The Open Center is Moving at Last

The long awaited move of the Open Center from its familiar home on Spring Street to its new abode at 22 E. 30th St (just west of Madison) is almost upon us. This has been a long time coming and the result of more than two years of looking for an appropriate space that would enable us to have 5 class rooms, a café, a purpose built wellness center, and large spaces for lectures and performances.

How does it feel? It’s a mix of emotions as you can imagine. We love our cramped little space in Soho. It has been the container for so many transformational experiences over the decades and those good vibes are firmly embedded in the walls and floors. People have told us for years of the special feeling they experience when they cross the threshold of the Center and enter is aura.

But we are also aware of its tiny size – only 22 feet across – and the cramped offices that leave staff crammed into every nook, cranny and cubby hole the building has to offer. We’ll miss the creaky floors and exposed brick walls, but we’re ready for something new and bigger.

So we prepare to leave with a combination of nostalgia, affection, a tinge of sadness, and a lot of expectation and hope for the new home. We will enter the 30th Street building at street level and be greeted with a row of tall bamboo plants to our right in a long trough of tinkling water. To our left will be our new café, and beyond that reception, the bookstore and registration, all constructed from sustainable bamboo slats. We’re done everything we can to ensure that our new space is as green as possible, and we plan to serve a lot of local, organic and fair trade food and drink in the café. We have long yearned for a place where participants in programs can hang out before and after workshops and get to know each other. At last we have it, although we don’t expect the café to be up and running immediately.

In fact, construction is just completing on the 30th St home and we ask your patience as we go about transferring the beauty and good feeling from Spring Street. Inevitably, the new space will be somewhat incomplete as we go about placing plants, art work, sofas etc. in the brand new rooms. They have never been occupied before so the space is totally fresh and unused. It’s going to be up to us – and you – to infuse the new building with as much good energy and positive feeling as possible as quickly as possible.

So please keep a careful eye on our website to see the exact date of the move. We have to wait for the city to finalize approval of occupancy before we can actually make the move. So the exact timing is not totally in our hands.

This is a big step, and one that we take confident that you will support us and do all you can to infuse our new home with warmth, soul, and that extra little bit of magic that always makes the Open Center special.

by Ralph White

**SPECIAL MOVE NOTICE: Classes through July 25th will be located at 83 Spring Street.  New move dates will be available shortly.  Please check here for updated information which will be posted as soon as it becomes available.  Thank you for your patience.