Green Island

By Rosalie Tirella

Well, finally, our new mayor shows some cajones! Mayor Joe O’Brien has snubbed Joff Smith (at the moment an At Large Worcester city councilor with an at-LARGE ego but a Missing-in-Action brain) for the gal from Elm Street - Margot Barnet. He will formally endorse Barnet for the District 13 State Rep seat that Mr. Hottie Pants, Bob Spellane, has decided to give up after a number of horrid/stupid mis-steps (political and personal).

Barnet, a lady who has been president of the fab Regional Environmental Council, one-time home to the equally fab REC Director of Development Josie Shagwert and equally bright and articulate (and fab) REC ex-executive director Peggy Middaugh, is the kind of person we want to represent District 13. Smart, intelligent, honest.

We were getting so bummed out over the field of candidates - especially Joff Smith, a guy who, just because he looks cute in a suit, thinks he is somehow destined for a political career, a chance to lead “the people.” He’s been waiting for a chance like this for, let’s see, forever.

Why is it that men’s egos grow in inverse proportion to their IQs?

Smith’s ego is FUCKIN’ huge - and his contribution to the City of Worcester is so small! He has contributed next to nothing as a Worcester City Councilor, and despite his efforts to grand stand and jump on the hot issues like A.L.Beetle-mania, he is ultimately pointless. Click to continue »

Six-term State Representative John P. Fresolo has formally announced his re-election campaign for the 16th Worcester District seat.

As a life-long resident of the 16th Worcester District, Representative Fresolo shares the same priorities and values as his constituents: public safety, education, affordable housing, transportation and the protection of our children and elderly citizens.

In Fresolo’s tenure in the Legislature he has taken great pride in securing an additional $1 Million in community policing funds for the Union Hill, Vernon Hill, Grafton Hill, Quinsigamond Village and Green Island neighborhoods of Worcester. With this funding, the Worcester Police Department has been able to add much needed neighborhood foot patrols that have reduced illegal drug use, violent crimes and gang formation in the 16th Worcester District.

Representative Fresolo has continually fought for education funding reform and affordable childcare. 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 »

By Rosalie Tirella

The boyfriend and I decided to go to Blow Mag’s (Worcester Mag’s) Turtle Boy event last night in the Canal District (fancy pants talk for Green Island). We went a few years ago and stayed ’til the end because, while there weren’t tons of people (for all the full-page Worcester Magazine ads/hype Worcester Magazine gave their event), there were enough folks at that Turtle Boy to make the night feel like a true night out - a true event.

This time around - last night’s Turtle Boy? A total bust. Deadsville. Nowhere land. As of 8 p.m., there seemed to be about 30 people doing the Turtle Boy! A handfull of folks! So depressing! So disheartening! We’d look into the clubs and bars where the bands/musicians were playing and we’d see TWO people at the bar or 14 people at tables listening to the tunes. Music/bands that were hyped and hyped and hyped in full-page, color ads (a cover story, too!) in recent issues of Worcester Magazine. We couldn’t believe our eyes! Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

How typically Worcester! How stupidly Worcester! Here we go again! Shooting ourselves in the foot (and ankle, knee cap, hip joint, rib cage, etc, etc) - AGAIN! This is why our downtown is a freaking wasteland! This is why most people in the state think we’re a joke! This is why the young leave our seven hills in droves! The brohaha over the proposed swimming pool for Crompton Park has all the earmarks of a classic Worcester shit-storm: Yes, we want a pool at Crompton Park! No, we don’t want a pool in Crompton Park! Shove it up your tight butthole! NO! You shove it up your even tighter butthole! Worcester City Counilors (except for Barbara Haller) not doing their jobs (they had more than two years to decide what to do with our decrepit city pools!), then Worcester City Councilors grandstanding and bitching that they weren’t allowed to do their jobs! Well meaning community folks (mostly from the inner city) who have been disenfranchised for so long that they are totally inflexible on the issue just so they can feel like they matter to City Hall. Yup! Let’s all bite our noses to spite our faces!

And in the meantime, while our shitstorm blinds us, the $2.5 million that Worcester City Manager Mike O’Brien has set aside for the building of a cool, cool new pool at Crompton Park in Green Island - the digging and construction was supposed to begin THIS FALL/MAYBE EVEN THIS MONTH, if we weren’t so busy attacking each other! - could disappear. The $2.5 million could go to pay for other things … like the $150,000+ salaries of regular ol’ Worcester cops (don’t get me started - just see our Top 150 Municipal Wage Earners of Worcester, to the left.) Now that would be a tragedy. Click to continue »

By Pablo Soto

My name is Pablo Soto. I am 15 years old and I live on Hope Avenue. But I was raised in the Green Island neighborhood. I attend Fanning Learning Center but my home school is South High, which I will be attending next fall. When I was younger, I never really worried about there not being pools in the summer. All I hear from the younger kids when I’m at Crompton Park is “I heard there’s going to be no pools this summer?” To be honest, I personally do not use the public pools for personal reasons but when I was younger I went every day in the summer. I remember waking up on hot, sticky, humid summer mornings feeling like I was going to explode from the heat.

I feel horrible that the kids in the neighborhood that I grew up in are not going to have a pool to go swimming in the summer. I learned how to swim in Crompton and Vernon pool, mostly Crompton because Vernon was always packed. So I walked down to Crompton. Now children are not going to be able to learn how to swim in their own neighborhood. Pools are something everybody looks forward to in the summer. Maybe the rich families that own their own pools don’t really look forward to them, but the less fortunate do.

Without the pools, kids are most likely to get into a lot of trouble because of the lack of activites to do. I understand that Vernon is going to be rebuilt but it’s going to be the only pool for like three districts, meaning the Vernon is going to be packed. The pools that are planned to be closed down are located in the poorest neighborhoods in the city. People in these communities need these resources in their communities for many reasons. Youth entertain themselves being at the pool, it’s were a lot of first time experiences can happen. It’s another way from staying away from unsafe activities, such as fights, gang violence, drugs etc. Having lifeguards isn’t the issue because I know many youths willing to work as a lifeguard for the pools.

When people think of summertime in the Worcester neighborhoods, the first thing to come to mind is the pools. When I grow up and I have my children I would like them to experience what I did with the pools. I think it’s wrong to end the tradition of the pools now and put in spray parks. Spray parks seem more unsafe and less satisfactory. Spray parks are going to be slippery, unsafe and unsupervised, which is a set up for destruction.