North Bennet Street School

CONTACT:

39 North Bennet Street
Boston, MA 02113
617-227-0155, ext. 106
www.nbss.org

Cynthia Stone, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

North Bennet Street School, first featured in the 1997 Catalogue, was founded in 1885 as a settlement house offering crafts training to adults in the North End of Boston. Over the years the quality and reputation of its programs have steadily grown, to national and even international proportions. It offers full-time training in the traditional fine crafts of bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, jewelry making, locksmithing, violin making and restoration — and much more. Recently, NBHS developed an initiative to become more open and accessible to the public, while supporting one of its most valuable assets: its graduates. To that end, it is opening a retail store and gallery on campus, located in a renovated classroom on the ground floor, that will sell specialized tools to workshop and full-time students, as well as graduate work — jewelry, books, small handcrafted wooden objects — and services to the general public. The space will also be used for craft-making demonstrations and a rotating display to showcase exquisitely-made pieces of furniture or musical instruments. The project's purpose is to give the school much-needed visibility, an opportunity for public interaction, and the generation of earned income for the school’s operations. It makes sense for all involved. Please help this latest artistic endeavor get off the ground.

(2005: CULTURE: Education: Formal: Schools)