8 | JANUARY 14 - 20, 2022 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
CITY VOICES LANDGREN CALIFORNIA COMPANY MAKES BID FOR WOOSOX
WORCESTERIA
FIRST PERSON
Spending the holidays with family behind bars Frankie Franco Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Receiving a letter or a phone call from a loved one who’s incarcerated is bittersweet. Sweet, because you know they’re alive and doing as well as they can be. Bitter, because it reminds you of where they are and the pain of not being able to hug them. Letters, phone calls and visits are what a family has to speak with their loved ones. At the time I was writing two letters, one to my older brother and one to my younger brother. Both were incarcerated at the same time at Worcester House of Correction. Double the letters and double the pain. My older
brother growing up was the person I wanted to be, while I shared a room with my annoying younger brother. Due to personal decisions and the many factors that impact lowincome families of color, led both of my brothers to be locked up and it’s always around the holidays that their presence is missed most. Visits at Worcester House of Correction are only about an hour long and scheduled twothree times a week. My mother and I went together most of the time to see both my brothers. Everyone must be searched before entering the visiting room and follow a strict dress code. No sweatpants, no See FRANCO, Page 9
A 3-D mural on the side of the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts by Greek artist Insane 51, with 3-D glasses installed by Michael D’Angelo. TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF/VICTOR D. INFANTE
A fresh look at some downtown discoveries Victor D. Infante Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Having stopped for lunch at the Theatre Café Thursday while meandering around the city, I decided to walk around the corner and look at the 3-D mural on the side of The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts. I’ve done it before, of course, but it had been a few months. The mural is by Greek artist Insane 51, and if you look at it through a pair of 3-D glasses, it looks diff erent depending on whether you’re looking at the red or the blue lens.
Better still, there is a giant pair of 3-D glasses mounted on the fence, which makes the experience amazing, being able to easily see the mural’s transformation from lens to lens. A young man in a hoodie saw me, and asked what I was doing. I told him to look through the lenses, and he exclaimed out loud in surprise at what he saw. A cop on the other side of the street saw us and said, “Have you never seen this before?” The young guy hadn’t. A guy in a suit and tie who was parking his car heard the conversation, and stopped to take a look himself. He, too, exclaimed out loud.
The glasses are just one of numerous little things that make Worcester an awesome place to live. And I say live, because most of these things, you have to spend some time here to fi nd. You can drive by that mural every day and never realize there are a pair of giant glasses there that transform the experience. As I was talking about the mural and the glasses with its new admirers, it occurred to me that the glasses had actually been installed later than the mural, but I couldn’t remember when. As I often do in these situaSee DOWNTOWN, Page 10
