Another guest post from Mike Benedetti.

Much has been written in the papers and on the internet about some City Councilors’ efforts to place new restrictions on Worcester’s street vendors.

Little has been heard from the vendors themselves, which is why Worcester Indymedia has produced an interview with 9 of them:

(Disclosure: I did the opening narration for this, and generally love the heck out of street vendors.)

There’s been a public art exhibit in Elm Park for the past few weeks. According to the Telegram & Gazette, one of the metal statues, Fern Cunningham’s “Massai Warrior Adorned,” was stolen.

Photo courtesy WCCA TV13

The authorities think that “It was swiped from its pedestal sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning,” but it was missing when I (guest blogger Mike Benedetti) walked through the park on Saturday.

Mike Benedetti photo

Another piece of art, described to me as “bikes in a net hanging from a tree,” was cut down and almost stolen before the thief was confronted:

“I came by, and there was someone who had taken it down and was dismantling it for parts,” Ms. Hall said. “I was, like, ‘Don’t you know better? What kind of example are you setting for these kids?’”

I love that this guy didn’t realize this was an art project.

One of my favorite pieces is a collection of curved boards designed to rest in the pond. “Recks Read” tells the tale of confronting someone trying to steal it:

I’m not sure why, but I immediately started taking pictures of him, I asked him if it was his work, if he was the artist, If was repairing the piece, he said no and proceeded to dismantled it.

Photo courtesy WCCA/Flickr

I’m not sure why someone would steal this, unless he had an appropriate pond to display it in. It’s not like warped wood has a lot of resale value.

The scrap metal business, on the other hand, is booming. Did the artist take precautions?

The warrior statue’s creator, sculptor Fern Cunningham of Hanson, said the piece was securely attached to the base with epoxy and a bolt. The work, valued at $6,000, has made it through other outdoor shows without incident. “It was just in Sioux City for a year, and nothing happened to it,” she said. Ms. Cunningham said she was very distressed by the theft. “It was one of my favorite pieces,” she said.

Looks like, in 2008, epoxy and a bolt isn’t going to stop someone from cashing in.

A few weeks back, I interviewed Jacob Berendes about this art show, and he confessed that he and Nik Perry snuck an artificial Christmas tree into Elm Park and added it to the collection. That only survived two days.

I (Zoback) am on vacation for a week (look for me at the nerd-paradise known as Comic Con!) so Daily Wuss will be a bit different next week.  You can look forward to some guest bloggers giving their take on what’s up in Worcester.  I’m sure it’ll be a welcome break from my usual load.

And if you’re in town tonight, make sure to hit Green Street/The Canal District for Turtle Boy Thursdays: 15+ bands, musicians and DJ’s rocking 12+ bars and clubs.  No cover charge, music, horse drawn carts, street vendors, the Governor of Massachusetts…what more could you want????

See you guys when I’m back.  I’ll miss you.

Yesterday was the first day of filming for Worcester-based We Got The Beat, and we gotta say…we’re impressed.  Daily Worcesteria spent late last night at Becker’s Leicester campus, watching the cast and crew film a few garage-band related scenes.  We won’t give anything plot wise away, but things looked great.  The Kaz Gamble music was dead-on(let’s just say the heavy metal band is called “Suck It”), the cast was hilarious(late-addition Robert Hoffman of Step Up 2 and Nick Cannon was laugh out loud funny as Garth), and the crew was real pro.

Anyway, only the first day, but we’d say it boded well for the future.  The cast is filming at Elm Park today, we hear.

Well, that didn’t take long.

This morning’s Telegram reports that the new garage will be open 5:30 am to 1 am “to allow commuters to catch the first train and to exit the garage after the last train, according to city Commissioner of Public Works Robert L. Moylan Jr.”  That’s a quick change from yesterday’s report that said the garage would be a 6am to midnight operation, negating use of the first and last trains of the day.

We can’t help but think that some city officials were checking out the online comments yesterday.

Of course, this still prevents Canal District patrons from using the garage if they want to stay out until closing time, but Moylan tells the Telegram he’s not ready to go there, despite the fact that paying is an automated system.

“Based on demand, that will dictate whether or not we would consider filling in the other hours,” Mr. Moylan said.

So do people need to leave their cars past closing now to show demand?

Ah well, it’s a start.

Posted by “Jeff” on wormtowntaxi.com
Nowhere, however, can I find any reportage of Mr. Antonio Hernandez, the owner of the El Delicioso food truck, the center of all this attention and clearly the one person that both WoMag and the T&G should have spent some shoe leather in seeking out and interviewing. Surely the opportunities for such a simple and basic journalistic venture have been more than ample over the past year.

Everybody knows where he is every week.

Unfortunately, however, the media muffins in this town have only one basic agenda for Main South, ie- promoting how dangerous it is. From the looks of the permanent record here, they actually believe their negative propaganda concerning Main South, as well… to the point of being too scared, apparently, to actually enter the area and try to get an interview with the star of the show.

Posted by “Paulie” on worcesterma.blogspot.com
Nemeth is another cat who doesn’t live in the hood but speaks so glowingly about all the social service programs in Woostah until like most in this city of means they are in their backyard and then these programs belong in the urban core cause that is how it has always been…..like Billy B and Barbara H or not..the two live in the hood and I have no doubt understand the need like I do for social service programs but at a sustainable level for the city to grow! The “we put our heads down on pillows at night crowd” in this city is nauseating to be quite honest with you.

You just have to drive around the urban core of this city to realize how poorly it has been managed for decades..not years BUT decardes and I am coming up on my second decade in it..

Posted by “Gabe” on my5senses.blogspot.com
Got up early (well early for me on a Saturday) with the goal of going down to the barber on North Main and getting my hairs cut. Like a whole lot of businesses in the city this week he is closed for vacation. I was going to write a big diatribe here about this and then remembered that I took July and August off for the First Fridays so I need to drink a big glass of shut the the f*ck up.

On my way there I noticed that there is a new designer glasses store opening up at the corner of Walnut and Main. The guys inside said about two weeks. They weren’t the owners though so who knows how factual this is. They couldn’t even tell me the name of the business. There is a very nice Georgio Armani logo stenciled on the front double doors however.

I was looking to eat some lunch/breakfast and passed by Garden Fresh. They were open. I kept walking. The owner thinks that street vendors are going to cause bomb like hysteria in downtown Worcester. Stupid folks like that are bound to mess my food up. I won’t ever go there again. You shouldn’t either. You are only asking for eventual bad food.

I went walking around behind Garden Fresh up George St and Eden St. There is an absolutely gorgeous old house I have never seen before at the end of Harvard Ct with it’s windows all smashed out and a big red x on it which of course means it’s destined for the wrecking ball. It’s really too bad. This house could have been a really cool three or four unit apartment or condo building.

I continued down Eden and was noticing all the urban residential in this area. A great deal of what looks like 6 or 7 plus unit buildings. You would think with Unum and Fallon right here never mind all the other offices that these buildings would be packed with young professionals. Especially with the rising cost of gas. What has changed where it was so common in the early days of industrial America for workers to live so close to where they worked but now this just isn’t the case? I would love to live directly across the street from my job. I would love to live 80% of my life on one block and spend the other 20 traveling. Maybe this is just me.

Posted by “Recks Read” on italianbred.blogspot.com
Folks may wonder why no one seems to know about the great things and potential that exist in this city, or why more creative, young entrepreneurs are NOT moving here in droves. Well, wonder no more. Looking at the local blogs in this area, it appears that Worcester’s City Hall is consumed with it’s own glory and agenda to build itself, before meeting the true needs of the people it is supposed to serve.
There are stories suggesting that this city’s government does little to avoid using its influence to manipulate and control the power of the local media. It becomes apparent that the government attempts to block others from accessing public/community media by what seems to be intentional misleading of information, blocking intended funds for it or reducing it’s funding. It seems local government copies initiatives that have been already done and claim credit for it. Some stories suggest City Hall even takes a liking to punishing meek street vendors. Now we no longer have to wonder why other cities like Boston, state legislators, businesses, other creative and forward thinking communities will see this as a laughable shit hole. The shame is, city leadership is an affront to all the real, good, talented, valuable people and value added initiatives that really do exist in Worcester. Too bad.

Long-awaited news this morning that the Union Station garage is now open. So what that it didn’t happen last week, like we were told (last week). Monday is close enough.

But one thing struck us immediately:

“The garage will be open from 6 a.m. to midnight.”

Does this just mean you can only enter at those times, or does it mean open as in…open?

The problem is that 6am-12am means that if you want to take the first train to Boston, you have to park elsewhere as it leaves at 5:43. And if you want a late night out, forget about taking the last train home: it gets in at 1:30am. Hey, just chill at the Kenmore Diner for 5 hours, and you’ll be all set.

Nevermind the fact that we’ve been repeatedly told that the garage will partially alleviate parking concerns for businesses in the Canal District area.  It will—as long as patrons leave by the time their carriage turns into a pumpkin.

We’ll be heading over sometime soon to grab photos of the garage.  They promise to be thrilling.

Money magazine just released their list of the top 100 small cities in America (doesn’t it seem like they release a different version of the same list every other week?) and big surprise………Worcester didn’t make the grade.

Actually, the only cities in Massachusetts that did make the top 100 are Brookline, Newton, and Waltham.  And only one other city in New England (West Hartford, CT) made the list.

But what’s really interesting is to see how Worcester stacks up against the cities countrywide that did get recognized.

Among the highlights(note: some of these statistics seem a bit off by our account, so take them with a grain of salt):

• Worcester’s family purchasing power, at $55,441 is almost 50% of the Best Cities’ Average(BCA): $107,483.
• Similarly, the BCA for Job Growth % between 2000-2007 was 18.72%.  For Worcester? 9.87%
• Worcester has fewer colleges/universities/professional schools than the BCA: 27 to 49
• Other things Worcester lags in(within either 15 or 30 miles): Movie Theaters (16 to 51); Restaurants (1,454 to 4,094); Bars (141 to 408); Libraries (57 to 89); and (11 to 13).  We do, however, have more Ski resorts within 100 miles: 41 to 33.
• While Worcester’s BMI average is on par with the best 100 cities, we have higher rates of hypertension and diabetes
• The city has significantly lower rates of married citizens (38.9% to 57.5%) and residents who have completed at least some college(55.1% to 73.7%)
• Our racial diversity is rated a 90.6, below the national average of 100 and below the BCA of 104.2
• On the positive side, Worcester has a higher Air Quality Index (76.7% to 75.9%) a shorter commute (17.4 to 23 minutes) and more dollars spent on art per person (2.1 to 1.5)

What do you think?  How does Worcester measure up?

It looks like the Shaarai Torah West synagogue on Pleasant Street is up for sale for $749,000.  It would be the second Shaarai Torah building in the past several years to sell (after the one on Providence Street).

Two big announcements in one.  And, totally unintentionally, they’re related.

First, next Thursday, July 17, we’re continuing our Turtle Boy Thursdays series with a great night of music.  At least fifteen cover-free bands (and karaoke!) at no fewer than 11 clubs up and down Green Street, Water Street, Kelley Square, all the way to Nick’s on Millbury St.  All walkable, all free.

The same night, Daily Worcesteria has just learned, Governor Deval Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, and Congressman Jim McGovern will be hosting a so-called Obama-Clinton “unity rally” at the Hibernian Club on Temple Street.  And yes, we’ll be putting in an effort to get the Governor to check out the music scene.

In other words, get ready to call out next Friday.