:41] Briefly. Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:09:41] But one of them is this whole thing about blending the analog and digital world, which seems like that’s exactly what we’re doing at CitySpace is bringing those two worlds together in interesting ways. But can to be honest, been around for a long time. It’s a force in the broadcast public broadcasting world. [00:10:00] Why does decide to do this now? What’s going on that this seems like the time. What pushed you to say, “Hey, we need to bring these two worlds together. We have something to offer here.”
Candice Springer: [00:10:13] Yeah. I mean our former general manager, Charlie Kravetz, he kind of like saw where public radio was going. Where, you know we have loyal listeners but we can’t just rely upon our loyal listeners to keep us, uh-
Desiree Arevalo: [00:10:28] Afloat.
Candice Springer: [00:10:28] Yes. [laughs]. Keep us competitive. Like we have to keep pushing to maintain a relevancy. Especially, you know I was talking about disruption. It’s like the news is being disrupted and every way you know Twitter with, you know all, I mean you can access your news from the tip of your fingers at this point. And so it was in ways of business decision, it was like how can we continue to maintain our presence? And we also have a station that we compete with here in Boston. We’re very fortunate to have two [00:11:00] stations that, that are really, really great sources of news.
But yeah, I think nationally, this is a conversation that’s being had across the world of public radio because they do some national conferences about public radio where we are, and I’m starting to notice that engaging with the community is becoming a session and a panel, multiple panels at all of these conferences. It’s like you have to be able to further connect with their audience. And also not just to like keep them listening, but also to understand what they care about, what they want us to cover, what we should be covering. Because that’s part of what’s happening too. Right? You know, newspapers are dying, you know, we’re focusing more on national and not local and you’re losing all of those stories about what’s happening right here at home and in your backyard.
And so building CitySpace was a way for to deepen that connection in many, many ways and continue the relevancy of WBUR beyond the [00:12:00] airwaves. And the, I mean the space allows us then to take some of these conversations, which may not have been something that we could necessarily put on air. It didn’t quite lend itself to a conversation that, or like a piece that would work. But then we can take the content that we’re audio recording and that we’re video recording and turn that into a piece because it was so good. And we’ve done that a couple of times with, we did a conversation with Dez Linden about the Boston marathon and her whole journey, and then we turned that into a radio piece and we’re kind of having some preliminary talks about maybe turning some of this, these events into a podcast.
Ayushi Roy: [00:12:35] Oh, cool.
Candice Springer: [00:12:35] We haven’t gotten there yet, but we’re just starting to see that sometimes the content isn’t born in the newsroom. It’s born down in CitySpace and then we can push that out to our community. But it’s a way of us trying to stay in the game. And one thing that I said to Aishie when we were on the tour was uh, there’s a big misconception that the government pays for a lot of the public radio funding, [00:13:00] whereas, you know, the corporation for public broadcasting is only about 3% of the funding for our, our station. Everything else is a listener supported.
So that’s membership. And then there’s underwriting where you know, clients will buy, you know, ad space, which is very, it’s very controlled space where they, you know, will support us and they will get like a little mention on air and it’s not like commercial radio where they can say whatever they want. So that’s how we stay alive and we stay afloat. And so I think if, you know, we want our audience to continue to support us, we really have to understand what matters to them. And CitySpace is the way that we can do that, that we haven’t been able to do it before.
Ayushi Roy: [00:13:39] I love this. This is like, you know what’s striking me is I don’t know where your, where your heads as these are. But one thing that’s striking me is like we’ve talked to so many people in so many different organizations about what engagement or like public participation means to them and how they as a result envisioned this like public. [00:14:00] Right? And it’s really striking to me hearing what you’re saying about the vision behind CitySpace, that engagement in this context is good business.
Candice Springer: [00:14:12] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:14:13] You know, because I think that’s unfortunately rare. Whether it’s because like the business practices mediated by other types of funding. Right? So like what you’re describing where your audience is, your paycheck effectively means that like you don’t, you’re not relying on like the way that Google relies on like ad marketing, right? Like so that creates this intermediary or in other cases, right? Like while the government serves the public, the government doesn’t rely on the public for money in the same way because the tax base and that income property tax sales tax is preset.
So then engagement becomes like an appendage to the job. And so what you’re describing where it’s like good business practice actually depends on you staying relevant [00:15:00] for audience space is just really beautiful because somehow we’re like in this larger conversation around like relationships and transactions all of a sudden like the relationship is the transaction, but like not in a grimy way. [laughs].
Desiree Arevalo: [00:15:15] Yeah, totally. Because I mean it’s all about, it’s like evolution of what I mean, like you said, staying competitive, but you’re realizing a lot of people aren’t listening to the radio anymore. People don’t have these people don’t live in the suburbs and like work in the city anymore. A lot of people live in the city and they take your train so they don’t, they don’t listen to the radio as much as they did. Especially the younger generations. They listen to podcasts.
Candice Springer: [00:15:38] Exactly.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:15:38] Everything’s on demand and on the tips of your fingers.
Candice Springer: [00:15:41] And whenever you want to listen to it, you might, you’re not listening to it in real time necessarily.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:15:45] And so you know, the idea was how do you stay competitive and you know, hopefully Cityspace stays around for a really long time. [laughs].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:15:54] Another question in relationship to that because if you, I mean [00:16:00] as you said, I think it’s really interesting that you’re, this kind of transit, we’ve had these conversations is season with people about relation, relational or transactional engagements with people. And here you have one that’s kind of really mixing those two in a really interesting way. And you’re trying to really kind of connect with the broader audience and bring them in and, as you said, in either engagement with the other officials or ideas or policy work. Boston is a really segregated place.
Candice Springer: [00:16:28] Yes.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:16:29] It’s a divided place.
Candice Springer: [00:16:30] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:16:31] You can have all that going on and not contribute to that issue, which is how do we deal with that? So how are you struggling with that?
Desiree Arevalo: [00:16:39] That, [laughs]. That’s funny that you said that. [laughs]. Well, so one of the events that we had was the tackling gun violence one and that actually became kind of a controversial event for us unexpectedly. So we had a panel, we partnered with BU and we partnered with this other organization. I don’t remember the name.
Candice Springer: [00:16:55] Stop hand gun, handgun violence.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:16:57] Yeah. And with these [00:17:00] partnerships you kind of have trust in these partnerships. So the people who are on the panel kind of got away from us. There was just people who added and we, you know, we were kind of more more on the programming side cause we also had an ma, uh, one of our reporters was the moderator. So I think that was the piece that we were focused on the most. And then as we were posting it, we started getting these online comments saying, it’s funny that the panel-
Candice Springer: [00:17:24] Is all white.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:17:25] Yeah. And you know, does not reflect, you know, you’re having a panel on gun violence and it doesn’t reflect the communities that are actually-
Candice Springer: [00:17:32] Dealing with it.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:17:33] Dealing with it and affected by gun violence the most. So with that-
Candice Springer: [00:17:36] The comment was like, “There are no black and brown voices on this panel.”
Desiree Arevalo: [00:17:39] And that was really a wake up call for us as to okay, we actually, you know, this is, this is an issue when we knew that, but I think, you know, we are a small team, there’s only many pieces. So that was really a wake up call for us.
Candice Springer: [00:17:52] Yeah. And I mean the conversation was originally around how Massachusetts does have one of the lowest.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:17:57] Yes. Statistically.
Candice Springer: [00:17:59] [00:18:00] Statistically within the nation. [laughs]. One of the lowest like gun, what is it? I don’t know what it was. One of the lowest gun rates. And so we’re coming out of it yet from that angle of the policy. Right?
Desiree Arevalo: [00:18:10] And the policy. And the policy behind it and how we got to that point.
Candice Springer: [00:18:13] Right. Exactly. But it seemed like, and of course like this is really what our first month of operation at CitySpace. On the other side, it seems like, you know, we’re patting ourselves on the back, you know, when we’ve got real issues we still need to deal with. We’ve got kids who are scared to walk home from school because they’re afraid of being shot. And we have, you know, gun violence all over neighborhoods and parents who are frustrated and mad and they just want their kids to be safe. And so, you know, where we’re putting out this event, as you know, like Massachusetts has one of the lowest gunner, you know, violence rates in the country. And then we have our community telling us that is not the whole story. You need to talk about the whole story. And so very quickly we realized we have got to reflect [00:19:00] more of, you know, our community in this conversation.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:19:04] And through that, I mean, I think through all of our events we’re always, we’re always thinking about diversity and we recognize, and there were a lot of kids who came to that tackling gun violence event and they even said-
Candice Springer: [00:19:13] A lot of young activists.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:19:15] Yeah. From Boston and they even said, you know, “This is out here. I never come out here. Why would I have, you know, I have to get on the train and the access.” And so, you know, it’s something that we do think about-
Candice Springer: [00:19:26] All the time.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:19:27] All the time.
Candice Springer: [00:19:28] Yeah. And that that event in particular was certainly a kick in the pants for us as so that as we’re creating, we are making sure that we’re reflecting the voices that, you know, need to be part of this conversation always. But it’s hard. It is hard. Our boss loves to say content drives the audience and sometimes she’s right. We, we partnered with our arts and culture team, the artery to do the artery 25 which I highly recommend you check out if you haven’t seen it. It was a celebration of 25 millennials of color who were shaping the arts and culture scene in [00:20:00] Boston. And we had like a, this big party at city space after the, you know, the piece came out and you know, we invited all of them and their families and then we invited the public to come for free to this party, food and drinks and dancing. And it was packed and it was all black and Brown people.
Ayushi Roy: [00:20:19] Amazing.
Candice Springer: [00:20:20] And Dez and I particularly like, “We want this to happen all the time.” [laughs]. And it was just so, it was such an inspiring night because like you’re among your peers and everybody’s celebrating black and brown excellence and like these young people are so talented and like they’re the future. We’re like, “We need more of this.” So you know, when my boss, his content drives the audience, she meant it on that one. We also did, we partnered with Oxfam for international women’s day about celebrating Latin American women and how strong they are and why, you know, they are deciding to flee the, you know, the border or why they’re deciding to stay and what that means.
And again, we had the audience that we were looking to [00:21:00] have. So, but I always, I challenge her sometimes and I’m like, no, content doesn’t always drive the audience because like does mention, it’s like we’re on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, we’re in, we’re not near Roxbury, we’re not near Dorchester. You have to come out here to get here. And if you’re not on a train line, it makes it a little bit more difficult, especially when there are games at Fenway. I mean like it’s just like, it’s-
Ayushi Roy: [00:21:23] Oh, man.
Candice Springer: [00:21:24] Hard to get around. And so how were we creating pathways for people to get to us? And we have not figured that out yet. Completely. Something that we’re all at, we’re constantly thinking about.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:21:36] Yeah, I’m. Always.
Candice Springer: [00:21:37] I mean the one thing that we are trying to do is, the first thing is keep costs low as much as we possibly can. You know, we don’t want ticket prices to prohibit people from wanting to come. That’s something that we can definitely prevent. But yeah, we, we’re still trying to figure out, you know, through partnerships or the content that we’re doing. And, you know, figure out how we can get the audiences that we want to be part of this [00:22:00] conversation. Because if we’re speaking to, you know, the straight white, you know, male or female, then we’re not necessarily doing the right job, you know, those are, that’s our audience who knows us and loves us.
But the mission of CitySpace is not necessarily to just cater to our audience, it’s to attract all different voices and yeah, it’s definitely a struggle. And what I know is that 25% of Boston knows WBUR only 25%. it’s kind of a surprising statistic. It’s like when you’re in the bubble, you know [crosstalk] . When all this NBR heads like you’re, you’re just like, “Everybody knows who we are.” But no, it’s 25%. that’s 75% of the city that I don’t have yet. Right. That’s an opportunity, you know, and now we have to figure out how we seize that opportunity.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:22:47] You know, it’s interesting to also that you’re creating this space because there aren’t very many spaces like this in Boston. That’s been one of the issues all the time. Part of it, they have to be almost in some sense in [00:23:00] neutral spaces that people feel like, “Okay, we can come into this.” “You know, we’re welcome here. It’s okay.” And yet at the same time, Boston is very, you know, people stay in their neighborhoods.
Candice Springer: [00:23:10] Exactly.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:23:11] You know, for whatever set of reasons. So it’s a, it’s a huge job to take on. I said that, you know, we’re trying to create something that is for the city that people start to see themselves in. And I actually think this notion about, you know, content drives the audience. Very interesting because I think in our framework, as we think about the public, we all, we think more like well the audience is the content. And then how do you actually then move audience to actually generate content? Because it’s like that’s part of what you’re doing by trying have these, these mixes. But you don’t have to stand alone on this problem. Right? [crosstalk] .
Candice Springer: [00:23:51] Absolutely not.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:23:51] [laughs]. Of course, of course.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:23:52] Everybody in Boston has this problem. Everybody, the country has this problem.
Candice Springer: [00:23:55] Exactly. Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:23:55] We have not figured out. You know, these are places in [00:24:00] which we can actually bring people together to bring up Carl Moore, [laughs] you know, friend of ours who’s a, he has this quote about democracy and community and he, he says, “Democracy exists when people who are interdependent struggle with traditions that bind them and interests that separate them so they can realize a future that’s an equitable improvement on the past.”
Candice Springer: [00:24:23] Wow.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:24:24] And if that’s true, then what we need to be doing is creating those spaces where that struggle can happen. And that’s part of what I hear you’re saying. CitySpace is trying to step in, we we’re going to be a space in which the struggle as a public we have to be involved in can occur.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:24:37] Right.
Candice Springer: [00:24:37] Exactly.
Ayushi Roy: [00:24:37] And I think that’s, let me just to kind of jump off that, like one thing that’s really hard to manage sometimes, and I’m feeling this kind of in what you’re describing as well, and I think this is a common struggle for a lot of organizations is that like when there’s a struggle happening on your grounds, you feel like you’re responsible, right? And then you begin to do this [00:25:00] thing where you kind of like, “Oh, Oh shit, I’m so sorry. We forgot. People of color on the panel.” We’re like, “Oh God, you know?” And it’s like, but I guess I’m kind of, this is a question to all of us and you know, it’s just like, how do you, in order to actually reframe and in order to improve, like we say, the public’s muscle for struggle, what does that mean about our obligation as, as space creators, whether it be on the air or physically as space creators to also be open to struggle? Like what does that even look like?
Candice Springer: [00:25:35] Right. [laughs].
Desiree Arevalo: [00:25:38] I mean, so that, you know, and I keep going back to this tackling gun violence event only because that was probably the, the event that we had the most struggle with.
Candice Springer: [00:25:47] Internally too as a team.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:25:49] Yeah, internally, but PR wise it was the one that we had to struggle with the most. But honestly, it was the, for me the best event because it ended up being organically one of like the [00:26:00] greatest conversations because we had this organization violence in Boston who came, she brought these teenagers from Boston who were affected by gun violence. And through that she actually ended up being invited on stage organically. This wasn’t even planned. I mean we wanted her to be on stage, but we just couldn’t find the space for her on stage literally.
Candice Springer: [00:26:20] Because we didn’t have enough mics. [laughs]. I mean it was a technical issue. It wasn’t even, it wasn’t even like we don’t want her up there. It was like, “We don’t have any more microphones.”
Desiree Arevalo: [00:26:28] And after that event, you know, we kind of like were like, “Oh my God, thank God it’s over.” But really as like you’re saying, it was through that struggle. That conversation happened and it was so good for everybody in that room.
Candice Springer: [00:26:40] And when I say struggle too, I mean like internally we, journalists coming up to us saying, “We’re seeing this comp, we’re seeing what the community is saying. You guys have to fix this.” How do we fix this? Like I had people coming into my desk being like, what can we do? We have time to change this conversation. I mean because, and then that sparked [00:27:00] even the reporters in their newsroom meetings being like, “All right, we’ve got to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.” And you know, and CitySpace, they really were like city space as an extension of WBUR and when, you know, we are reporting, we are trying to reflect all voices on both sides of whatever the issue is and you guys have got to do that. So it was like we weren’t even just getting it from like the community.
We were like getting hammered by our fellow colleagues and like trying in real time to like figure out how do we make the situation, you know, work so that everybody is involved. And I mean not everybody was happy at the end of it. I think some of those policymakers and I’ll protect them, I’ll be nice. But some of those policy makers weren’t quite happy at the end of it because we involved, you know, the activist in the conversation, but they deserved to be there.
And that was a thing. And it was funny because you know, one in particular was very upset afterwards and you know, it was just [00:28:00] like felt that they weren’t prepared properly for this. [laughs]. My boss was just like, “What an opportunity for you to talk to your constituents.” I mean like it was just, I mean this is your job, this is your job. And so in a way I think we were all so proud that we kind of held people accountable for answering these questions and from hearing, you know, the pain and the hurt and like these strong kids who were like present and trying to fight for, you know, something that they believe in.
I think that that mattered because at the, after the event we were all like, “Thank God they were there.” [laughs]. You know, this conversation would have been boring without them. We wouldn’t, we would have just been, you know, we would have been patting ourselves on the back.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:28:43] And I mean again, we don’t know what that formula is.
Candice Springer: [00:28:46] No.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:28:46] We don’t know. You know, because that to us was a success. It happened kind of-
Candice Springer: [00:28:50] And it was sold out. Super, super sold out.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:28:52] It was sold out, but again, it’s a formula that, you know, we’re, we’re, we just haven’t figured out yet and I don’t know if we ever will, but [00:29:00] you know.
Candice Springer: [00:29:00] But we’re going to keep trying, I’ll promise you that. [laughs].
Ayushi Roy: [00:29:02] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:29:02] Well I think part of it is just really being authentic about what’s going on and that there are different voices on this and then it’s really hard. I find it especially hard here in Boston, but it may be hard everywhere. I know it is hard everywhere actually. We have our own flavor of it and that is, we want our public conversations to be polite and we don’t want to let the fullness of what people are experiencing around issues in the room. And that’s why people feel frustrated a lot. And I think we have to learn how to live with that. We have to, we have to learn with, as as Wendell says, town hall for venting. You know, the idea is that well people have reasons to be mad and upset and stuff and that’s a reasonable thing. It’s the unreasonable person who wouldn’t be. So why don’t we create the space where that’s welcome too.
Candice Springer: [00:29:54] Right.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:29:54] You know, because we have to move through that. We have to engage with that in order to move [00:30:00] forward. You know we can’t silence it.
Ayushi Roy: [00:30:03] I love that.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:30:03] So that might be one of the things you start to look for. Like how do we actually bring that into the space? You’ll realize, you know, these will always be some sense of, you know, struggle in there because the issues themselves, represent the complexity of who we are and we’re experiencing in all kinds of different ways. And so that’s how it should be. You know, that interpretation, not of just the issue as a series of facts, but the issue as the lived experience of emotions.
Candice Springer: [00:30:35] Yeah. And there’s nuance.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:30:38] And nuance. Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:30:40] That’s what the community was telling us. That’s what we knew, you know? But it was just like, we can’t have this conversation. We can’t solve this. We’re not tackling gun violence. That’s when we learned. We’re like, ‘No, we’re having conversation about it.” And we need to have more of them. And maybe this should have been a multiple part series where we, you know, [00:31:00] we’ll focus on one subject. Like all of these things sort of sparked in this real time situation of a scrambling. But yeah, I mean just even the title of the event, we were like, ‘No, we need, we should have changed that. We shouldn’t have had that.” [laughs]. You know what I mean? But it’s all about listening. I mean we get so many comments from people every day about events that they’ve attended, whether it’s like-
Desiree Arevalo: [00:31:21] Whether it’s positive or negative.
Candice Springer: [00:31:22] Yeah. And whether it’s like just The Moth, you know, story tell, story slam or you know, we had a, Walter Willett who’s a nutrition scientist there and you know, they tell us they are, they are unfiltered about whether they liked it, they didn’t like it. What you should’ve done better. Here’s the moderator you should have the next time. Like, I mean they get super specific and I mean I, the thing that I love about our team and about the department that we work in is like, we’re listening to all of it because you know, we have to.
Ayushi Roy: [00:31:52] And clearly people feel listened to otherwise they won’t take the time and energy to write to you.
Candice Springer: [00:31:57] Exactly.
Ayushi Roy: [00:31:57] Because you know, not getting feedback is probably more [00:32:00] dangerous. It means people don’t feel like their voice is valuable.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:32:03] Right.
Ayushi Roy: [00:32:04] So I wouldn’t even expend the energy.
Candice Springer: [00:32:05] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:32:06] That’s, I mean that’s really, I mean going back to that sort of authenticity, right? And like being accountable and being open to, being open to being accountable is really incredible.
Candice Springer: [00:32:15] Yeah, that’s right we try to answer every email, every phone call, the box office where we’re on 9:00 to 5:00. We listened to anything anybody has to say. [laughs]. It was so, and oftentimes like we’re like, “Hm, they checked us. I needed it. We needed it.” [laughs].
Ayushi Roy: [00:32:29] Yeah.
Candice Springer: [00:32:31] It’s growth. So, [laughs].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:32:33] So, one of the things that I, I’m concerned about, and I wonder how you think about this in relationship to what CitySpace is doing, is that we can create these pockets where we’re actually able to bring people together, have conversations and stuff, but sometimes they don’t make themselves into the spaces where decisions are made or where the real conversations happen and things like that. I’ve just been thinking about that. Like [00:33:00] is there any way what you’re doing can start to maybe shift that sum or get people to think about that. You know, that notion of, well we’ve had the conversation, you walk out the door and the same seven white guys are going to be doing gun policy.
Candice Springer: [00:33:15] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:33:17] Right?
Ayushi Roy: [00:33:18] Or the decision making inside WBUR too.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:33:20] Yeah. All of that. You know? So-
Ayushi Roy: [00:33:21] You know, so how do you…
Ceasar McDowell: [00:33:22] How do you see, and I’m not saying this is your issue, it’s just the issue of transformation in society where these critical spaces of trying to create new opportunities, but hoping those new opportunities can actually have some impact on the things that are in place right now that are actually some things contributing to the problems we’re talking about.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:33:47] I mean, I think again, there’s so many, it’s, I think our business model is really nuanced. Like, yes, we want to engage new audiences, yes, we need to be revenue generating, yes, we need to, [00:34:00] you know, engage our current audiences, but then we, at the end of the day, it’s like what, what are we bringing to the people who are attending our events and what are they walking away with? Like what is that and are we meeting those goals? And I, I’m, I’m going to like talk about this one event because to, I think as an event person from the outside in, I would say, “Oh, that was a dud because there was 30 people in our audience.” [laughs]. Right? It was, it was Abilities dance. And it was this woman who she had gotten into a car accident or so she got into an accident and she was no longer, she was on a walker.
Candice Springer: [00:34:35] Elise Patterson.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:34:36] Yeah. Elise Patterson Abilities Dance. And so she wanted to be a dancer, but she couldn't find a company that would hire her. She wanted to be a professional dancer. So she created it. And so she now has a company with like 60 dancers who all have some sort of disability and they, so we hired her and you know, we pushed it out and we only got 30 people, but I'm not joking.
They were the people who were [00:35:00] in that room left there feeling so inspired and there was this, there was this one girl who she at the end of the, the event was dancing in the lobby and she, you know, she had some sort of disability as well. And she went on the mic and asked her, you know, "What made you want to do this?" And when Elise told her her story and she wanted to take pictures and it was just, you know, we as a team didn't feel that that was a dud or a fail, even though we may be lost money or you know, we didn't get the audience that as big as we wanted it to, it was a win for us.
Candice Springer: [00:35:35] That was like, that was like small impact, right? Like, I remember Dez coming in the office the next day, he'd be like, "It was so worth it. That little girl saw somebody who looked like her." [laughs].
Desiree Arevalo: [00:35:49] And she was because Elise Patterson is a black queer woman and this little girl was a black girl with a disability and you know, to be able to see a woman on stage killing it, running her own company and doing something that this little girl maybe can [00:36:00] now believe that she can do it as well. And so even though that was a really small impact, I'm not saying she's like a policymaker, who knows? Maybe she will be. [laughs].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:36:08] She will be.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:36:09] But you know those, those are the kinds of impacts that we want to make. So, I mean that question just makes me want to be like, "Oh yeah, let's go figure that out."
Candice Springer: [00:36:16] I know.
How can we, how can we add it to the pile? Yeah. How can we like, actually like transform, like be transformative. I mean it's been four months. [laughs]. We haven't really thought about that too much, but I definitely would love to be, I mean we call CitySpace Boston's home for public conversation and I would love for that to mean more than just within the space.
I would love for that to have impact outside of it. And like even today, like right now our colleague Alex is preparing for, um, we're doing, we're partnering with Clover food lab on meet the farmer night and we're bringing in like eight farms to talk about, you know, community [00:37:00] supported agriculture and they're going to you know, present all of their different CSA offerings and we're going to have a conversation about urban farming and the future of farming. And hopefully people at that audience will be so moved that they want to support local agriculture.
I have no idea. But like that's what we're trying to do is like, you know, have small impact. I mean we definitely can, we can measure that and then maybe we can work on some of that bigger stuff. I will say we are a news organization and so, you know, we as an extension of WBUR, we do have to be careful that we're staying, you know, journalistically neutral, you know, like with the gun violence issue. I mean, that was a situation where it was like everybody was "on the same side" and yet it was a little bit, there was a little bit of tension, even in this conversation where everybody theoretically agrees that more needs to be done. So we kind of have to balance [00:38:00] out our organization and the mission and values of BUR with what we do down in the space. But if that happens organically, then, then it's all good.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:38:10] Hallelujah. [laughs].
Candice Springer: [00:38:13] That's right.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:38:14] We really thank you for what you're doing.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:38:16] Thank you.
Candice Springer: [00:38:16] Thank you.
Ayushi Roy: [00:38:17] You guys are incredible.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:38:18] We just, you know, we know, we really believe that we just need people out there in the world creating these new spaces and really being mindful about how they're doing it so that they're actually helping us both come together in different ways, learn together, heal together, because we have to do all things and it's just wonderful championing these two women of color we see leading that world. [laughs].
Ayushi Roy: [00:38:39] Yes. And being the actual creators behind this incredibly new and powerful space in Boston. So thank you both.
Desiree Arevalo: [00:38:47] Thank you so much for having us.
Candice Springer: [00:38:49] Thank you. I know. This is so great. [laughs].
Ceasar McDowell: [00:38:57] Okay. So I love this particular, uh, interview. Actually I [00:39:00] love them all, [laughs] but this one was, you know, other thing that's so special about it, it's just like how upfront and honest you were.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:05] They were so candid with us.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:07] Yeah. I mean were like-
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:08] I appreciate that.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:08] It's kind of like we're in the, you know this whole thing about you don't want to be in there where they make the sausage. [laughs]. You're in there with them. You know, they talked about making the sausage, you know.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:16] I know.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:16] And you know the story about the gun violence episode and what it took for them, what they've learned from it, what it caused, both for the community and-
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:25] Even the division internally.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:26] And the division internally.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:27] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:28] And why I think that's so special is, we really have to recognize that creating these new public spaces isn't going to be a smooth thing, right? It's going to be fraught with all kinds of problems and issues as we learn how to do them and continually over time. It is part of that struggle, right?
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:47] Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:47] That Carl Moorey' talks about. And they are doing it with such grace.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:53] Such grace.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:54] And such a heart and you know, really a sense of just like, "We're here. This is going to [00:40:00] happen."
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:01] And such intention despite being so young.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:03] Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:03] Which was really remarkable to me.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:06] And you know, it should be no surprise. I think this is just like, this is the word of the world today is, they're two young women of color who are leading us down this road. And uh, I think we are finding that happening in lots of spaces and that's just music to my ear. [laughs]. We're a production of the department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT that support from our MIT office of open learning.
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:37] Our sound is produced by Dave Lishansky, our content by Julia Cubrera and Misael Galdamez. I'm Ayushi Roy.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:44] I'm Ceasar McDowell .
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:45] And you can find us online at themove.mit.edu.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:50] And on our medium website at...
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:52] Medium.com/ themovemit as well as our Twitter and Facebook. Thanks so much.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:41:00] [00:41:00] Goodbye.
