Blackstone Canal

By Jim May

First, just a few comments from the feedback I’ve received. Respecting the Blackstone River in Part 1 was also about the need to reconnect with it mentally to better understand how the City was shaped by it over the centuries. Worcester isn’t going to build some kind of inland waterway garden zone if the water’s not clean first. There can be no Canal Project without a water project of some magnitude. And when you’re thinking about Boston pipeline disaster that happened this week, it should be well noted by Worcesterites that we own our water supplies. There’s value to clean water. We take it for granted, and we shouldn’t.

Second, the Worcester sewer plant (aka Upper Blackstone Abatement Plant) is in violation of the Clean Water Act. The City is in danger of a losing big in a lawsuit for polluting the Blackstone River, Narragansett Bay and several towns and cities along the way. Click to continue »

By Jim May

POINT ONE: EMBRACE THE BLACKSTONE.

To a geographer, the most compelling aspect of greater Worcester is the Blackstone River. It’s our river. We ain’t got much else, really. Farming was so bad here that Worcester County was the last county populated, and even then, the town of Sutton surpassed Worcester’s own population until the mid 1840s.

But people aren’t farming here anymore. Still, the Blackstone River remains the dominant landscape feature no matter how many Walmarts surround it. The Blackstone River is the thing that singularly most identifies our place in the terra firma, our place on Mother Earth.
And because it’s a river, it’s water. And water represents Life. And Life is what we want in our downtown.

We have long stopped embracing the River. To be blunt, we shit on it. We have almost polluted it beyond recognition. The intense industrial usage of the Blackstone left a legacy of pollution. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

What a dreadful cold spell. What an unlovely sight Wormtown is at tail’s end of winter. What better time - or so I thought, this afternoon - to treat myself to some real comfort food - a cheese omlette, bulkie roll and home fries at my favorite local hang out.

So there I am, on Water Street looking out the restaurant window, hunkering down, trying to avoid all the crap I have to contend with: the dog has cancer, the bills are paid but need more paying, mom has early dementia, guy pal will never get his shit together. Talking with another small biz owner earlier - we both pined for a vacation in sunnier climes. “I haven’t had a vacation in eight years!” he said. All this was weighing down on me … Would spring-time ever return, I wondered, and I looked out the restaurant window and saw ALLEN FLETCHER at the exact opposite side of the street.

He saw me. I saw him. I blanched. He - wearing his ridiculous black beret - gave me a big salute - the kind of salute Adolph Hitler gave his men before … gassing them.

I made a horrible face at him - and immediately lost my appetite.

My old neighborhood, my stomping grounds used to be hallowed ground, for me. Now it’s the Canal Distgrict (or shall we say Cabal District). Now, instead of a cool Jewish ghetto where (in the early part of the 20th century) hawkers lined the Water Street to sell fruits, vegetables, live (!) chickens and other necessities, we have Allen Fletcher in a black beret. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

I spent the first 19 years of my life in Green Island. My mother grew up in Green Island - a great gal in a great Polish neighborhood - and spent 65 years there! I know/knew the neighborhood like the back of my hand and I love it like no other Worcester ‘hood. Jim Lukes, City Councilor Konnie Lukes’ hubby, grew up in the area, too. His dad had a diner on Millbury Street and the family still owns property in Green Island. District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller represents the neighborhood. And none us - not a person! - can make our way into Allen Fletcher’s secret “Canal District” (the yuppie monikor for Green Island) Taskforce meetings.

That’s right! Since Fletcher bought the old Ash Street school off Green Street several years ago, he has decided that he will remake the district in his own bony-ass image - or to his, and his supporters’, liking. Anyone with a different point of view, anyone with any sort of question, even folks with longstanding ties to the Green Island neighborhood like me or Jim Lukes, are not invited to play in Fletcher’s reinder games. We don’t even know when and where the meetings are!! (somewhere in Green Island, I’m guessing!) Click to continue »