BloomBars, an art space where people blossom, is dying on the vine

Chambers created, runs, funds and puts everything he has on the line for a place called BloomBars.

It’s plural because when he opened it 16 years ago, he imagined his nonprofit art spaces would be all over town, maybe all over the nation.

“Before the pandemic, we were very, very close to locking in the lease for a second location,” he said.

BloomBars is a community space in Columbia Heights, a funky little stage with art all over the walls, inspirational sayings, handmade jewelry for sale, wooden pews lining the walls.

The space — a former candy store built in 1906 and charmingly listed for sale in the 1915 classifieds of the Evening Star as “near school … cheap to quick buyer” — now hosts writers groups, kiddie French lessons, drum circles, dancing, poetry and so, so much music.

“Teachers tell me they recognize BloomBars kids,” Chambers said.

The kids who blossomed at BloomBars are bolder and more confident in the classroom, he’s heard.

It’s something not found in too many schools anymore, said Oz Scott, a big-shot Hollywood producer and director who is on the BloomBars board and happens to be Chambers’s godfather.

“You have to teach kids to come up with new ideas,” Scott said. “BloomBars makes people sit there and look at the world in different ways, creatively. And that’s important to our country.”

But the story gets even bigger.

The emerging artists who were on that tiny stage under red curtains have been on “The Voice,” at the Grammy Awards, on stages big and small all over the nation.

“We have so many beautiful memories from so many times at BloomBars,” said Christina Sanabria, part of the husband-wife duo 123 Andrés, who got their start at BloomBars and just won the Grammy for the best children’s music album and have a podcast with PBS Kids.

It’s more than a place for kids, though.

“It’s, like, my third space,” said Ava Zechiel, 25, who works in development at one of the big D.C. institutions but unfurls her artistic soul on that stage in BloomBars. On Tuesday, she read a poem about caring for crows who keep coming to her home, her “daily meetings with the murder.”

This is the secret magic behind a place like BloomBars tucked inside the human power grid that populates the nation’s capital.

A political chief of staff, a White House aide, a teacher, a Republican, even. They show up, unafraid of trolls or judgment or snarks or bots.

It started as a passion project for Chambers, who grew up in a progressive, art-filled household in New England and, after studying at Howard University, thrived in a high-paying, high-profile communications and marketing career.

He did government work on the census, the “Click It or Ticket” campaign, with advocacy groups like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among many others.

But he was missing that DIY, artsy, funky neighborhood, grassroots feeling that he had in his home. And BloomBars was born.

It started as a side gig, then he quit work and went all-in.

He bought the space on the same block as his home, in a vibrant and increasingly popular part of D.C.

For a while, passing the hat paid the bills. Some of the bills.

But Chambers has his own health struggles, including nine days in the hospital this summer for complications related to his Type 1 diabetes.

And then two deaths in the family. His bills piled up.

He mortgaged his own home to save BloomBars. He robbed Peter to pay Paul, though, because his home went into foreclosure. He managed to get that stopped, but now he’s fighting for BloomBars. He’s been going to status hearings and has a helpful judge. But the tax credit fund that bought the space has money he does not.

“People keep asking me, ‘Why don’t you just get a liquor license? Make it a real bar,’” he said.

But that’s all wrong. With kids, artists opening themselves up to vulnerability, grandmas coming to hear shows, folks recovering from addiction opening up in the writers groups. Booze wouldn’t fit.

“We could easily be profitable if we served alcohol,” he said.

Sure. Right next door is hipster Wonderland Ballroom, with outdoor tables packed on a Tuesday night, pint glasses full and sweating.

“But this bar doesn’t serve alcohol,” he said. “It serves art. It serves community.”

At every tax auction hearing, Chambers tells the judge new strategies and plans to raise the money to keep it away from ATCF II DC LLC, a tax fund company based in Florida that bid on the little space.

“Maybe a membership model? Doing more kids programs. Camps,” he said. He’s trying all of it.

But until he can get that tax bill paid, progress has been slow.

There’s a GoFundMe and a Spotfund to help him raise the $125,000 he needs. But his next tax hearing is in October.

And if he loses it, gentrifying neighborhoods will predict the future of that old candy store.

“This kind of space can be something other than a Starbucks, other than a SoulCycle or another bar,” he said. “I think we got plenty of those.”