By Eric Eisenberg
BRIGHTON – At 12:30 p.m. on a Saturday, just following the opening of the Allston-Brighton Heritage Museum, John Quatrale grabs a broom and dustpan and cleans the backroom exhibit. During the week, he keeps the museum open, directs the volunteer museum guides, organizes meetings, handles the museums publicity, and manages the exhibits.
“I do just about everything,” said Quatrale, 50, the museum’s executive director.
The museum, which opened in Feb 2007, was an effort by the Allston-Brighton Historical Society to celebrate the bicentennial of Allston-Brighton’s separation from Cambridge in 1807. Quatrale, who has been a resident of Brighton since 1984, suggested an exhibit to William Marchione, the president of the historical society, and the idea expanded and soon construction began to build the first museum that allowed residents to look back into the history of their neighborhood.
Quatrale had never managed a museum before but he had a specialty in designing exhibits. He previously worked at Boston museums such as the Gibson House Museum, Battleship Cove, the Newton History Museum, and the Schlesinger Library.
“My strengths are organizational skills,” Quatrale said. “I like to think that I’m inventive, when it comes to how to use the space creatively as well.”
Space was made available by the city to construct the museum below the Veronica Smith Senior Center on Chestnut Hill Avenue in 2006, and Quatrale, the historical society and volunteers from the neighborhood came together to construct the museum from the resources they had.
“[The area] was just raw space, nothing was here,” Quatrale said. “We had to clean it out, make it look presentable, and then we had to design our exhibits.”
For his work in the construction of the museum and the managing of it after its opening, Quatrale earned praises from his fellow historians.
“He is fit to be director of any museum he chooses to be director of,” said Barbara Moss, who was on the design committee for the museum and fellow member of the historical society. “He’s the best… He’s extremely talented and understanding of museums and administration.”
Described as the moving force of the museum by historical society member Nancy O’Hara, Quatrale is a few weeks away from celebrating the museum’s one-year anniversary. Many still reflect on the museum’s construction and how Quatrale’s involvement led to the museum’s initial success, bringing in more than 1,100 people in the first year.
“He had the skills putting the museum together, which was not an easy thing,” said Louise Bonar, one of the founding members of the Allston-Brighton Historical Society. “The historical society was founded in 1967, and we never even thought we could have a museum before John.”
© Eric Eisenberg, All Rights Reserved