Well, there was ShBooms, but that's a courthouse now. Still weird that I've served jury duty twenty feet above where I puked across three urinals.

And then there was the Sahara, which had a good dancing vibe if you particularly enjoyed getting your ass grabbed by women of Middle Eastern descent in their late 40's-50's.

Not really so much now.

Lol you gotta relax. You were the one basically coming after me calling my thoughts a solution in the first place.

Coming in hot Lol looking like your eager for some heated debate or something.

It’s okay. Have a good weekend, and happy new year! I can’t wait for the vacation soon

I didn't even come close to saying that. Why are you trying to put words in my mouth? Sorry for pointing out your "thinking out loud" was not a solution. Hope you have a good one

Exactly there’s not much for ppl to do here. Other than eat and drink. Even shopping has dwindled down but that’s a whole other topic

So you’re saying existing tenants should be forced to move out?

racism combined with ignorance from people who never lived in a city before

That’s too bad especially during the holidays. Here’s to hoping it’s empty because they just gave out a ton.

With the cost of groceries today, it’s probly not surprising there isn’t much “left over” like in the past. Really is too bad

I don't know what Worcester is being compared to. I can't think of a single city in the US that is totally killing it and is a wonderful place to live, while also being affordable.

The rest of the paragraph just advocates rent control, which doesn't work. It just benefits landlords and existing tenants.

Getting a hot dog and a hot chocolate and burning my tongue on the hot chocolate.

Hahahaha well If you’re just gonna cherry pick it like that, then that’s how it sounds. The rest of that paragraph explains itself. I said tearing down the houses will make rent so high and out of reach for regular people that it’s gonna force city hall or whoever to step in and do something to regulate rent otherwise the masses will have to relocate out of the city and once their rent revenue moves away, then they’ll start to make changes to draw us back in.

I never called this a solution either. It’s just discussing and thinking out loud. Let’s face it they don’t care how high rent goes they’ll always just keep the space empty until someone who can afford it comes along and moves in. Happens all the time in Boston

Never said I hate it. There's a lot to like here - the surrounding countryside and landscape, the diversity, the proximity to a ton of cool stuff in New England. But the shortcomings in the areas I mentioned are pretty frustrating for a city of this size that claims to be going through a renaissance. There's a ton of potential in Worcester, but the people in power can't seem to get out of their own way.

Literally every restaurant on the Common has better food than Beer Garden, better atmosphere too. If Revolution Pie and Pint were still open then maybe Beer Garden would only be the second shittiest restaurant in the city.

Wondering the same thing, anyone know of any DJ nights that focus on 70's funk/ disco, or 80's new wave that typically has a 20 to 30-something age crowd? I already know about Gimme Gimme Disco, I know they come through town every once in a while. But if there's others I don't know about, would love to know them!

Beer gardens great foh

> Since rent is out of control we may as well speed up the process and tear some triple decker houses down and build a mini parking lot driveway every few houses.

Your solution to the rent crisis to to tear down housing and replace it with parking lots?

> I’ll stop ranting. But the city as a whole is very nice. Ask any local and they’ll say they been hearing the same thing for decades “Worcester has been on the up and coming”

I mention this every time it comes up, but the earliest I've ever seen the phrase "Worcester Renaissance" used is from January '05 when they started to push the Paris Cinema to shut down in earnest. I know they were using it before then because people in the articles talk about it like it's some ongoing process, but it's just so patently Worcester.

There's all these civil servants in the articles saying, "Worcester's a developing city! We're in the Renaissance! We can't have a porno theater right next to City Hall! It needs to be shut down so we can build something good there!"

So they shut it down. What happened to the property? It sat there, vacant, for twelve fucking years. And after twelve years what did they put in its place? The Beer Garden. Quite possibly the shittiest restaurant in Worcester.

I'd take the porno theater over that place any day, at least the Paris was honest about what it was. It wasn't a faux-gastro pub with sub-Denny's quality food.

true! I would say I've been fluctuating between 2 camps of thought as a late 20 something who just moved back here after living in Boston for the past 10 years. I see a lot of the potential in the city I was born in and would love to be a part of movements to create more robust culture here and advocate for better overall infrastructure, but I also am constantly frustrated at the speed of progress and how the aforementioned frustrated old fogies often block progress from happening, so then I end up researching apartments to rent in other cities across the globe that I'd gladly hop on a plane to and set up camp there because what I dream of in a city to live my life already exists elsewhere. Like, no one place is perfect and every city in the world has its problems, but idk, how much longer do I want to throw my energy into a place where the people on average might not want the same things I want out of life.

>Worcester rent is high relative to what it was 5 years ago

This is the issue, though. I've lived in Worcester for that five years. The city has really not changed that much, sure they've built some new shit, but day to day life in Worcester is no different than it was five yeras ago. But still the rents go up. Some good restaurants have opened, but other good ones have closed. The infrastructure still sucks, trash pickup is a fucking nightmare, the city's leaf collection policy is "push them all in the road, making the roads more dangerous, and we'll come pick them up in like a week," it'll snow 14" and the plows still leave 3" caked on the road...but we got a baseball stadium!

Like I said, the question is what are you getting in return for the money you're spending and is it worth it? In Worcester's case it's getting increasingly hard for a lot of people to justify spending the kind of money it takes to live here.

To add to that, the young adults also see potential, while some people who lived there, their whole lives just have bad experiences

I think because the 20 somethings who actually had the foresight to move elsewhere usually do so, the ones who stuck around don't mind the glitter covered shit, where as the older generations who had frustrations since the beginning didn't believe they had the option to move.

LOL, you live in a place you hate? That's absurd and funny. Yeah I think when people put a post and say why the hate they're prob not talking about masochists who choose to live someplace they hate.

On the contrary, I moved to Worcester within that time period. Since I have lived in cities with actually functioning social services, real bus systems, safe and usable bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and at least some degree of enforcement of traffic and parking laws, I find myself really frustrated with Worcester.

Rent is ridiculous. Lots of people on Facebook laughed at my comments 5 years ago when I said this was going to happen when they built Polar Park, but look where we are now. Other than eating, drinking and baseball there isn’t much going on. I’d much rather live in Springfield where it’s not next to impossible to get a studio for under $1300, and they’ve got MGM, Basketball hall of fame, the Big E and Six Flags a few miles away.

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