Where smiles were once framed with sticky, dripping sugar blisses of melted butter pecan and black raspberry ice cream, the proud exposed brick walls and high ceilings now enclose dusky emptiness. Only a few display cases and cabinets, their doors off and layered with dust, remain. In the adjoining greenhouse a big bright green pipe snakes up the wall and across the ceiling. Along the bottom of another wall, hints of a darker green bloom. Moss grows, nature's attempt to reclaim the abandoned space.
Nature now has some competition.
Artists are restoring the space, at least temporarily, as part of the City-Wide Open Studios weekend. I'm led through the empty space by Yale environmental design grad student Dean Sakamoto and open studios organizer and photographer Marianne Bernstein. After three decades as a vital non-sectarian cultural center in the city, it was closed in 1986. Purchased by Yale in 1996, the building is soon to be renovated for the new School of Art and the School of Drama Experimental Theater. Alternative spaces are like galleries in that artwork is usually on display.