When it comes to understanding the Alberta Abbey, known today primarily as a performance space, it’s not merely an exercise in scene-setting to talk about its physical home, a building constructed to be a church. The Abbey is only the latest in a string of occupants that have shaped the distinctive brick building’s century-long presence on the edge of the King and Humboldt neighborhoods. Understanding the structure and what was is key to understanding what is happening there now – events, advocacy, ghosts, and all.

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CULTURAL HUBS: An Occasional Series

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Built within sight, or on a day when the trees are in bloom, at least earshot, of traffic-heavy MLK Boulevard, the building at the corner of Northeast Alberta Street and Mallory Avenue is the heftiest resident of the otherwise residential area. It feels heavy as it hugs the sidewalk: 24,000 square feet of multi-tone brown brick with original mid-century metal windows and, in its tallest section, stretching from sub-basement to fourth-floor tower.

It is made lighter by the mural ringing its base, added by neighborhood artist and resource mobilizer Sharita Towne in 2022. Against a stripe of blue sky, a fuchsia flower sends light rays of yellow, orange, and red out and around the building. They’re caught by gently extended hands the color of the building’s bricks — which are meant to be seen as both Black hands, Towne explained, as well as  a representation of earth — and then the colorful light is transformed into blue waves of water that undulate away from the hands in the opposite direction. The waves become golden angles and extend, once again in colorful beams, into a church. “[The mural] reflects,” Towne said, “the non-static nature of Black life and creativity… while also beckoning the roots of Black worship that happened in that building.”

Inside, Alberta Abbey Foundation Executive Director Cheri Jamison sits in the Abbey’s café just off its main theater, contemplating the question of what she wishes people knew about the space. She does not have to think long. “We are trying to highlight that we’re not just a venue. We’re a nonprofit, and we serve the community,” she said. “We’re doing good in the community. This is a space of possibility.” She paused and smiled lightly. “Another fun thing: this place is haunted.”

Born in 1925

Construction of the Mallory Avenue Christian Church — which the building is still known as on the National Register of Historic Places and Portland’s list of African American Historic Sites, as well as among many neighbors — began in 1925. The Great Depression interrupted work when only the vast, high-ceilinged basement was completed, so parishioners held their services there until the building was finally finished more than two decades later, in 1949. It is considered, according to the National Register, “an outstanding example” of postwar church architecture, a building type whose style was debated at the time by both the design community and church leadership. Architect Walter E. Kelly’s design follows the traditional form that allows the building to be recognized by the casual passerby as probably a church – there’s a spire and a gable-front sanctuary, for example – but its minimalism, including the use of solid-colored panes of glass instead of elaborate stained-glass stories, makes it a “radical departure” from pre-1940s church designs.

The National Registry also assigns the building “outstanding” marks for celebrating ethnic heritage, in this case its role in a historical Black and Brown neighborhood. Though the church’s first congregation reflected the state’s original racial makeup — primarily white — they offered a community for everyone, regardless of skin color. This was a noteworthy pledge because building construction began the year before Oregon voters removed the exclusionary clause, which prohibited Black people from residing, owning property, or contracts within the state,  from the state constitution. The church expressed racial inclusion even if the state did not. Of course, since that clause had effectively discouraged people of color from settling in Oregon, the pledge went mostly undemonstrated for years. Then, during the economic boom following World War II, Portland diversified racially, but discriminatory housing practices forced Black homeowners into the North and Northeast. As the makeup of the neighborhood changed, and so also that of the congregation, the church stood by its word.

It is believed to be the first originally white church in the city to hire a Black minister, in the 1960s. It provided space for YWCA programming and started the People Are Beautiful program, which, in the 1970s, offered services such as youth activities and cooking and art classes for adults. Willie Stoudamire, who became a hometown hero during his Portland State University days as a basketball all-star, ran a youth basketball camp at the church. “There’s a particular role that that building played in Black life and Black thrivance for decades in the wake of different waves of displacement in Northeast Portland,” said Towne.  And under negative circumstances, the church was a beacon. During the 1980s and 1990s, it held the rare and powerful distinction of being a church that was willing to hold funerals for gang members.

Neighbors took on leadership roles with programming, too. Leah Mócsy, who supported the Abbey through Covid and became its executive director in 2021, said she met an elderly woman who told her she’d run a preschool out of the building decades earlier, filling a significant caregiving need. In the building’s historical records, Mócsy found photos of community potlucks held in the church’s basement (which is also known as the ballroom, thanks to its stage, polished wooden floor, and 25-foot-high ceilings). 

Perhaps the most intriguing service the church offered happened in 1984. Changes in the telecom industry led to rate increases across the country. In Northeast Portland, many households could no longer afford to keep a phone line. Yet, of course, they still needed to make phone calls: to their children’s school, to make a doctor’s appointment, to inquire about an open job. In response to the need, the church set up a free community phone outside the building. This was likely the first of its kind in the country, Ron Wyden noted at the time. Now Oregon’s senior senator, Wyden was then in his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mócsy said she met some of the people who had accepted that help. “The church never shamed us,” they told her. A church secretary even fielded incoming messages for neighbors.

It may be that not even death severs the building’s connection with some community members. It’s perhaps not surprising to those who believe in ghosts that the hundred-year-old building has a few spectral occupants. Fortunately, they all seem to be friendly, even playful at times, Jamison said. A paranormal investigator recently led a group of mediums and other cross-plane communicators through the space. They met Evelyn, a 73-year-old Black woman who lives in the main theater’s balcony. “This used to be her church, and now she just loves the shows,” Jamison explained. Kid ghosts play in the basement ballroom.

The sub-basement, where the boiler is located, “for sure has some activity,” Jamison said a little warily. A young man hangs out in the café and backstage — he has expressed that he loved the theater and just wants to “help” his corporeal friends. Said Jamison of the spirits, “For most, this was their church, and they really continue to see it as their spiritual home.” The ghosts are content; the Abbey team hopes the living find peace and joy there too.

A new artistic side

By the early 2010s, community programming had stopped – Portland Parks & Recreation’s after-school classes had been the last to use the church’s extra space – and the building was in disrepair and too expensive for what was left of the church congregation to maintain. It languished all but abandoned for a few years until an investor bought it with the idea of turning it into a nonprofit arts center. But in short order, it was back up for sale.

Mócsy knew firsthand just how difficult running a nonprofit arts center can be. An employee of Community Development Partners (CDP), the organization which bought the building next, she supported Mark Takiguchi in his role as the first executive director of the newly titled Alberta Abbey. In the old church sanctuary, the organization wanted to host performances and other events and, in the building’s many smaller spaces, rent studios to individual artists. They drew their first big crowd with the presentation “The Inner Lives of Crows.” That was March 10, 2020. Nearly overnight, due not to corvids but to Covid, it became really, really hard to run a performance-focused community space.

Surviving the pandemic

During the Covid lockdown, Mócsy continued her support role, though no one was officially on the Abbey staff. Her goal became promoting the young organization’s name and writing grants that would help them hit the ground running as soon as they could reopen their doors. Because the organization was so new and had a sparse programming record, it didn’t qualify for much of the relief funding for which she applied.

In a twist, the organization itself ended up offering a bit of relief to individual artists, with the assistance of one of its resident artists. Sharita Towne had rented studio space in the Abbey for a little over a year at that point and had been active in the organization’s broader mission, too, including hosting a Black History Month art show and community brunch. She’d brainstormed with Takiguchi about hosting more Black and Brown artists. About three months after that brunch — and two and a half months into lockdown — Towne’s A Black Art Ecology of Portland (BAEP) project realized that dream, at least for a time, by partnering with the Nat Turner Project to offer space in the Abbey to several artists, free of charge. Since the building is so large, they could safely host artists in separate rooms. One dancer got the basement ballroom all to himself every day. Towne installed plexiglass in her compact SUV as a measure against Covid in order to ferry artists who needed transportation assistance to this, as Towne called it, “creative sanctuary of a building.”

Surviving the aftermath

The Abbey reopened to audiences in September 2021. At first it was just private gatherings, people staging small plays for themselves, masks on. Beck Garcia, a freelance audio technician, joined Mócsy behind the scenes keeping the Abbey open. Garcia got her bartender license so they both could run concessions and even helped Mócsy muck floors after the ancient plumbing clogged and overflowed right before an event. 

“Covers and Blankets” in January 2022 was the first big show out of lockdown. Artists who ran in Alberta’s Last Thursday and Oregon Country Fair circles hosted their annual cover songs concert with a blanket donation drive for Janus Youth Programs. Beyond bringing in an audience, these artists loaned their abilities to producing other shows and spreading the word. The staff grew to include part-time programming and event support from Ronnie Carrier, Greg Hyatt, and Sean Flora. 

They planned to establish a position to continue organizing free space for Black artists on dates that were not scheduled with events, but they got an even better option. Jerry “JP” Peterson, born, raised, and still living near the Abbey, joined the effort. A successful music programmer, Peterson booked at places like downtown’s Jack London Revue and transformed the Pearl’s Botanist bar into one of the few music scenes available during lockdown. With Peterson’s connections, the Abbey was better positioned to support local Black and Brown artists not just with occasional free practice space, but with booked performance time for paying audiences.

Peterson has always known of the space. “Everybody knew about it,” he said, even those in the neighborhood who never set foot inside. Now on the executive board, Peterson is helping local groups and individuals take those first steps — as audiences and donors. “We have a lot of people who have been waiting to see if we were going to survive. ‘Are you guys going to be around?’ We didn’t know if we were going to be around, but now I can tell people with strong confidence that we are going to be here. And we’re not only going to be here, we’re expanding.” Especially now, with the support of bigger outside entities uncertain, he hopes “that the community would engage and understand that this is an opportunity for them to connect and support people from here, and that’s how they are able to rise up and go national — because they’ve got their local community.”

Taking stock

In September 2024, Cheri Jamison took on the Abbey’s executive director role. A trained opera singer, Jamison shifted from years on the stage to focus behind the curtain as a musician booking agent and in arts and nonprofit administration and consulting. She sees that work as preparing her to now help guide the Abbey into its post-Covid years. She also gives kudos to Leah Mócsy and the whole team. “They really banded together to do what they needed to do to get the place activated, to get out into the community.” Now that  they have more space to thrive, not just survive, and can focus on studying the organization’s health, including “upleveling” their service to both partners and audiences alike, and setting short- and long-range goals. 

The ongoing community work “harkens back to the history of this space, as a church, as a gathering place, as a pillar of the community and the neighborhood, as one of those third spaces,” Jamison noted. The Abbey plans to host community engagement listening sessions later this year to help them understand not only the kinds of programming individuals would like, but what messaging would resonate with them, as well as how the Abbey could be an ongoing good neighbor. They are also starting to gather community organization partners to advise on programming at the board level. “We know there is a lot of room to grow,” Jamison said.

Peterson added, “It’s been a tough road especially since Covid because there’s a lot of mistrust and a lot of things going on socially which affects the whole ecosystem. When you’re not getting together as just neighbors, then everything suffers.”

As much as the Abbey has had to react to exterior forces, such as the pandemic, it is also familiar with inward-looking evolution. Its original mission was to be part of the general Portland arts ecosystem by offering affordable space for both artists renting studio space in the building and for larger event partnerships and rentals. By 2021, the board was discussing if that focus was too broad to adequately speak to the community. The mission statement now begins, “Alberta Abbey aims to nurture the creative, visual and performing arts in N/NE Portland by amplifying opportunities for Black and underrepresented communities.” 

The racially motivated tragedies of 2020 and the subsequent justice-focused protests may have sparked the board’s reexamination, but with the Mallory Avenue Christian Church building as their north star, the revision was perhaps destined. The Abbey considers its building’s history as a space for everyone, regardless of race — and “the intention behind that,” Jamison said, “is as a gathering place for people to have a shared experience and to look past [any difference].” She paused and added, “or to celebrate it together.”

She hopes that during the listening sessions they will come to understand both where the organization is disconnected from the neighborhood and what people love or appreciate about the space that holds so many memories from over the decades. That does not necessarily mean warm, feel-good stories but, more exactly, stories of connection. As an example, she talked about a neighbor’s event that the space hosted in late March. Local advocate Asianique Savage created the six-part docuseries Help Solve a Murder, in partnership with the Alliance for a Safe Oregon and Gal Pal Productions, about the impact of gun violence and justice system failings on Portland’s Black community. Savage approached the Abbey about screening the first episode. There was no other place she wanted this story about their shared neighborhood to premiere.

Moving full steam ahead

At the same time as they are learning about the community’s needs and wants, the Abbey continues to expand the space it offers individual artists and is not slowing its programming. The Abbey has state-of-the-art sound and lights, but within an intimate space. 

Upstairs, smaller rooms are artist studios. The work of Portland photographer Sai Stone is the current exhibition, running through August, in what the Abbey plans to be a building-wide gallery, offering each bit of available wall space to visual artists. The main-floor theater with balcony holds 350, the seats original and still with their built-in hymnal holders, though some have been upholstered and a volunteer scrubbed all of them clean of years of wear and tear and creative stickering by children.

That available space can easily bloom much larger, such as on the Havana Latin Rhythms nights when people dance in the aisles or during a double-billed performance by OK NOT OK (Radiohead tribute band) and Leather & Lace (Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks covers), as audience members crowd the stage. The basement is less used, but as staff and volunteers slowly make improvements, such as the recently built stage stairs, it is becoming more viable. In January, the Portland Old Time Music Gathering held its 26th annual weekend of workshops and dancing there. There are quieter, though no less engaging, events as well, including monthly open mics and indie film shorts showcases. Jamison estimates as much as 70% of all programming involves local artists and organizations.

They try to price the event tickets at under $20 to encourage neighborhood attendance, and they look for particular acts. “The music and the arts industries are challenging regardless and have a lot of bias,” Jamison said. “We do our best to make sure that those who have been overlooked by the system get an opportunity.”  

“There’s a lack of programming specifically for the Black and Brown community, obviously,” Peterson elaborated, “and so I’ve taken that as a place where I can help, specifically our local talent.” All nonprofit organizations and every King neighbor regardless of tax status automatically receive a 15% rental discount. The Abbey isn’t trying to sell something, Peterson added, “we’re trying to build something.”  

True to its roots

The building’s original occupant, the Mallory church, stepped up to everything society pitched at its neighbors: If people needed space or other help, the Mallory tried to offer it. The Abbey team considers their organization a steward of a similar mission. “People often talk about history repeating itself in a negative way,” Beck Garcia said, now in her role in digital assets management, “but with the Abbey, it feels like a rare example of something positive — continuing to evolve while staying true to its roots.”

As an organization and as individuals, the Abbey and its staff advocate for the community in a variety of ways. In February, Black History Month, the Abbey hosted a town hall with state legislators who represent North and Northeast Portland. They also held an American Red Cross blood drive benefiting people living with sickle cell anemia, most of whom are Black, and will repeat that offering in June for Black Music Month.  

As part of the Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, and Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon, the Abbey is also part of any advocacy work spearheaded by those groups. Jamison serves on the Music Policy Council, the government relations arm of MusicPortland; their recent advocacy efforts include trying to reform a city noise code that more severely impacts Black and Brown music and music venues.

Bracing for new funding challenges

The Abbey has been part of the Willamette Week Give Guide! for two years, but Jamison said that individual giving has been otherwise much less robust than government and institutional giving. And now, she is concerned about those, too. By late April, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) had withdrawn more than half a million dollars in funding for Oregon arts organizations alone. The Abbey did not have outstanding invoices with the NEA, but Jamison said the ripple effect will soon become obvious as some of the organizations who used to rent Abbey space no longer have the funds to do so. The Abbey seeks grants to keep rental prices low and to provide the use of spaces at no-cost, and if those dry up, that will in turn affect more than the Abbey. “It’s such a tight-knit ecosystem,” Jamison said.

“The whole funding landscape is changing, and I am concerned with the external environment,” she added, “particularly with the mission we have. I am not going to plan on getting any federal funding in the next four years.” Her frustration is apparent in her tone. The arts play a significant role in the nation’s economy, and even reached a “new high-water mark” in 2021, according to the NEA, yet for arts staff, striving for stability can feel exhausting and never-ending. Of this latest challenge, Jamison said, “We were already at a very delicate place post-Covid. When do we catch our breath?”

She’s relieved that the Abbey’s fiscal year runs with the calendar year. They have a plan for 2025 and are already starting to budget for 2026, but knowing that a lot of their past funding sources will be reduced or gone leaves “ kind of a big question mark. She knows a lot of people, not just organizations, are struggling. “I know in our hearts, the work we do helps the communities get through these hard times.” And, as the shock of recent changes dulls, Jamison said it has been heartening that Portland arts organizations’ leaders are coming together to advocate, commiserate, and brainstorm. “The more that we can share our stories and our value and what we contribute, the better,” she added.

If past performance is any indication, Beck Garcia is sure the Abbey will come through this too. “The Abbey has been through so much in such a short time, and there were times when it felt like the challenges would never end,” she said. “But through it all, the Abbey endured. If the Abbey had been just a business, I don’t think it would have survived. But the legacy, history, and future of this space are so powerful that even in our darkest moments, people would keep showing up to remind us of what this place means to them.”  

A community hub forever

Back outside, the mural encircling the building must catch the eye of most passersby. Towne, along with fellow artist Garima Thakur and a cohort of young people from the neighborhood, used the most vivid paints. Created under RACC’s Murals Program, the work is titled End of the Garden Relish, referencing neighbors sharing their yard harvests with each other, including vegetables they cooked into relishes. It also points out the importance of a connected, healthy, vibrant neighborhood that is always uplifting and amplifying voices. A quote from a Gwendolyn Brooks poem is written in gold next to the flower at the beginning of the mural. It reads, “We are each other’s harvest: / we are each other’s business: / we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” Brooks wrote the poem with singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson in mind, celebrating a voice that boomed out both beautiful song and political message. 

But Sharita Towne sees us — Portland — in there too: “There’s a legacy of Black creative life to continue both in that surrounding neighborhood and in our city, and I think that the Abbey, as a site that is scrappy and interesting and has more character, has the potential to continue that legacy.”

Upcoming performances

The Alberta Abbey has a packed calendar this summer. Upcoming performances include The Cotton Club & Gathering Reunion on June 20, celebrating Portland’s iconic Cotton Club with live music, history, and legends who helped put our Black music scene on the national map; Portland’s Karma Rivera: Celebrating Hip-Hop & Rap on June 21; and Melanated Laments: Immersive Celebration of Black, Afro-Indigenous Culture, on June 22, a celebration of Black Heritage, Afro-Indigenous culture, and the transformative power of art and music.