Last Sunday the grassroots advocacy organization Brookline PAX was supposed to host its Annual Meeting and Awards in the Martin Luther King room of Brookline High School.  Among the honorees were the leaders of the Brookline Teen Center, future inhabitants of a space carved out of an auto body garage in Brookline Village.  The two feet of snow that pushed the ceremony to Monday was fitting.  The Brookline Teen Center has been in a perpetual state of what seems like postponement for almost eight years. 

“There has been some buzz, but also some fatigue,” said Paul Epstein, a social worker at Brookline High School who, with his wife, started probing the possibilities for the Teen Center in 2005.

Epstein is now the Founder of the Brookline Teen Center and President of the BTC Board of Directors.  Publicly supported but privately funded, the BTC has benefitted from lucrative fundraisers in Brookline and at Fenway Park since 2006.  Epstein hopes to finally open doors by the 2013 school year.

The outside of the BTC building looks inauspicious, partially covered by striped tarpaulin and caked in snow stained with charcoal-colored grime.  A BTC sign is bungee-corded around a post near the sidewalk adjacent to the building’s entrance.  Above it is a bigger sign for Brookline Auto Body and Kenmore Auto Sales.  Inside, white brick surrounds a vast, open space.  What was once a garage for car repairs is now a place for kids jumping rope, playing music and eating after-school snacks.

Epstein spoke with enthusiasm over the phone Thursday from the construction site.  He has lived in Brookline for 13 years, working at the high school he attended with his fraternal twin brother Theo, former General Manager and Executive Vice President of the Boston Red Sox and current President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs.  He remembers experiencing with his brother what he called “the age-old lament of adolescent boredom.”  After class they would play basketball at a West End Boys and Girls Club in Allston.

“The center is for everybody, not exclusively for kids who want to get back on track,” said Epstein.  “I was a straight arrow kid.  A dork student of the week.”

Tyler Campbell, a senior whom Epstein proclaimed “the best (and only) rock and roll drummer at Brookline High,” was with Epstein that Thursday afternoon.  Campbell is one of two-dozen teen interns who work at the Teen Center.  Three years ago Campbell stumbled into Epstein’s office at BHS looking for someone else.  He was admittedly hooked by the promise of a payday, but stuck around for bigger reasons.

“I really enjoyed helping design the music room,” said Campbell.  “I learned quite a bit about sound room design.  My dream is to make it in music.”

Live music will be a main attraction at the BTC.  Epstein said he hopes it will become the hub for teen activity in Brookline.  In his mind it will exist for innovative programming ideas from teachers, from the community and from the kids themselves.

“If we have a secret sauce, a magic formula, it’s the teen involvement,” said Epstein.  “But without a good staff it’d be like Lord of the Flies.”

Epstein mentioned Matthew Cooney as part of that staff.  Cooney is the Executive Director of the BTC and another BHS graduate.  Prior to working for the Teen Center he was Director of Residential Services at the Walker School in Needham, Mass.

There are day cares and retirement homes in Brookline, but there is not another center devoted exclusively to teens in the Entire state of Massachusetts.  Epstein insisted he and the rest of the staff have done extensive research to ensure the BTC will be successful both culturally and financially.

Epstein expressed his faith in the BTC with the famous Field of Dreams adage: “If you build it, they will come.”

For more about the BTC visit www.brooklineteencenter.org.