by ANDREA ZANIN

Since 2001, the 20-member Long Hall artist collective has hosted dozens of events—film screenings, puppet shows, art exhibits, fundraisers, auctions—in their L-shaped living-space-cum-studio-cum-gallery at 454 Beaumont in Park Extension. Father-and-son team William and Simon Berman own the brick building, whose 30,000-square-foot ground floor serves as a mini-storage facility.

The 6,000-square-foot Long Hall (also known as the Long Haul) is home to artists Vanessa Yanow and John Tinholt. Their living room doubles as exhibition space, and they sublet the space’s nine studios on a non-profit basis.

Now, it would seem the Long Hall’s existence is being threatened. Or is it?

“Our lease ends August 31, and we had verbal agreements about the next year, so we thought the landlords wanted us to stay,” says Tinholt. “But Simon Berman told us in April that they were going to expand, and turn the whole rest of the second floor into mini-storage as well. Then William Berman indicated they weren’t going to give us a courtyard”—a solution Yanow and Tinholt proposed to retain the studio’s light—“and would be chopping two-thirds of the studio spaces.”

To try to save their space, Tinholt and Yanow drew up an online petition (www.petitiononline.com/longhaul/petition.html), which has garnered over 600 signatures in two weeks, and wrote a letter to Park Ex city councillor Anie Samson asking for intervention.

Dated May 25, the letter in part reads: “[The Bermans’] best-case plans would evict about a third of our members, rob us of all south- and east-facing windows, and see our rent increase again to something closer to what they consider to be market value. Insofar as we depend on the space’s physical characteristics for both the creative and community aspects of our project, none of the concessions the Bermans have proposed cannot but cripple us grievously [sic], and will profoundly affect the Montreal arts community that we serve.”

Simon Berman feels the letter-writing move was harsh. “It will be very hard to give them the equivalent of what they have now in terms of lighting,” he admits. But, he argues, “At no point did we say we would evict them; in fact we’re doing everything we can to get them to stay. We have an agreement with them not to raise their rent, and I’m still prepared to honour that. We consider them friends; when we were down and out they were some of our only tenants, and we were prepared to be loyal to them in the future as they have been to us in the past.”

Yanow has her doubts. “When Simon said that he would honour our verbal agreement, Mr. Berman Sr. asked why he would have done such a thing, and said they needed to talk this through. I think there is severe miscommunication between father and son, and they’re giving us different information.”

William Berman was unavailable for comment by presstime.

“All we know is our project is threatened,” says Tinholt. “Their plans for the future don’t seem to leave any room for us at all.”