I have been trying to figure this out for years, and S. wrote in May 2025! “I have been left totally stumped, scratching my head, at what is going on in the retail space at 27 Desbrosses Street. Every time I walk by, the doors are propped open by an orange cone with a Barbie doll sticking out of it. In the doorway sits an old man in a swivel chair wearing a “SWAT” hat, watching the world go by. Inside, it appears to be some sort of art gallery (???) with lots of strange objects and pieces laying around and on the walls.

“What is happening here?!”

I stopped by several times (the two men who sat in there all day were not forthcoming) and checked the records — the building is, along with most of that area, owned by the Pontes, who bought it in 1991. But finally a word on the street: the men in there were squatters, and it took intervention from the courts to get them out. One man, I heard, was sent to a VA hospital; the other is still wandering the streets.

It was quite a collection they amassed in there. And now it’s being cleared out for a higher use than one man’s treasurers?

The storefront has been empty for ages. In 2012, there was a facade renovation and hopes that a bar/restaurant was coming in. Then in 2017, the owners replaced the doors and repainted the facade. It was also the construction office for 440 Washington, once an empty lot and now a residential building constructed in 2018.

2017

2015