Best of Boston

If you’re a struggling artist who can’t afford a studio, you’re in luck. The Castignetti Compound in the North End wants to give you cheap space, coffee, grant books, computer access, and more. The Compound is a new artists’ collective housed in the hollowed-out shell of a formal-wear store on Endicott Street—sort of a postmodern atelier, where the studio doubles as a gallery, and the main attraction is a bunch of artists working in makeshift open studios There’s no privacy, of course, but there are, form time to time, musical benefits with some great local bands.