MAC Daddy
Bill Wooby wanted to turn an old school building into the Millennium Arts Center, a project as grand as its name. Now everybody’s turning on him.
Cover Story
In the lounge of the Millennium Arts Center (MAC), a haven for artists in Southwest, Bill Wooby fires up a space heater shaped like a jet engine and sits back. MAC resides in the hulking old Randall School building, whose original structure dates back to 1876. It’s New Year’s Eve, and most of the 150,000-square-foot facility is refrigerator-cold because Wooby’s turned off the heat to save on utility bills. After four years of tenancy, he just started paying them last spring, forced by a court order. He’s never paid his rent.
Wooby, who’s 56 and runs MAC, is gray with exhaustion, his long bearded face looking ascetic above a deep purple shirt. Maybe you’d be tired, too, if you had his problems—such as an eviction notice hanging over your head. And District building and fire inspectors nipping at your heels. And ongoing bankruptcy hearings lasting a year. And people who thought you were crazy and a control freak and maybe even a thief. And a dream of running D.C.’s biggest multiarts facility that was falling apart around you like the crumbling and maybe dangerous building that houses it.... Continued
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