Allston is giving old newspaper boxes new meaning

All around Boston, more and more old newspaper boxes are collecting dust — and trash — as local newspapers stop selling print editions. But in Allston, thanks to an industrious arts collective and one well-known resourceful music fan, those boxes are finding a new purpose in life.

There, the newspaper boxes are full of art and, in at least one case, vinyl records. 

The repurposed newspaper boxes are part of an effort to make the arts more accessible to the residents of Allston, the neighborhood once known as “Allston Rock City” for the numerous music venues that operated in the neighborhood.

Eight aqua blue newspaper boxes are scattered along Western Avenue, each full of posters created by local artists that you can buy by popping 25 cents into the box’s coin slot, just like you might have purchased a newspaper in days gone by. The poster program, Art in Print, is run by Zone3, a Harvard-backed public art initiative.

“At its core, the program is about creating moments of surprise and delight, while giving everyone access to art without barriers,” Zone3 wrote in a statement to Boston.com.

Since its start in October 2018, Art in Print has showcased the artworks of 236 local artists in various formats, including holiday wrapping paper, mystery bins, and pop-up archives of past prints, according to Zone3.

Zone3 chose to distribute prints in newspaper boxes because the boxes “are traditionally about sharing information freely, and by filling them with art instead of news, we created an unconventional, accessible channel for people to encounter creativity in their everyday routines.”

“For Art in Print, the goal has been to meet people where they are — on sidewalks, in coffee shops, at the library — and to spark connection through creativity,” Zone3 said. The newspaper boxes join Zone3’s public murals and artworks on construction fencing: “These programs not only help artists build their careers, but they also energize the streetscape and provide a sense of place and belonging that benefits the entire community,” according to the group.

Currently, there are 12 new posters and artists showcased through the 21st volume of Art in Print. 

The artists behind the art

Boston-native Jamaal Bonnette’s art piece depicting hand-holding can be found at The Grove park. 

“Absence Pt. 4” belongs to a larger art collection of different hand gestures, each representing “a feeling that was absent within my life at the time” of creation, Bonnette said.

While Bonnette leaves the meaning of his art works up for interpretation, “‘Absence Pt. 4’ was geared towards love and compassion … romantically, friendship-wise, even within the workplace … like compassion and grace for not knowing, and learning, and growing,” he said.

Serving almost as an extension of the Absence series, Bonnette’s “A Play on Words” series opened at Boston’s Piano Craft Gallery on Oct. 3. The series includes approximately 20 paintings and seven physical artworks showing literal or abstract interpretations of everyday sayings he heard in conversations, including “stepping out of the box” and “apple of my eye.”

Bonnette joined the Art in Print initiative after a few years of wanting to, and after a couple of his artist friends participated. “I thought it was a great opportunity just to increase the visibility in my work and to have it on, sort of, a different medium. I’ve never had a piece of my work displayed like that before,” Bonnette said.

Bringing whimsy to the initiative, another Boston-based artist involved with Art in Print is California native Julia Parr. 

Parr’s artwork “Baxter the Gentleman Crow,” distributed outside of Zone 3, is also a part of a larger series, which includes another crow and a racoon. Each animal is dressed Victorian-style and in “found objects,” such as a popcorn bag suit and a dixie cup hat. 

Together, all three animal artworks evoke Parr’s recurring theme of environmentalism and the “oddities of illustration” to create a greater narrative storyline with her art and spark a dialogue amongst viewers. 

“The idea behind these illustrations was sort of to capture this … storybook quality that I think the animals can have within their own biology,” Parr said. “For crows in particular, they like to find shiny objects and found objects, and kind of hold them.”

Parr joined the Art in Print network after the Zone3 team bought a postcard of Baxter at an event and later reached out to her. “I think [it’s] something that’s pretty unique about them that they’re looking for artists that are like, you know, new in the scene,” Parr said.

Zoë Bee Jones also became a part of Art in Print after Zone3 reached out to her. 

The Dorchester native was raised by two artists and uses her art to process difficult emotions, she said. 

“I want to encourage people to use creative expression in ways that we aren’t traditionally taught. It’s not only something that looks pretty, or sounds nice,” Jones said. “Art in all mediums is healing and transformative.”

Jones’ Art in Print poster features a mixed-media collage and drawing she created during the pandemic in her Manhattan dorm room. “The Gardener Reprised” can be found in the newspaper box outside of Zone3.

“For me, it represented my resilience, and my ability to create the ‘garden’ — this space of joy, love, and expression for myself and for others, especially during a time where things felt very uncomfortable and uncertain,” Jones said.

The 22nd volume of Art in Print launches at the end of October with several new newspaper box locations, Zone3 said. 

A box full of records

Around the corner from Western Avenue, someone else has taken another approach to repurposing newspaper boxes.

Allston’s James F. Collins Square is home to a “Little Free Record Shop.”

In June 2023, WBZ Reporter Matt Shearer created the record shop from an Improper Bostonian newspaper box (the magazine company shut down in 2019). 

Shearer got the idea for the shop after seeing abandoned newspaper boxes in Acton, but ultimately said, “Where better than Allston Rock City?”

@wbznewsradio Rocking, Rolling, & Repurposing. #Boston #Massachusetts #NewEngland #AllstonMA #LowerAllston #AllstonChristmas #NewburyComics #BostonMusic #RecordCollection #RecordStore #LittleFreeLibrary #BostonCheck #BostonTikTok ♬ original sound – WBZ NewsRadio

“Take a record, leave a record. Spread the gift of music,” Shearer said in a TikTok announcing the record shop’s launch. “This is going to stay here for a while so please, by all means, add records, CDs, tapes, thumb drives, QR codes…”

Although the box is now covered in graffiti, the “Little Free Record Shop” is full of classical music records and cassette tapes.

“This isn’t just the gift of physical media in a material sense. You could potentially be sharing that magical feeling of love at first listen,” Shearer said.