Tour de Worcester

[magid]

I was talking with some other Worcester County natives the other day. We discussed how much there is to do in Worcester, if you know where to look. Perhaps there will be a day outing (or two) to the middle of our fair commonwealth.

Other ideas? Interested in coming (if it happens?)

• Worcester Art Museum (small but good, manageable size)
  
• Higgins Armory
  
• a nascent artist community InfiniteHotel mentioned
  
• Elm Park (first public park)
  
• Green Hill Park (they have a new(ish?) Vietnam memorial that's very cool)
  
• the Ecotarium (possibly; I haven't been there since at least two names ago, and the polar bears are very cool (er, not in the summer, when they look far more flattened by the heat than even me))
  
• [concerts and theater in parks, in the summer; too late for this year]

Theoretically, people could come see the house in Paxton I grew up in (that my dad built; I remember playing around the foundation when it was poured). I haven't been back since my parents moved out, 6 or 7 years ago now. I'm too unsure of what I'd find, of what it would feel like, and I'm not sure I want to overwrite some of the house memories with what actually is...

Then there's the tour I can't give anyone, made of memories no longer fleshed in buildings, like

• the Brown House (a toy store in (surprise!) a brown house, where the old lady who ran it let you test any of the toys for however long you wanted)
  
• the Tatnuck bookseller, where it used to be, in Tatnuck, slowly expanding piecemeal over time into odd spaces
  
• Ruth's Kitchen, which also started in Tatnuck
  
• Shakey Jakes (the secondhand clothing store)
  
• that secondhand bookstore down Main St. near Clark, the one that was a Victorian full of books to browse (and where I got my glass slide of Jerusalem around the turn of the previous century) (though I think my brother might point to the sf bookstore instead)
  
• the new (in the sense of new books, not new store)(independent) bookstore across from the main Worcester library
  
• the Galleria itself, which has been reinvented a number of times
  
• how the intersection by the courthouse at the end of Main St. used to be a huge traffic circle... which is why the school building is curved, matching the street that used to be (total side note: I remember bringing a friend through Worcester, and his shudder-reaction when reading the motto on the courthouse, "Obedience to Law Is Freedom")

Comments

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I have looked at the old house in Paxton.

The SF bookstore on Main St, to the best of my knowledge, is quite gone and has been for nearly five years now. Oh, and last I heard the Galleria is going to be changed to a different kind of mall which will also contain a number of condo units.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think I knew the sf bookstore was gone.

And yes, I heard that the Galleria (er, Worcester Common Fashion Outlets?) is slated to become a mixed use area, with housing ("right near the commuter rail to Boston!") and shops. Oh, and the parking garage will be partly taken down, so the streets can go through again.