Worcester Magazine December 14 - 20, 2017

DECEMBER 14 - 20, 2017

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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For homeless, a saving grace Why is North High going south?

Page 4

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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM • DECEMBER 7, 2017

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Kirk A. Davis President Kathleen Real-Benoit Publisher x331 Walter Bird Jr. Editor x322 Elizabeth Brooks x323 Photographer Joshua Lyford x325 Reporter Bill Shaner x324 Reporter Sarah Connell, Janice Harvey, Jim Keogh, Jim Perry, Jessica Picard, Corlyn Vooorhees, Contributing Writers Marissa Callender, Alexa Currier, Alex Polinksi, Editorial Interns Donald Cloutier Director of Creative Services x141 Kimberly Vasseur Creative Director/Assistant Director of Creative Services x142 Becky Gill, Stephanie Mallard, Colleen Mulligan, David Rand, Wendy Watkins Creative Services Department Helen Linnehan Ad Director x333 Diane Galipeau x335, Sarah Perez x334, Cheryl Robinson x336, Media Consultants Kathryn Connolly Media Coordinator x332 Michelle Purdie Classified Sales Specialist x433 Worcester Magazine is an independent news weekly covering Central Massachusetts. We accept no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. The Publisher has the right to refuse any advertisement.

&2015 2016

This Week’s Feature: Grace Hotel

H

omelessness is one of those issues that’s just as easy to ignore as it is to do something about. In fact, for most of us, it’s easy to ignore entirely. That’s why I was so struck, in reporting on both the Grace Hotel and the action being taken at City Hall, at how much effort, time and, ultimately, love goes into caring for and helping out this population in Worcester. From the volunteers at Grace Hotel who sleep overnight with the 50 or so homeless people there in the worst weather, to the faith leaders that organize the whole thing for little to no personal gain, to the officials at City Hall willing to recognize that the 2011 proclamation that “homelessness in Worcester is over” was premature, and there’s still work to do. But, until everyone is in a home, people like Richie Gonzalez will be making sure they’re not dying in the cold. This story is ultimately a human one, intended to remind you – as the holidays draw near and well after – there are people in this community with nothing, and a web of people giving everything to help them.

LEGALS/PUBLIC NOTICES: Please call 978.728.4302, email sales@centralmassclass.com, or mail to Central Mass Classifieds, P.O. Box 546, Holden, MA 01520

- Bill Shaner, reporter

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citydesk December 14 - 20, 2017 n Volume 43, Number 16

Why is North High going south?

Binienda, schools chief, on efforts to save school

FILE PHOTO

Walter Bird Jr.

support of English Language Learning learners and students with disabilities; reestablishing high academic expectations and wo years ago, North High School made accountability for students; and improving the news for all the wrong reasons. school climate, school climate and spirit Students beating up each other and assaulting teachers resulted in the city putting between adults and students.

Many questions have arisen in the wake police at several schools full time. Violence at North High, we are told, has ebbed, but the of the report, such as why the public is only now being made aware of the dire academic school is back in the headlines once more – situation at North High. Some are also critical again for all the wrong reasons. of the decision by School Superintendent If test scores do not markedly improve Maureen Binienda, formerly the principal of next spring, along with other benchmarks, South High, to take over at North High while North High very well could become the principal Lisa Dyer is out on medical leave. city’s second Level 4 school. Currently, the During a nearly one-hour interview with district’s lone Level 4 school is Elm Park Binienda, Worcester Magazine posed these Community School, where officials hope and other questions and concerns. Some changes implemented recently will help strip of her answers revealed circumstances that designation. previously not made public or at least not North High, however, now looms as a well-publicized, including the suicide of a major concern and a report released almost 15-year-old North High School student two two months ago – but made public only weeks ago and how it has affected the school a week or so ago – reveals the need for community. significant improvements. The report yielded Among other things, the superintendent six key findings – one of which was entirely talked about bringing in a consultant, the redacted, along with several other parts, Institute for Strategic Learning, to conduct a in the document released to the media. study before the state came in. She gave her Among the other five: an “immediate need explanation for taking control of the school for structures and systems that promote and denied accusations of trying to hide the collaborative learning among teachers”; a problems at North High from the public. need for a “clearly-defined, well-articulated Who prepared the report and how was and shared set of expectations for highit funded? We went with the [Institute for quality and rigorous instruction in every Strategic Leadership and Learning]. We paid classroom”; a need for more integrated

T

for it with turnaround money the state gave us last year. The federal government gave money to the state and certain districts got calls from the state asking how we would use the money. We wanted the state to help fund a platform to raise up five or six elementary schools. We got $125,000 to do that. We used it to fund some supplies, some programming.

We had a retired principal come in as a

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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM • DECEMBER 14, 2017

On the other hand, even if the state picked up 80 percent of new school building costs, the estimated $215-million project would cost Worcester $43 million. -1

At-Large Councilor Mike Gaffney warned people he would not be able to commit a lot of time to the council if re-elected – he lost – but many still caught off-guard by amount of meetings he has missed as his term comes to close. -3

continued on page 6

-1

Total for this week:

A weekly quality of life check-in of Worcester

Design for new South High School certainly impressive, with planners apparently shooting for the moon with such features as a rain garden and solar parking lot canopy. +2

turnaround leader who went to these schools and worked with teachers individually. We called it our Elementary Platform.

Where did the money come from for the report on North High School?

For North, we had some of that funding to have them come in and help us do this

The first snow of season fell in Worcester, so let’s have at it: How did city do with plowing? Overall, this space says not bad. +1

On the flip side, those who ignored the city’s parking ban need to be more aware of why it exists. -2

A former state senator accused of crimes while in office? Hardly shocking, but the sheer quantity – 113 – slapped on Brian Joyce raised eyebrows. -3

Cirque Crystal at DCU Center in Worcester was, according to Worcester Magazine’s Josh Lyford, another “beautiful assault on the senses.” +2

{ citydesk }

Is it time appoint non-voters in Worcester?

FILE PHOTO

Bill Shaner

T

he Citizens Advisory Council is set to take up a small, but fundamental proposed tweak to the city’s appointing policies: waiving the voter registration requirement.

If the requirement were waived, city appointees could be be legal non-citizens, such as refugees and visa holders, as well as residents under the age of 18. Under the proposal, filed by the Human Rights Commission, the voter registration requirement would be replaced by a residency requirement.

HRC Chair Aaron Richman is on the agenda to advocate for the change at the CAC meeting Thursday night, 6 p.m. at City Hall.

The proposal is part of a larger push from the HRC to make participation in city government easier for residents who do not have full legal status. Earlier this year, a conversation on the HRC about changing “citizen” to “community” in the name of the CAC sparked debate. More conservative Worcester politicos took exception to the proposal, saying that citizenship is a key underpinning to democracy and needs to be respected. Advocates, however, argued residents without citizenship status contribute just as much to the fabric of Worcester life and deserve to participate in its government.

Jayna Turchek, director of Human Rights and Disabilities, submitted a letter to the CAC advocating for the change. At its heart, she said, the request is intended to encourage recruitment from a diverse candidate pool, representing all residents of the city.

Jayna Turchek, director of Human Rights and Disabilities in Worcester.

“The commission advocates for greater participation on boards and commissions by

Where will you be at midnight?

city residents who are qualified and desirous of serving the city, but are prohibited to registering to vote as they are non-citizens or have not yet attained the age to be a registered voter,” Turchek wrote.

“There is a large number of non-citizen residents who live and work in our city, pay taxes, and are affected by the decisions of city boards and commissions,” she continued.

The CAC could approve the change without a vote from city council as a matter of procedure, according to Turchek. The HRC vote to send the item to CAC was unanimous.

The CAC is an advisory board to the city manager, who retains full appointing authority. The council essentially votes whether or not to pass a candidate’s application for various boards and commissions to the city manager.

When the issue of lifting the voter registration requirement and name change flared up in March, Councilor-at-Large Konnie Lukes was one of the more outspoken opponents.

Earlier this week, Lukes doubled down on her aversion to the idea.

“That kind of policy devalues the whole concept of citizenship,” she said. “What are we here for? We’re here to represent our constituents, who should be citizens, if they care about this country and they care about the laws that govern us all. And it seems the CAC doesn’t care.”

She sees the proposal as a slippery slope.

Eliminate the voter registration requirement, she said, and what’s the next step?

“It’s a very tricky road they’re traveling on and I think it’s very dangerous,” Lukes said. “It’s a dangerous concept and it leads to unintended consequences that are very continued on page 7

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{ citydesk } BINIENDA continued from page 4

assessment. We called it Focused School Assessment. For this report, we got the $125,000 again and we asked the state, could we also use it for North High, and they said yes. The report cost $25,000.

Where is Lisa Dyer and will she return as principal? The principal was sick and had to have surgery. She went out on sick leave until March. We don’t know at this point. She had surgery and is going to have another one. It depends on how she does.

Does she have your support as

principal? I don’t think the struggles are all related to her leadership. I think it takes more than one person to lead a building to where it has to be.

You took South High where it had to be. Yes, but it took eight years. I also had 12 years as assistant principal prior to that. For North High, it’s actually a very similar school to South High. The kids come from similar neighborhoods. I have found every student, and I really think it’s important to say this, because sometimes people tend to blame the kids. I would have to say I find the kids to

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be great there. They’ve been respectful to me when I ask questions, even if I would find a kid in the hallway that belongs in a class, they have been respectful when I introduce myself to them and say they belong in class and I bring them there. We’ve been there, we were there two weeks when Lisa was there, two weeks when Lisa hasn’t been there. The kids from the beginning have been very respectful. The kids in their interviews really told us they really wanted to see a higher level of instruction.

What about the teachers? I think the teachers are great, too. We really feel if we partner together, we can work this out. I think there are some staff that aren’t on board, yet.

The amount of them I’m not quite sure, yet, but you always have a few who don’t buy into the idea. I think the hard thing for the staff is this has to be swift. We have to get in there … and get instruction to a level it needs to be to show [the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] we are making progress there.

What has led North High to this point? I don’t think the monitoring of instruction has occurred to the level it should have.

Isn’t that the principal’s job? Well, that is the administrative leadership team, plus department heads. Maybe district monitoring of instruction in the past needed to be a little bit better.

Does it fall on your shoulders? It started before you, didn’t it? It started before me, yes, just like the five elementary schools we replaced principals in. Those schools, they’re different places right now.

Kids are learning. My focus last year was, as principal you’re in your own school, you’re in your own little world. As superintendent, I spent last year looking at where are we as far as instruction, really just learning the job. We were in every school last year, doing evaluation. Our priority was really the condition of those five elementary schools, but this year our focus was, “OK, we got the elementary going, we have instruction happening, a new math program we brought in” … This year we knew our focus was going

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to be on middle and high school. North was a concern for us last year when we saw the testing. We were working with Mass Insight (Education) in the math and felt like we were making some movement there. When we saw they made no movement for the third year in a row, you know the state is going to say, “What’s happening with this school?”

When do you make a change? If this school continues to go downhill, when?

What I always like to do before we say we need a change, because I don’t think they were provided the support they needed, is to provide that training and support, and let’s see. After the first year, we don’t say, “Let’s get rid of them.” Let’s see what we can do and coach this person. I’ve had the experience of having some of those teachers become some of the best teachers on my staff. The assistant principals are young there. There are two brand new ones. One is on medical leave for the year and was out last year, too. I borrowed a person from Worcester Tech to go in as an assistant.

It sounds like there has been unstable leadership at North High. Is that accurate? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s unstable. I think the leadership needed training. I’m finding these assistant principals are very strong and responding to suggestions in the work, and the department heads are responding to suggestions. I think it really had a lot to do with experience, knowing how to make the schools run well.

We have experts on turning around schools.

We need to establish positive relationships with kids. Once you establish that positive relationship with kids, they’ll do anything for you. We’re working on that and I think many faculty there do have relationships with kids.

I just think, probably over five years, there may have been a level of frustration some people got and maybe gave up a little bit.

You decided to take over as principal.

Why? I only had two possibilities (Binienda declined to identify them on the record) and the biggest conversation every single faculty member talked to us about was they felt as though they should have had experienced administration there, that the administration is less experienced than some of the teachers. They really want an experienced person there. I would never put an assistant principal in because we don’t have any that are experienced that could go there. There is nobody on the bench right now. I’m not going to advertise for a new principal at this point. Truthfully, anybody that’s out there that could be a principal, at this point, there’s a reason why they might not have that principal job.

Why not bring in a retired principal?

We don’t have any retired that we could think of that we could put in at this point.

I said, “Well, I’m 20 years in secondary experience.” When I did meet with staff, I said, “OK, we tried to explore the options.

I’m Plan C. We need to move North around.

I’m here.” Also, Sue O’Neill, who’s the

{ citydesk } CAC continued from page 5

dangerous.”

The change could allow people who do not live in the city, or who do not pay taxes, or have serious criminal backgrounds to serve, she said.

“There are no barriers, then, for service,” Lukes said. “There are no conditions. There are no qualifications.”

Advocates, however, see the issue through a substantially different lens. HRC Vice Chair Cara Berg Powers first proposed the idea and advocated for changing the name of the deputy. The [Durkin Administration Building] kind of relocated ourselves there. I’m still superintendent. I can still do the strategic plan, do the [Massachusetts School Building Authority] work. I’m still doing all that. I have a team approach there. We’re there at 5 in the morning. Cafeteria duty. We’ve done bus duty already. We’re in the hallways.

There’s a team approach. The manager of curriculum and professional development is there three days a week. Sue and I are there four to five days. We switch off based on our schedule. Now we’ve got the routine going.

[School Safety Liaison] Rob Pezzella has been there to evaluate duties, so he’s been part of the team. Maura Mahoney, manager of social learning. Then, in the middle of all this, that young lady committed suicide, a 10th-grader.

That was traumatic, even for that school.

Luckily, we were there that we were able to work through that with the faculty, also. We had our two teams there, a team for kids and a team for adults. We made it through that and we’re still, of course, constantly monitoring where that’s going, too.

Is the administration being open and transparent about North High School?

Why didn’t the public find out about these problems until just recently?

It’s a process through the school. The state hasn’t taken it over. It’s like any process.

We have a principal out on leave. It’s not something we announce to everybody. It’s not a Level 4 school, it’s a Level 3 school.

It’s a proactive process to go in and make

CAC to scratch citizen. The differentiation between citizen and non-citizen, in a city like Worcester where there are so many noncitizens, she said, holds the city back.

“We have to recognize the word ‘citizen’ excludes many people that are critical to the fabric of our community,” she said.

She said she was speaking as an individual and was not representing the opinion of the HRC. Most positions on city boards and commissions, with the exception of City Council, School Committee and some others, are a school successful. I didn’t see the need to make a big announcement about it. The principal’s out on leave. We have kind of a short bench. I tried to find another solution to it. It wasn’t possible. Also, we wanted to make the school realize how special it was.

We’re stretching, but we’re stretching because we believe North High deserves this. It’s not like we’re trying to get an award for the work we’re doing. We’re trying to make North High be successful. We’re not hiding anything.

We got ahead of it. DESE does have a person assigned to us, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. She is a North High graduate.

She is monitoring for DESE what we’re doing to help North High improve.

Walter Bird Jr. is editor of Worcester Magazine. He is also host of The Worcester Magazine Radio Hour on Unity Radio at 102.9 FM in Worcester and streamed live at worcestermag.com. He is a panelist on the WCCA-TV show “Rosen’s Roundtable.”

You may reach Walter by phone at 508749-3166, ext. 322, or by email at wbird@ worcestermag.com. You may also contact him on Twitter @worcestermag and on Facebook at facebook.com/worcestermag.

essentially unpaid volunteer positions, Berg Powers argued.

Non-citizens have as much a right to put in the work and hours, often thankless, to contribute to the city as anyone else.

“They contribute to the tax base, they’re part of school system, they are using our transportation system, they are owning businesses, they can participate in every part of the society except for the government,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

It’s no secret some city boards and commissions struggle to keep a quorum, let alone

a full roster. Barring swaths of city residents outright, she said, does nothing to address that problem.

“If people want to give their time to make our city function, to make it a better place, I think we should welcome that,” Berg Powers said. “It seems antithetical not to.”

Bill Shaner can be reached at 508-7493166 x324 or at wshaner@worcestermag. com. Follow him on Twitter @Bill_Shaner.

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{ worcesteria }

Bill Shaner

LET THE WAR BEGIN:

Since last I broached the subject in this column, there have been some interesting developments on the PawSox front – interesting, but definitely, as they say, “in the weeds.” So bear with me. We’re taking a trip to the annals of the Rhode Island Statehouse. Last Friday, the RI Senate Finance Committee released a much anticipated funding report on the deal for a new McCoy Stadium. The report was accompanied by an altered funding bill. Though the essential agreement for construction costs stayed the same ($45 million from the club, $23 million from the state, $15 million from the city), the bill shifted more naming rights revenue to the city of Pawtucket and put more of the upfront costs for construction and liabilities onto the ball club. In response, earlier this week, the PawSox released a statement that essentially said “we don’t like this, but if you pass it, we’re staying here.” Then Gina Raimondo, the RI governor, came out and said she would be unwilling to get into a bidding war with Massachusetts and/or Worcester to keep the PawSox in Rhode Island.

Wait a minute, who said anything about a bidding war?

24 STRAIGHT ELECTIONS: Should state Sen. Harriette Chandler keep her 24-0 record intact and opt out of the running for the senate presidency she now has on an acting basis? It’s not likely. Every indication since she assumed the role recently is she will hold it until the investigation into Stan Rosenberg and his husband concludes.

Meanwhile, there have been plenty chomping at the bit for the senate presidency, should Rosenberg not come back. Those names include: Sens. Karen Spilka, Eileen Donoghue, Linda Dorcena Forry and Sal DiDomenico. No locals on that list. It would be nice to have a Worcesterite setting the Beacon Hill agenda for once, but it appears unlikely to happen. In a wide-ranging Boston Globe interview last week, Chandler basically said she won’t be doing much agenda-setting in the acting role either, saying she’s going to “follow the agenda that the Senate set.”

Put me in there, and I’d go nuts: Three times as many Worcester-Framingham Commuter Rail trains, protected bike lanes on every Worcester street and an unreasonable funding bill to turn the old Aud into a public market. But this is why no one would trust me with a political post.

NET NEUTRALITY: This is not Worcester-

related, but it will affect every single resident of Worcester – and its awful. Today, the Federal Communication Commission may repeal net neutrality protections, which, as simply as possible, will make the internet more expensive, more Balkanized and will line the pockets of your cable company. But, there are things you can still do. To get involved, visit FightForTheFuture.org, which, actually, was founded by a few Worcesterites, Holmes Wilson and Tiffiniy Cheng, so nevermind about the first sentence of this post. There’s always a Worcester connection.

WHERE IN THE WORLD: Tuesday’s was an unremarkable City Council meeting at best.

It appears that, after the tax rate vote, the council is just kinda gonna show up for the rest of the year, until the new council starts the first meeting in January. But you know who’s not even showing up? Councilor-At-Large Michael Gaffney, who has all but disappeared – from City Hall and from the Internet – since finishing last in the November municipal election. Some, including Clive McFarlane and Nick Kotsopoulos at the Telegram & Gazette, have done the good work of pointing out Gaffney is still getting paid (however the $30,000 shakes out over two months) through to the end of the year. The People’s Councilor is getting paid but not working. Can you imagine the vitriol with which that dude would ream out another councilor doing the same thing? But you won’t see me complaining. Have a nice life in Florida or, you know, wherever. It’s also worth a mention that, when Councilor Gary Rosen, who sits next to Gaffney, showed up on Tuesday, he turned Gaffer’s name placard around, so the blank white faced out. He did so with a shrug, as if to say “eh, why not.”

ANOTHER POT REFERENDUM: Northbridge selectmen have decided to put it up to

voters whether the town should ban pot shops within its borders. The vote will come at the May 15 annual town election, according to the T&G. The vote, like many taken in the area, will also ban cultivation, testing, and manufacturing facilities. Northbridge, like pretty much every damn city and town in Central Mass., used to be a manufacturing hub before global capitalism and the federal government sold it out. But now they’re possibly turning up their nose at what could be good working class to middle class jobs because prohibitionism is one hell of a drug. The only

8

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM • DECEMBER 14, 2017

{ worcesteria } town around Worcester that appears to have any sense on this issue is Uxbridge, where voters in October rejected even a moratorium on pot shop applications.

NEW RULES: Meanwhile, on the recreational pot front, there’s been some motion on the state level. All this week, to Friday, the Cannabis Control Commission, the main regulatory board for the nascent industry here, has been in marathon meetings to hash out (haha, get it) a list of proposed regulations. They’re looking to refine the language around how city and town government plays in the licensing of businesses, whether or not to allow “pot bars” (hell, yeah), what to do about delivery service, how to make sure the industry is inclusive (very important, given decades of fruitless War on Drug policies leading to overstuffed prisons) and how to package product so kids don’t think it’s candy, according to the Boston Globe. The target date for pot shops opening remains July, for now.

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THE LARGE CHAIR: Whodunit? I want to know. In fact, I need to know. The Large Chair in the City Council chamber, one of three very big chairs, is missing. On Tuesday, it was replaced by a projector cart. The mayor’s Large Chair was still there. The city solicitor’s Large Chair was still there. But the Large Chair used occasionally by reporters is gone. I smell a conspiracy, though I’ve been told there’s a very simple explanation. Apparently, Santa used it during the city’s festival of lights celebration and it just hasn’t been brought back yet. Look to the Citizens of Color Honor Roll to see what happens when the city takes something and doesn’t immediately bring it back. I will complain like an overgrown child until the Large Chair returns.

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HONOR ROLL REPLICA: Speaking of the Citizens of Color Honor Roll, a ceremony for

the unveiling late last week went very well and the new monument, at the corner of Belmont and Lincoln, is a touching tribute to both the African-American veterans and the sense of righting a historical wrong. But like just about anything good that ever happens in this city, the replica project came with a petty townie controversy over just how many names should be on the honor roll. While some felt the original 1943 monument should be restored accurately, others wanted the names of veterans post-1943 concluded. The controversy bubbled under the surface of the project for months. But at the ceremony, Rev. Clyde Talley seemed to effectively put the controversy to rest. “We’re working toward a better solution,” he said, “but we’ve got to start somewhere. So we ought to be grateful we have something. We could have nothing.”

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NEW SOUTH HIGH: A schematic and a price tag were unveiled this week for a new South

High School. The price: $215 million, of which the Massachusetts School Building Association would reimburse 80 percent. The schematic reveals a drastic improvement, including a larger main building, a football field, a rain garden, solar canopies, a raised crosswalk, specialized rooms for different types of classes and on and on, according to the T&G. Of course, there are a few more hoops to jump through before it’s a done deal. On Wednesday, after press time, school officials were taking the project to the MSBA board of directors for approval.

THE LAMPOON: What happened, Worcester Lampoon? I was enjoying it. I need more

posts. For those who don’t know, the Lampoon is a branch of This Week In Worcester which aims to be The Onion, but for local issues. And they had some really funny ones. But there hasn’t been a Lampoon post since Nov. 14. I hope the project isn’t already dead. It had such potential.

THE SUN BROADSHEET: The Worcester Sun launched its print product this weekend. The 16-page, photo-heavy broadsheet comes at a price of $2, and is split into an A and B section and includes the towniest thing I’ve ever seen: a Worcester-themed crossword. It shouldn’t be lost that a print newspaper launching in 2017 is remarkable. This is an ambitious endeavor, and one that could buck the narrative on the benefits of converting entire print operations to digital journalism. Or it could die, and confirm the prevailing wisdom. To be sure, the success of this paper is something I and other Worcester media observers will be watching closely. Best of luck, Worcester Sun. GOODBYE ANGEL: Angel Rodriguez, the Worcester police officer assigned to City Council meetings for years, will be moving on to another post soon. The City Council on Tuesday gave him a little send-off for his last meeting, and wished him a happy birthday. Those who frequent the meetings will know Rodriguez as the quiet presence outside the doors, holding it down without making a big deal out of it. Good luck on your next endeavor, Angel, and may the next council detail officer be just as chill.

Worcester-Boston Full Service Radio for New England

Bill Shaner can be reached at 508-749-3166 x324 or at wshaner@worcestermag.com. Follow him on Twitter @Bill_Shaner.

DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

9

slants/rants Editorial

A case for Goods for Guns

S

ome say it is a valiant effort aimed at trying to save lives. Others claim it is nothing more than a feel-good measure with no discernible impact.

This space says the annual Goods for Guns Buyback Program in Worcester may never guarantee an end to gun violence – but if it continues to raise awareness, and if it saves even one life, it is an effort worth supporting.

Officials in Worcester this week announced the 16th annual gun buyback program, which will be held Saturday, Dec. 16. Northborough, Shrewsbury, Westborough and Worcester residents can bring guns to the Worcester Police Department, where they can be exchanged for gift cards from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. A rifle or replica gun will get you a $25 gift card, a pistol $50 and semiautomatic weapons $75.

The program has grown to encompass 20 cities and towns in Central Mass. There are also new programs in states throughout New England.

An important part of the program is the acknowledgment of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., which happened Dec. 14, 2012. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the horrific incident that claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 children.

A gun buyback program very likely would not have prevented the Newtown massacre. Opponents of stricter gun control argue there is little tangible benefit in removing firearms from law-abiding owners. In theory, this space agrees.

What gets missed in that discussion, however, are the tragic deaths that take place within families as the result of a child happening upon an unsecured or loaded gun. Also left out of the argument are the weapons stolen during break-ins. How many of those end up being used to carry out another crime? You don’t hear much talk about the guns that get used in domestic violence situations.

The argument over stricter gun laws is, as this space sees it, separate from whether efforts like a gun buyback program are effective. A gun buyback program affords gun owners the opportunity to say, “Hey, you know what? I don’t need this handgun.” Or, “I don’t want to take the chance that my child gets his or her hands on this.”

Or, “What if someone breaks in and takes my gun?”

It’s not a law. You are not required to turn in your gun. But the buyback program is a chance to maybe make your household a little safer. And it has produced results, even if it’s harder to know whether it has prevented crimes. The 2016 program took almost 260 firearms off the streets in one day. In all, since the program started, more than 3,400 guns have been turned into police throughout Central Mass.

There is no way to know whether any of those guns would have ended up being used in a crime, or whether an unsuspecting child may have gotten their hands on it, with deadly consequences.

Statistics, however, show us gun crimes are an epidemic. It is probable than at least one of those guns may well have been used to no good end.

The buyback program is entirely voluntary. No one is coming in and grabbing the gun from your hand – although some worry that is coming soon. Right now, if you are a legal gun owner and you make the choice to give up the weapon, the gun buyback program offers a safe – and potentially life-saving – way to do so.

10

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

commentary | opinions

The Education Beat

South High’s Andy’s Attic makes a difference

John Monfredo

“We must become the change we want to see in the world.”— Mahatma Gandhi

A

s we approach the holiday season, many organizations continue to reach out in an attempt to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate.

Throughout the year, Andy’s Attic is one of the many groups that has made a difference.

This organization is unique, with its home base is at South High School and a coordinator, Christine Foley, who also teaches phys ed. She, along with her band of students, continue their engagement in giving. Last year, more than 1,200 people throughout Worcester County were assisted by this program, yet even though they will be celebrating their fourth year many have not heard of Andy’s Attic.

I recently volunteered on a Saturday and was blown away by the volume of bags being filled by the many volunteers at the site. Requests for assistance came in to help families coming to Worcester from Puerto Rico due to the hurricane, Great Brook Valley, Head Start, various high schools, family partnerships and a host of other organizations seeking clothing. The place was packed with volunteers working to make a difference in the lives of others.

One student, Aidan McLean, said, “Andy’s Attic gives you the good feeling that regular school classes can’t. You always feel good when you walk into the room at Andy’s Attic.”

South High grad Javonataye Randolph, commenting on Andy’s Attic website, said, “Andy’s Attic provided me with the opportunity to give back to my community, as well as allowing me to gain skills and community service hours at the same time. As a high school student, a lot of the time you think about yourself and your own goals, but for some having enough clothes to last a week might be a goal that’s hard to reach, and as a volunteer I think that we do a great job in making that goal reachable for so many families.”

Perhaps Superintendent Maureen Binienda, who was the principal at South High when Andy’s Attic started, summed it up best, saying, “Andy’s Attic adds to the commitment of community at South High School. This community includes the students who volunteer, the dedication of Christine Foley, Andy’s Attic coordinator, the great Worcester clothing donors and volunteers, and the over 1,000 recipients of Andy’s Attic. In Andy’s Attic, we all learn what it means to truly care about a person in need and to take action.”

Andy’s Attic started in 2011 as a result of the tragic death of Andrew Reese, a junior at Shrewsbury High

School. He was 18 and was killed in a car accident.

Andrew’s parents, Lisa and Darrell Reese, decided to start Andy’s Attic as a clothing pantry at their house as a way of honoring their son’s memory.

Then-principal Binienda, hearing about Andy’s Attic, asked whether anyone was interested in volunteering in Shrewsbury and Foley stepped up. In a short period of time, she brought more than 200 bags of clothing to South High to assist her own students in need. As Foley admits, she loved seeing the grateful smiles on the faces of her students after trying on the clothes.

In spring 2013, the Reese family moved to Florida and asked Foley whether she would be interested in continuing the nonprofit business. Foley called Binienda, whose reaction was, “Bring it to South High.” The move started that summer. To this day, Foley believes Andy’s Attic was meant to be at South High, where there was a huge room with shelving ready to be used. All that had to be done was clean it up, add the clothing and the shoes to the shelves, and it looked like a department store.

The doors opened for business on Oct. 31, 2013.

Binienda used this community service opportunity and offered a course in marketing with full credit for the students. Students learned what a 501 (c)(3) is and what goes into running a business. Board members were created and performed all tasks of a nonprofit. The class created documents, tracked financial information, did marketing on social media and designed their own web site. In addition, they invited community members to talk about their passion for and interest in nonprofits. The marketing course has welcomed speakers from United Way, Big Brother Big Sister, Worcester Animal Rescue League and Project New Hope, to name a few, who spoke to the students about their organization and their zeal to assist others. The marketing classes have been expanded to allow students to sign up for Marketing I and II. Next year, Marketing III will be tied into Worcester State University with college credit.

It’s impossible to talk about the success of Andy’s Attic without mentioning the enthusiasm exhibited by Foley.

This is an individual who truly loves her work. She has said that, when she turns on the light to Andy’s Attic, she can feel the love of the organization. Not only does Foley assist students in giving back and having them find their power by helping others, she gives so much of her time on Saturday’s and after school to make this project work.

One of the volunteers, Jane Grady, a former teacher, said, “Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to be part of Andy’s Attic and have watched it develop and grow, and I’m especially impressed by Chris Foley for her leadership and dedication to this project.” continued on next page

TJ Maxx is one of the largest donors to Andy’s Attic, each year donating 2,000 bags that are used to pack clothing and send out to the families. Last year, Andy’s Attic also received a large donation of $10,000 from Window of Giving. Most of that money was spent on new socks and underwear for the families.

The organization can always use monetary donations to buy much-needed clothing, and they need new or gently-used clothing throughout the year. In addition, consider volunteering on a Saturday morning, 9 am. to 12 p.m. The next Saturday to volunteer is Dec. 16. For more information, find Andy’s Attic on Facebook, visit andysattic.org or email foleyc@worc.k12.ma.us.

Thank you Christine Foley and the South High students involved in Andy’s Attic for making a difference in this community and teaching all of us about the importance of giving of oneself.

{slants/rants}

By Elizabeth Brooks

EDUCATION BEAT continued from page 10

1,001 words

commentary | opinions

John Monfredo is a retired school principal and current member of the Worcester School Committee

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{slants/rants}

commentary | opinions

That’s What They Said

“They welcome you with open arms. They let you know they’re here for you. That’s basically what a lot of homeless people look for, is to fill that empty void in their lives. That’s what I was searching for, and I found it through them.”

- Edeit Montalvo, formerly homeless, on Grace Hotel, where he volunteers.

“When the state seeks to initiate further discussions with us, these new suggestions and revisions will receive our prompt attention, but at first blush, some of these suggestions give us concern.”

- Pawtucket Red Sox, in a statement released on the heels of a revised bill in the Rhode Island Senate related to a proposed new ballpark there.

“Right now we classify it as a suspicious death. Until we have more information, we’re not going to call it a homicide.”

- Worcester Police Lt. Sean Murtha, speaking to reporters earlier this week after a body was reportedly found in the trunk of a burning car in Hope Cemetery.

Letter

itor d E e h to t

Takes issue with group’s endorsements To the editor: I read in the Worcester Magazine issue of Nov. 30 that Virginia Ryan, speaking for the retired teachers’ group of Worcester, found fault with Councilor Konnie Lukes (“This should be Councilor Lukes’ ‘last hurrah.’”) I could not find a web presence for the group, so I sent Ms. Ryan a message via Facebook but have not yet heard back.

I strongly disagree with Ms. Ryan. I noticed her group did not endorse either Lukes or Councilor Kate Toomey, both of whom are excellent councilors. Further, Toomey was the second-highest vote-getter in the recent election of the city councilors.

Lukes will do what is ethical and good for the city and she does not care about trying to be popular. Toomey goes out of her way to help as many people as possible and is greatly admired.

I am disturbed by the fact that Ms. Ryan’s group did not endorse either of these councilors, since they are well-known, respected, hard-working and far above some of the councilors Ms. Ryan’s group did endorse. I wonder if there is any chance Ms. Ryan and the retired group have an issue with women in power? I mean no disrespect to either City Manager Ed Augustus Jr. or Mayor Joe Petty, who also are excellent and who were praised by Ryan’s group.

BO BBIE C HASE Worcester

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the editor are a great way to share your thoughts and opinions with thousands of readers and online viewers each week. There is no word limit, but we reserve the right to edit for length. Write legibly - if we cannot read it, we are not running it. Personal attacks and insults don’t fly with us. A full name and town or city of residence are required. Please include an email address or phone number for verification purposes only. That information will not be published. Please note that letters will run as space allows. Send them to Worcester Magazine, 72 Shrewsbury St., Worcester, MA 01604 or by email to editor@worcestermag.com.

12

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

{ coverstory }

ELIZABETH BROOKS

For homeless, a saving grace Bill Shaner

Lonnie Magness beams after hearing his lost belongings are safely in storage.

Richie Gonzalez is a busy man.

On a recent morning, he’d come straight off the overnight plane from Puerto Rico to St. John’s on Temple Street, where he helped break down and clean up the basement that houses the Grace Hotel. Standing beside a white box truck, he was preparing to drive to Hartford, Conn. to pick up more supplies for the Grace Hotel, a do-it-yourself emergency homeless shelter he and two other faith leaders launched last year. continued on page 14 DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

13

{ coverstory }

ELIZABETH BROOKS

continued from page 13

He wore a tan Carhartt jacket, a brown flat cap and a two-ear bluetooth headset that wrapped around the back of his head, a necessity, no doubt, given the amount of organizing the Grace Hotel requires. He flipped through his phone, showing pictures from the Puerto Rico trip – the houses he helped clean up with a team of 11 volunteers and the people there – until he scrolled to a picture of a white-brick, abandoned mental hospital. The windows were blown out and the white paint had hues of faded yellow. He then swiped to a picture of a stairwell inside.

That, he said, is where he used to sleep. He went back there over the weekend, with his wife, to remind himself how far he’d come.

“Going back there now, to that place,” Gonzalez said, “I was broken. I was broken in every sense – spiritually, mentally, physically.”

Gonzalez spent about 26 years, starting when his mother abandoned him when he was 7 years old, in and out of homelessness, jail and addiction. He lived a hard life, here and in Puerto Rico. He recounted the utter desperation he felt, the hopelessness. He recounted winter nights spent sleeping under a Great Brook Valley bus shelter.

Now a Pentecostal minister, he does everything he can to help the down-and-out in Worcester. Talk to anyone involved in helping the homeless, either in the nonprofit sector,

14

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

James Adkins (right) and Alfred Berry, friends and workmates praise the treatment they receive at Grace Hotel. city government, or among faith leaders — Gonzalez is the man most often credited with addressing the problem.

“The main purpose of it is hope. It’s hope.

It’s about hope,” he said.

The tempo of his speech increased as he riffed on the idea; his passion for the work was evident. Snow fell and collected on his cap as he spoke.

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

“I think myself, I spent 26 years of my life in and out of addiction, in and out of homelessness, in and out of prison,” Gonzalez said.

“And there were services. There were people that were trying to get me out of the mud I was in. But you want to know what held me there? Hopelessness. I didn’t have hope that I could make it.

“The first step to address the situation is to

provide the hope.”

His crowning jewel of hope – the height of compassion – is the Grace Hotel, which isn’t really a hotel so much as it is a basement room full of cots, tables and chairs. There, at St. John’s, Gonzalez and a host of volunteers work to house the city’s homeless population on the most bitterly cold nights of the year.

Last year, the Grace Hotel was open 45 nights. They opened for the worst conditions, at 20 degrees or colder. This year, they’ve set an ambitious new goal, opening every night the temperature falls below 32 degrees. They expect to hit around 100 nights.

This past weekend saw the first substantial bout of wintry weather, and the shelter was open Thursday through Sunday, at or around full capacity, which is 50.

At a time when homelessness is generally on the rise in the city and around the country, the Grace Hotel provides a vital function. With the city home to only a triage homeless shelter with a capacity of 25, and a select group of nonprofit companies that take the homeless in at night, there are those that would otherwise be left stranded, either sleeping in the cold, trespassing or burdening family or friends they would rather not.

But everyone involved will say the Grace Hotel, noble as it is, is a band-aid. It does not directly address the root problem, though it does help people lift themselves.

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{ coverstory }

ELIZABETH BROOKS

rated into two rooms: one for men, one for women. Patrons are mostly men, and thus they occupy the main room, which is otherwise used for church functions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The women occupy an alternate row of pews in the basement.

There were statues of Mary, Joseph and others lining the walls. A cardboard poster of the Beatitudes hung from a wall adjacent a folding table lined with coffee thermoses and donuts. It read: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

As Gonzalez and other volunteers work to care for the homeless, city officials are launching a campaign to address that root problem. The goal is to bring the city’s chronic homeless population to an effective zero.

This week, the city manager held a meeting of the minds in his office, creating a task force to form a housing plan.

In 2011, the city had declared that chronic homelessness was effectively over upon the closure of the PIP Shelter. But the program that addressed it has since fallen apart and numbers are on the rise.

To look inside the Grace Hotel, to volunteer or stay there, is to see the human face of the problem, to see that the people often vilified as human blight are just hard up, looking for a lucky break, a safety net, and a little bit of hope.

IT’S A COLD ONE OUT THERE

Mary Leary preps the coffee machine in the St. John’s kitchen prior to the It was 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night and the Grace Hotel was doors of Grace Hotel opening. almost open for business. The laid out with cots of all differ- lows. There were camouflage basement of St. John’s was ent colors, blankets and pilcots, blue cots, red cots, sepa-

The dozen or so volunteers had just about finished everything they needed to do to open the shop. They mulled around, searching for tasks they forgot. “Oh, you know what we could start doing?” said one volunteer. “Making coffee.” A man mopping the floors blared religious-sounding music in Spanish from a

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At a folding table by the entrance to the hotel, Bob Fairbrother and Edeit Montalvo set up the check in equipment, which consisted of several clipboards, two metal detectors, a sharps container, pens and highlighters.

Guests belongings are secured by volunteers in a locked room by the entrance and they’re given a bracelet, much like one you’d receive at a nightclub. The baggage is checked and annotated on a clipboard. This solves a lot of disputes and questions of theft.

The volunteers work shifts. The bulk of them work 5-11 p.m., helping to set up and manage the food and the smoke breaks and finding beds for the people who come in.

Others work the overnight, 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., and others still work the morning, 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. Rev. Aaron Payson, one of three faith leaders alongside Gonzalez and Fr. John Madden of St. John’s, shores up the morning shift and takes care of the laundry.

Fairbrother is one of the longest-running volunteers at the hotel, and he’s become something of an operations manager. Wearing a puffy blue jacket, a deep v-neck t-shirt and sporting black nail polish on just one finger, Fairbrother said the compassion at the hotel cuts both ways.

“What (Gonzalez) taught me is, it’s not about serving them from a ‘we can help you’

standpoint, it’s about ‘how can your experiences help me?’ And that’s what happens every night,” he said.

With a chuckle, he likened the nights to group therapy, and added that many of the volunteers, himself included, have had some sort of struggle, be it with addiction or homelessness.

It was about 32 degrees as of 7 p.m. or so, and was expected to get colder. There were pizza boxes in a small kitchen adjacent to the room and coffee on the pot as volunteers carried more food in.

Two volunteers, a man and a woman, wearing thick black gloves, patted down the homeless as they walked in, mostly in search of alcohol, but also watching for needles and other drugs. They were passed over with metal detectors wands. Fairbrother likened the process to exactly the one used by the TSA at airports, with a little laugh.

As one volunteer pats a man down, he apologizes, saying, “Sorry, have to do that.”

The man responds: “You kidding me? I don’t care. I have somewhere to sleep. I’m not fucking it up.”

There’s a space heater on a gray folding chair blowing at full capacity below the Beatitudes poster.

As they filed in slowly, one by one, some went up to the volunteers and shook their

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hands, catching up since the last time they stayed. Tables in the middle of the room divided the rows of cots. Each had about five or six chairs. As the homeless patrons came in, they gathered there over coffee, warming up as they caught up with friends and acquaintances, both among the corps of volunteers and the other patrons of the hotel.

Still others headed right for the beds. A man in an electronic wheelchair was out of it and onto his cot within minutes of entering the shelter, his coat, hat and pants still on, a heavy gray blanket pulled up to his knees.

As more patrons headed in, they ambled over to big thermostats of coffee, jugs of water, and donuts. A volunteer pointed people to their beds. There was some mild confusion over a wheelchair and a woman complained loudly. But otherwise, the atmosphere was calm and quiet, the patrons spoke softly to one another, and the volunteers bustled around making sure the check-in process went smoothly.

It was pizza for dinner that night – cheap and easy, and certainly a crowd-pleaser.

Several big sheet pizzas from the Big Y in the kitchen were brought out one by one as the people formed a line.

By pizza time, the Grace Hotel was at full capacity. People were sitting on their cots, on tables and on folding chairs. It was quiet mostly, except for Rhodney Dover, a gregari-

ous recurring character in a blue sweatsuit who seemed to know the name of every volunteer, and something about them. To him, the Grace Hotel is about as good as temporary shelter gets.

“Off the hook. I think it’s awesome,” he said of the hotel.

“People here, they treat you a lot better than they do at Queen Street,” he said, using the nickname for the triage homeless shelter run by the South Middlesex Opportunity Council. “And good food, too. These ladies, they put their foot in it.”

A few of the men look so despondent they were best not approached. Others had warm, inviting faces, and seemed to enjoy the conversation. A lot of the men and women were wearing bracelets besides the ones the Hotel Grace handed out, big yellow plastic ones, indicating some kind of treatment center or hospital.

A patron in line for food talked about Madden, who milled around the space, helping volunteers and catching up with guests.

“I was going to the back of the line and this guy remembered my name,” he told a friend.

“Who?” “The priest!”

As they gathered and ate, volunteers walked briskly through with huge garbage bags filled with donated items. The rumor

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began spreading that there might be boots in the bag, which caused a ripple of gossip and excitement.

Eventually, a woman had people line up, calling out jacket and boot sizes, having them come to the fore.

James Adkins and Alfred Bradley hung together in the middle of the room. Like a fair amount of the city’s homeless, they stick to the woods, and they avoid the Queen Street triage shelter at all costs. They seemed to be good friends, and they joked around with each other and the other guests.

“We wouldn’t have nothing to do tonight if it weren’t for this,” said Adkins.

Given that so many of the homeless (and a fair amount of the volunteers) are smokers, the group allows two smoke breaks a night before lights out at 10:30.

Fairbrother, with some chagrin, announced that smoke break would be delayed that evening on account of it being a full house.

The volunteers had everyone go to their cots for a head count. As the men and women filed to their beds, a mild dispute broke out between two men who said they were both assigned the same cot. The dispute was broken up with little incident. Many of the men said behavior is so good at the Grace Hotel compared to other places for a number of reasons – it’s a place of God and there’s a zero tolerance policy. Get kicked out once, you don’t come back. Lights out at 10:30 means lights out.

Edeit Montalvo is one of the volunteers who often stays overnight with the patrons, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. He was a patron last year.

Wearing a gray sweatshirt and with lines in his face deep as the hardship he’d been through, Montalvo recounted his experience last year, coming back from Puerto Rico in October and ending up homeless, sleeping outside until the Grace Hotel opened in December. Now on his feet and with a roof over his head, he does everything he can to help people in the position he was last year.

“They welcome you with open arms,” he said of Grace Hotel. “They let you know they’re here for you. That’s basically what a lot of homeless people look for, is to fill that empty void in their lives.

“That’s what I was searching for, and I found it through them,” he added, choking back tears.

The nightly ritual is one that’s become familiar to Madden. Through the check-in and the dinner and the headcount, he was there, speaking with guests and volunteers, wearing his clergy collar on top of a gray, black and white argyle sweater. When asked how he felt about the Grace Hotel, he was modest.

“There are other people you want to speak to,” he said. But with some prodding, he commented on the operation, which, after all, goes on nightly in the basement of his church. He said he’s happy to help in any way he can, but wishes he didn’t have to.

“This is a band-aid, and we’re certainly happy to do it and graced by doing it,” Mad-

den said, “but it also made us think, ‘What more can we do?’ The goal is that we go out of business, that we’re no longer needed.

Until then, we’ll try to help, try to help people access these services and jump through the hoops and climb the fences that they have to in order to get housed and get well.”

A full-time day center for the homeless, which in turn can act as an overflow shelter on cold nights, is the ultimate goal, he said.

HOUSING FIRST

more housing stock. The guiding set of policies is often called “housing first,” which calls for investments in rehousing above triage housing.

“Housing is the solution to homelessness.

It may sound simplistic and obvious but it’s more complex than that,” said Culhane.

“Where it’s been done, and it’s been done here in the city of Worcester, the successes can be quite resounding.”

{ coverstory }

homelessness has been increasing, but that the back door is stalled,” he said. “We’re not moving people out to housing appropriately.

And they’re tying up most of the beds and the available resources.”

To get there, officials will need to coordinate with a myriad of different institutions: MassHealth, landlords, nonprofits, hospitals, grant-funding agencies.

“It’s beyond complicated,” said Augustus.

ELIZABETH BROOKS

By the numbers, the homeless population in Worcester is estimated to be about 1,111, according to a city study published earlier this month.

But that number is always in flux as people fall in and out of homelessness. Of that number, only a small percent are deemed unsheltered; 96 people are thought to be living outside. Of those, city officials estimate about 70 fall into the category of chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been homeless for more than a year or for long stretches over a few years. Of the 1,111, 392 are adults without children, 207 are families and 37 are unaccompanied youth, ages 18 to 24. One hundred fifteen are veterans.

This year is the third of marked increase in the city’s homeless population, especially those defined as unsheltered, according to the report. The increase is due in part to the limited inventory of safe and affordable single rooms, as well as an increase in opioid use and addiction, insufficient healthcare access and a lack of wraparound services.

For Mattie Castiel, Worcester’s director of health and human services, the Grace Hotel is indicative of the rise.

“How do we meet those gaps that are happening in the city with actual treatment and housing? There’s a huge gap that’s happening with that right now,” she said.

Castiel was one of several sitting in on a meeting in City Manager Ed Augustus Jr. office earlier this week. Joining them were other city officials, as well as Jan Yost of the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, Dennis Culhane, a renowned professor on homelessness at the University of Pennsylvania and Joe Finn, president and executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.

The meeting was held to launch a planning initiative for addressing chronic homelessness that includes better wrap-around services and

Rows of cots in the basement of St. John’s.

Indeed, Worcester adopted a set of housing first policies in 2007 that ultimately led to the closing of the PIP shelter, where some people had been staying for upward of a decade, and getting all the chronically homeless into housing.

It worked, by and large, and the city declared chronic homelessness dead in 2011.

But soon after, grant funding that paid for counselors to work with the homeless dried up and the system started to fall apart.

“When it went away the system kind of atrophied,” said Augustus.

Now, according to Finn, people fall into homelessness and have a harder time getting out. What he calls the “back door” out of homelessness has collapsed.

“It’s not necessarily that the amount of

But working toward a housing first set of policies, where each homeless person is given shelter and a caseworker, is drastically better to permanent shelter housing, Augustus said.

There were people living in the PIP shelter for 10-12 years, and some took upward of 100 emergency room trips a year.

“You add up how much it costs to keep someone in that bed, and then deliver them off an ambulance ride or police cruiser ride 100 times a year, you could purchase that person a home. You think about how irrational that system is,” the city manager said. “The system was designed basically to keep these people in these conditions.”

The first order of business, he said, is identifying just who the chronically homeless are and working with them to get them on

DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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MassHealth and working with a councilor.

The funding isn’t there yet, but Yost is optimistic the city can make it happen.

“It’s a doable number,” she said.

{ coverstory }

ELIZABETH BROOKS

to have had them returned. This was his first time staying at the Grace Hotel, and had he not, it’s unsure whether he would have ever linked up with the woman from SMOC. “It was cool. It was so cool that they had it,” he said. “I figured I’d have no clothes now, nothing.”

Taking the moment to talk about himself, he showed us his heavily tattooed back. He pointed to a blank spot, and said his next piece will be a ghost ship called Man’s Ruin, meant to symbolize a letting-go of the parts of his life that dragged him down.

“It’s man’s ruin,” Magness said. “Everything that ruins a man’s life, the drugs, alcohol — like broken bottles, it all gets tossed overboard and lands on the bottom of the ocean.”

LOST AND FOUND

Back at the Grace Hotel, one interaction demonstrated the value of bringing homeless people into places where they connect with services.

In line for a coat and a pair of boots, Lonnie Magness, a tall middle-aged man, heavily tattooed and grimacing, shuffled forward with a pronounced limp to his step. When he got to the front of the line, a woman from SMOC approached him.

She said the DPW found and confiscated his tent, but it would be held in storage for 30 days. She told Magness to give her a call so he could go get it, and they’d figure out a way to get him into a house or, if not a house, a different, safer place to set up his tent.

“They got my stuff? That’s great, man,” he said.

His face, once grimacing, turned to a wide smile. Later, at his bunk, he said he had been in the hospital for 10 days, suffering from a

If you want to donate to or volunteer at the Grace Hotel, reach Pastor Richie Gonzalez at 774-578-1128 or at netofcompassion.org Bill Shaner can be reached at 508-7493166 x324 or at wshaner@worcestermag.com.

Follow him on Twitter @Bill_Shaner.

Richie Gonzalez

stroke. During those 10 days, at some point, the DPW must have taken the tent. In the

tent was a suitcase full of his now-deceased grandmother’s valuables. He was overjoyed

DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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art | dining | nightlife | December 14 - 20, 2017

&

“The Day We Lost Pet” A child’s understanding of life and death

Young can be irreverent, but “The Day We Lost Pet” is a beautiful story and it’s brilliantly illustrated by Sobieski.

It started with the death of a “I started thinking about relationships a daughter’s hermit crab, but it while later,” he said, “and I thought, maybe a ended with a children’s book about children’s book about death as actually sort of a life and death – a topic not offart allegory could be good. It wouldn’t get into religion, maybe it was science-based. I shelved ten tackled with youth in mind.

But the path to “The Day We Lost that, but started thinking about relationships. me, you’re you and then there’s us and Pet,” by Chuck Young and Aniela I’m that’s somewhere in here.

Sobieski, was a winding one that “It’s a swirl of stuff. That’s how I was thinkcouldn’t avoid farts as a metaphor ing about it, family-wise. We’re the space in the on life, physicists at funerals, God middle and we’re trying to be our best selves.

This space is sort of holy. You sort of inhale inflating empty skin, or the odd that space and spit that space out.” disappearance of an illustrator.

Young was seated in the conference room “In 2012, I had the idea for a three-panel of the office building he works in. The buildcomic,” said Young. “It was me on the ground ing itself is built atop a man-made peninsula as a pile of skin, and then God takes me and reaching into the Atlantic Ocean as one of the blows me up. He farts into me and I become a furthest-east points in Boston. The room was person.”

While God farts may seem like a long-shot as jarringly white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, a concept for a children’s book, the idea swirled the door, the table – all is a bright white.

Young, in a pale pink sweater and blue and around Young’s mind, manifesting itself in a white jeans with scraggly black beard and single father’s explanation of death sometime emotive hands was a splash of color and as he later.

“A couple months later, my daughter’s hermit looked to the massive ships docked just outside his window. It was not hard to imagine new crab died,” he said. “Because I had that idea ideas flashing behind his eyes. Usually, he said, – she’s 7 and fart jokes are a way to interact, his stories start with a simple metaphor; the especially when they’re bummed out – I said, beginning, middle and end come later.

‘You know what, we’re filled with energy and “We were just two balloon people in love the only thing that happened was she was ready then,” he said. “Okay, that’s a start. There’s two to fart all her energy out and you’ll smell a crab people that meet that breach each other and fart now and again and you’ll know she’s still realize that’s sort of a holy space. That middle, around.’ The more I thought about it, there was that could float away. We’re balloons, let’s find something beautiful about that.”

Joshua Lyford

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night day &

a container and put that into the space. That becomes their baby. They’re a family. That was a way to get a genderless procreation and love in there.”

The young balloon family decides to get a pet at the local carnival.

“The pet starts deflating,” Young said. “It was different technology, it came out of a tank and it starts deflating. Being a family, the parents go off to figure that out on their own.

I’m divorced, there’s divorce stuff in there. We’re only as good as what we know. One balloon person is a scientist, the other is a florist. The idea is light and air and they separate and one goes to a lab and one goes to the forest. How do we save this pet? But the air runs out. Now what?”

With the story written and two balloon parents and their balloon baby now understanding what losing their pet means, it was time for young and Penny Candy Books, the children’s book publishing house, to find an illustrator. Young had an illustrator friend in mind, but the publishing house suggested someone else.

“Last summer, she went into the woods to work and never came back,” said Young. “I think she’s still alive.”

Young thought this meant the story was dead, but Penny Candy Books had other ideas and they were fond of Sobieski’s illustrations.

“The press doesn’t want to pander, they understand that kids can understand,” he

said. “They want to show that kids are no joke, their brains can absorb different materials. You don’t have to talk down to them, you can give them big ideas.”

Those concepts manifest themselves in a beautiful, if tragic, discussion on love and loss, life and death.

“Death can be empowering in a way,” said Young. “I think that was important. That’s almost the only way we can cherish time, knowing that it ends. If it’s just infinity you’ll waste it. These balloon people in love, they never had to think of something ending.

That’s ultimately why we create baby. They noticed they were deflating for the first time.

But this thing here, our air, how do we keep that from going away?”

You can pick up a copy of Chuck Young and Aniela Sobieski’s children’s book, “The Day We Lost Pet,” online at Pennycandybooks. com, Amazon.com or by requesting a copy at your local bookstore.

Reporter Joshua Lyford can be reached at 508-749-3166, ext. 325, or by email at Jlyford@worcestermagazine.com. Follow Josh on Twitter @Joshachusetts and on Instagram @Joshualyford.

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night day &

{ arts }

EcoTarium bids farewell to president Joe Cox

ELIZABETH BROOKS

Joshua Lyford

Since being named president of the EcoTarium in October 2012, Joe Cox has overseen a number of exciting programs, from new train cars for the Explorer Express train in partnership with the Worcester Railers Hockey Club to the Nature Explore Playground inspiring a new generation of amateur engineers. With the recent announcement that Cox has accepted a new position as president and CEO of Fort Lauderdale’s Museum of Discovery and Science, the work ethic Worcester has seen for the last half-decade will be applied in new ways – their otters better enjoy their time off while they can.

“It’s not dissimilar to the EcoTarium in a lot of ways,” Cox said of his new gig over a warm beverage at Franklin Street’s Brew on the Grid. “They even have otters.”

Slydell and Daisy, the museum’s two River Otters are a popular sight at the EcoTarium, and certainly a must-see for its record-setting 127,000 visitors last year.

“I think I will miss the otters the most,” Cox said in his trademark suit, this iteration being soft grey with a green bow tie. “The otters we have right now … Daisy is the younger of the two and she’s just the sweetest thing. She follows him around, I guess like an otter, but like a puppy dog. I have otters at my new place too.”

Cox didn’t shy away from a challenge or new ideas during his time as president of the EcoTarium, which comes to a close Jan. 26. He has a Feb. 1 start date in Fort Lauderdale. While Slydell and Daisy probably didn’t capture much of the $8.35 million earned toward the museum’s ongoing $8.8-million capital campaign — that Cox hopes to complete before his departure — they did as much work as two tiny adorable otters could.

“What my otters in Fort Lauderdale don’t know is that the otters at the EcoTarium, along with a lot of the animals, have, as part of their enrichment program, learned how to do painting and they’ve been painting. We have animal artwork for sale in the museum shop. The otters in Fort Lauderdale may have been living an easy life, but they’re going to start earning their keep,” he said with a smile.

Cox has a long history with museums in Florida. Before accepting the position as president of the EcoTarium in 2012, he began as a senior naturalist at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in 1996 before becoming the Nature Center director in 2000. In 2004, he became the executive director of the Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples. During that time, he oversaw the planning, construction and development of the $25 million, 30,000-square-foot museum. He stayed in Naples nearly eight years before coming to Worcester.

“When you look at being a museum director and why you do it, it’s about wanting to have an impact and wanting to make a difference,” Cox said. “That’s always been why I do what I do. Every kid that comes through, that two hours you

Joe Cox

have a kid in museum, you think back to when you were a kid on a field trip. As important as it is, you may not remember Tuesday morning math class in sixth grade, but you probably remember going on a field trip, and what you saw and who you sat next to on the bus, and what you talked about. We have that very magical window to become part of someone’s memory.”

Cox said Worcester quickly became much more than where he worked - it became his home, and that was evident in the boards he worked on, including Discover Central Massachusetts, the Worcester Cultural Coalition as well as POW! WOW! Worcester. On the EcoTarium end, Cox is proud of the exhibits they showcased, but also some programs like the one developed to allow Worcester EBT card holders reduced admission to city museums and the development of a state-of-the-art green power system that, long-term, will save the museum money to be used on even more programs.

One thing Cox won’t soon forget about Worcester is the collaborative nature he found here.

“Worcester is perhaps the most genuinely collaborative community I have ever lived in,” he said. “I’ve lived in some amazingly generous places, some good places, but there’s something about Worcester. People are just willing to pitch in and work together on projects. That’s in the cultural com-

munity and beyond. I can pick up the phone and call Laurie Leshin at WPI and say, ‘Do you have a spectrometer? I need to test my taxonomy for arsenic and I can’t afford a $25,000 piece of equipment,’ and she’ll say, ‘That’s so cool, that will be a cool project for some students.’ Troy [Siebels] at the Theatre had Dinosaur Train Live at the Hanover Theatre. I called and said, ‘We have dinosaurs and a train, can we put the little TRex on the train?’ People are willing and able to do that.”

Still, it will be the daffodils planted the year he arrived that may harken Cox back, if only temporarily.

“We planted about 900 daffodils my first year here and one of my favorite things every year is that first time you see the daffodils start poking up,” he said. “In Florida, you only know it’s spring because they start selling potted daffodils in grocery stores. I may be back in the spring.”

For more information on the EcoTarium, head to ecotarium. org. If you find yourself in South Florida looking for a science museum, look up the Museum of Discovery and Science online at Mods.org.

Reporter Joshua Lyford can be reached at 508-749-3166, ext. 325, or by email at Jlyford@worcestermagazine.com.

Follow Josh on Twitter @Joshachusetts and on Instagram @Joshualyford.

DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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{ film }

The best worst disaster “The Disaster Artist,” clearly has affection for his subject. His Tommy is an egotistical buffoon, but lovably clueless, too. Franco If Tommy Wiseau didn’t exist, takes a gentle hand to Tommy’s shortcomings, someone would have to invent wringing laughs from his hilariously-bungled him just to make it easier for line readings while depicting the earnestness us to accept our inadequacies. behind the lunacy. The bromance between Tommy and Greg comes off as weirdly No matter how incapable or touching, especially in a scene in which Greg untalented you may be feeling, his mysterious business partner you can always point a thumb at demands reveal his nationality, the source of his Tommy and say, “But at least I’m wealth, and his age. not that guy.”

Watching recreations of “The Room’s” Those unfamiliar with the legend of Tommy filming is pure joy for any fan of bad cinema.

Wiseau need only go on YouTube and watch This truly was a misguided enterprise, given clips from the 2003 movie, “The Room,” the lack of talent that went into it, yet at which for a younger generation has eclipsed “Plan 9 From Outer Space” as the consensus choice for The Worst Movie Ever Made. Tommy was the film’s financier, writer, director and star, delivering a performance so thunderously awful it collapsed on itself like a black hole only to be reborn as a supernova. “The Room” became a cult hit — an act of unintentional mirth — and Tommy now has James Franco playing him in a movie about the making of his movie. Does life get any better?

“The Disaster Artist” is an entertaining recreation of the origins of “The Room,” beginning with the unlikely meeting of Tommy and Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) in a San Francisco acting class. Both are terrible on stage, though only Greg knows it. Tommy speaks with an undecipherable accent that sounds part Eastern European immigrant, part 90210 cheerleader (Franco, sporting some prosthetic strangeness on his face, still is more movie-starish than the real-life Tommy, who looks like the love child of Gene Simmons and Harvey Keitel). He also believes he’s the next Brando, so during class he rolls on the end of the process Wiseau and Sestero the floor bellowing “Stella!” The self-delusion had — a movie. You’ll want to stay for the is transcendent. end credits, where a split screen shows actual Tommy and Greg move to L.A. together, scenes from “The Room” juxtaposed with where, unable to break into the business the Franco’s recreations. The similarities are (Tommy catastrophically “auditions” for uncanny.

Judd Apatow in a restaurant), they decide “The Room” reportedly cost $6 million to to make their own movie. Tommy puts up make, and earned back $1,800 in its initial the money, hires the cast and crew (led by theatrical run (Tommy paid for the film to script supervisor Seth Rogen), and then the play for two weeks in L.A. to be eligible disaster unfolds — the production suffers for Oscar consideration. Of course he did.). one misstep after another, most of them the The movie’s newfound status as a cultural result of Tommy’s erratic behavior. He’s such touchstone may have brought it into the a tyrant on set, the frustrated crew members black, though who’s to say? Everything about stop trying to convince him he’s steering the Tommy is fluid, even success. Like notorious movie into an iceberg and just hand him the director Ed “Plan 9” Wood before him, he wheel. may have found the enduring brilliance in Franco, who also wrote and directed historic badness.

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Mare e Monti FOOD HHHH AMBIENCE HHH1/2

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{ dining}

SERVICE HHH VALUE HHHH

19 Wall St., Worcester • 508-767-1800 • mareemontitrattoria.com

Mare e Monti shares its family secrets Sandra Rain

Mare e Monti on Wall Street is the sort of Italian spot where you can tackle a bowl of housemade pappardelle for 30 minutes before making a recognizable dent.

Food should never be work and this hardly feels laborious; if anything, the pappardelle at Mare e Monti is a labor of love. With grand portions, sweeping velvet curtains and titillating candle light, the romance of the dining room is inescapable. Mare e Monti is the right spot to fumble through your first date just as much as it is the right spot to

pop the question, (though I don’t suggest doing both on the same occasion.)

Hamilton Street may be the closest thing Worcester has to its own Little Italy. In the expanse of one square mile, no less than three terrific Italian joints have born new identity to a neighborhood historically overlooked by diners. Mare e Monti is the most elegant of the three, if you’ll be so kind as to forgive the loud neon lights at the bar.

Service isn’t exactly polished, but you get the sense your servers could very well be the great grandchildren of the figures who appear in black and white portraits on the brick walls. Wine service is particularly spotty, yet sort of darling in its own right. You’ll be expected to refill your own glass, or better yet let your date do the honors. And asking for suggestions from the wine list won’t get you very far with freshmen wait staff, but if you look overly curious, an owner or manager will likely swoop in to offer up seasoned expertise.

Order a bottle of the Ruffiono Chianti Superiore ($32) for a medium-bodied red with lingering tannins. A slight pepper note affords it the perfect pair for the vitello alla parmigiana ($22). The dish marries Italian herb-breaded Provimi veal, pan-fried in extra

The caprese salad virgin olive oil with a bright pomodoro sauce topped with romano and mozzarella. Provimi’s emphasis on animal nutrition ostensibly results in pale, tender cuts of meat, though a quick Google will reveal an onslaught of

objections to some of Provimi’s practices.

Winter is not the time to order a caprese ($12) and although the mozzarella is clean and supple, the tomatoes and basil are a continued on page 32

HOLIDAYS! FRIENDS! FAMILY! Bring them to our house!

Happy Holidays!

Give the Gift that's Always in Good Taste!

Receive a $20 Bonus Card for each $100 Gift Card purchased during the holiday season Lock 50 • 50 Water Street • Worcester, MA • Lock50.com • (508) 379-3400

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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

On the corner of 120 June St. and Chandler B.Y.O.B For reservations, call 508-756-2707 Gift certificates available

krave Altea: For Any Occasion, Any Day of the Week ...

night day &

{ dining}

Bite Sized:

Leisure, Libations, and Local Fare Sarah Connell

FOR THE COUCH POTATO

Foodler may have made its graceful exit when it was purchased by GrubHub in June, but the minds behind FoodSquire are waiting in the wings. Founder Joe Capone has spent the

less. FoodSquire will begin Worcesterarea deliveries on Jan. 10. The company has promised lower fees than their big name competitors as well as unparalleled direct communication to developers and administrators who are on hand to enhance the experience from every angle. Give a token of convenience to a loved one who likes dining-in by purchasing a gift card at www.foodsquire.com in preparation for the company’s impending kick-off next month.

FOR THE MORNING PERSON While we were sad to hear the news that our favorite specialty coffee curator - Lauren

SARAH CONNELL

G From left to right, Scott McDonnell, Rob Simon and Joe Capone will launch FoodSquire at Worcester area restaurants Jan. 10

last two years perfecting a food ordering and delivery app which offers new levels of control and convenience for customers, drivers and merchants alike. The service’s average delivery time is 36 minutes or

Evangelous of Revelry Coffee - is headed home

to California come spring, there’s still hope on the horizon. A group of recent Holy Cross alumni have just launched Magdalena, a craft

continued on page 32

TE A C !

FI LE I RTLAB E C AI T IF AV

S

After-Hour Events • Holiday Parties Birthdays • Fund Raisers Showers • Rehearsal Dinners Full Bar Function Menu Choices Can accommodate seating 100 people or standing 80 people

7 DAYS 7AM-3PM 259 PARK AVE. WORCESTER 508.767.1639

CATERING • GIFT CARDS • VOTED BEST SPORTS BAR! Christmas Party!

Friday, Dec. 22 3pm-Close • Free Food

50¢ Wings All Day Saturday & Sunday

112 Green St., Worcester • 508-755-0879 • thebannerbar.com DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

31

Holiday Catering and Gift Cards Available

294 Hamilton St., Worcester 508-797-3354 lacucinaworcester.com

Since

SERVING YOU 1975

“Where Good Friends Meet for Food and Drink�

Wexford House RESTAURANT Great Burgers • “El saladâ€? with Shrimp or Chicken Lobster, Scallop or Clam rolls • Soup & Sandwiches Fresh Seafood - Great Steaks - Homemade Italian - Chicken Dishes

FOR THE BON VIVANT

This year’s Feast of the Seven Fishes will take REVIEW continued from page 30

DAILY SPECIALS

Allen’s Specialty –

Nominated for Best Middle Eastern Food

Middle Eastern Food Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11:30am-10:00pmOpen 7 days Located at the corner of Shrewsbury Mon Street- Sat 11am - Close Sunday - Close and Route 9 in Worcester. Ample parking in the10rear.

508-757-8982

Served 10-2

Casual Waterfront Dining

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

dull substitute for glowing summer produce.

You’re better off with an antipasto di casa ($15): an impressive showing of prosciutto di parma, soppressata, fire-roasted red peppers, grilled eggplant, zucchini, fontina, imported olives, marinated button mushrooms, artichoke hearts and pencil-sized Grissini breadsticks. The appetizer can easily feed four and arrives with a basket of bread and olive oil infused with roasted garlic.

You can’t forget the pappardelle alla bolognese ($18). The servers will make sure of that; it’s their top recommendation. Savor the classic bolognese sauce, an even melange of ground beef, veal and pork. San Marzano canned tomatoes offer the distinct sweetness and delicate acidity one desires at a restaurant

place at deadhorse hill during the week leading up to Christmas. Executive Chef Forman and his team have concocted a special multicourse dining experience to showcase fresh seafood including Spinney Creek oysters, bluefin tuna, Maine lobster, unagi, dungeness crab and flounder, among other aquatic treats. Celebrate the holidays by by making a reservation for your favorite gastronome on an evening from Tuesday, Dec. 19 through Christmas Eve Sunday, Dec. 24. The feast costs $65 per person with a $35 optional wine pairing.

FOR THE FASHION BLOGGER

Sweet Jane’s Designer Consignment recently opened its doors at 120 Main St. to reveal an exquisite vault of carefully curated designer items “for the huntress, fashionista and style queen in all of us!� The shop is already building up a steady stream of regulars attracted by Stuart Weiztman boots, Jimmy Choo peep-toes, Cartier bracelets and Louis Vuitton bags. Don’t forget to take a sel-feet (shoe-fie?) standing atop Sweet Jane’s handtiled “Worcester love� mosaic. Nothing says Christmas shopping like Linzer Cookies from Crust Artisan Bakeshop (located two doors down) and a Mansur Gavriel bucket bag. like Mare e Monti. Italian herbs are simmered for hours and tossed with fresh pappardelle pasta to finish a bowl you’ll truly want to spend some time with. The pappardelle alla bolognese at Mare e Monti is, without a doubt, one of my favorite winter dishes in Worcester.

Monday Desserts at Mare e Monti are made from scratch daily.

I suggest the Nutella Buy 1 Burger Get 1 mousse Half O ($8.50) for a little something sweet at the end of the evening.

You can feel the family history buried in Tuesday Mare e Monti like a treasure stowed beneath Kids Eat Free the floorboards of 19 Wall St. Expect to run into an old friend while you’re there; something about Mare e Monti’s aura practically guaranteesWednesday it.

Deals My last meal at $10 MareMeal e Monti totaled $84.

Dine-In Specials

Salad, Entree & Dessert

Sunday Brunch

LAKESIDE

32

{ dining}

coffee brand unlike any other available in America. Each bag of Magdalena’s beans is grown, processed, roasted, and packaged in the community of origin: the mountain-side village of San Pedro de la Sierra. The result is a product brought to you by the people and culture who know coffee best. In close partnership with their farmer, Leila, Magdalena supports the indigenous coffee industry of the Sierra Nevada region. Brendan Healey, class of 2016, who is involved with the project, explained, “Magdalena’s coffee is grown and hand-harvested by Leila and her family in the mountain village of San Pedro de la Sierra.

The coffee cherries are sun-dried for three weeks and then sent by horseback down the mountain to the local village roaster. From there, William, a descendant of the local Aruaco tribe, roasts the coffee using ancient techniques and flavor profiles. Just hours later, the coffee is sealed and shipped directly to the U.S., thereby bringing farmer, roaster, and consumer together through a celebration of the bean’s culture and origin.� Magdalena coffee is available online at magdalenacafe.com.

LA CUCINA ITALIANA

774-449-8333 308lakeside.com

&

BITE SIZED continued from page 31

Dine-In • Take-Out • BYOB

Open 7 days 11am - Close 308 East Main Street East BrookďŹ eld, MA

night day

krave

Founded on Generations of Family Recipes

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• DECEMBER 14, 2017

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Celebrate

New Year’s Eve DJ Sean Murray 6WDUWV DW SP

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Free Valet Friday & Saturday

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33

night day &

{ listings}

music >Thursday 14

Karaoke. 8-1 a.m. Greendale’s Pub, 404 W Boylston St. 508-8531350.

DJ Night - Every Thursday. 9 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. JJ’s Sports Bar and Grill, 380 Southwest Cutoff, Northborough. 508-842-8420.

Shrewsbury High School Annual Holiday Program. Join music director Michael Lapomardo and the talented Shrewsbury High School students and they present their Annual Holiday Program. You’ll surely get into the holiday spirit with these talented young vocalists Free and Open to the Public. 3-4 p.m. Briarwood Continuing Care Retirement Community: Birches Auditorium, 65 Briarwood Circle. 508-852-9007.

Ernest Benoit at Tavern on the Common. Ernest Benoit at Tavern on the Common in Rutland MA 6-8PM Free. 6-8 p.m. Tavern on the Common, 249 Main St., Rutland. 508-886-4600 or songkick.com Jazzed Up featuring vocalist/pianist Mauro DePasquale.

Worcester’s own Mauro DePasquale will get you Jazzed Up! This week’s destination for cool. No Cover. 6:30-8:30 p.m. GAR Hall, Bull Mansion, 55 Pearl St. Open Mic Most Thursdays @ Barbers North. To check the schedules and open slots visit: Bill McCarthy’s Open Mic World on Facebook. Bill McCarthy (originator of the “Half-Hour Sets!”) is your host at another great Open Mic Night! Email Bill McCarthy to reserve it at: openmcc@verizon.net (make sure you put “open mic” in the email’s “subject box”) Network * Collaborate * Learn. Over sixty different musicians regularly support my open mic nights all are friendly and supportive -- and many are: * Former or currently signed recording artists * Award-winning pro’s or semi-pro’s * Regularly gigging paidperformers * Published songwriters * Recording studio owner/operators * Combinations of any and/or all of the above. To check the schedules and open slots visit Facebook. Any slot marked as “open” usually is! Free!

6:30-9:30 p.m. Barbers Crossing (North), 175 Leominster Road, Sterling.

978-422-8438.

Open Mic/Local Musicians Showcase Every 3rd Thursday @ KBC Brewery. To check the schedules and open slots visit: Bill McCarthy’s Open Mic World on Facebook. Bill McCarthy (originator of the “Half-Hour Sets!”) is your host at another great Open Mic Night! Email Bill McCarthy to reserve it at: openmcc@verizon.net (make sure you put “open mic” in the email’s “subject box”) Network * Collaborate * Learn.

Over sixty different musicians regularly support my open mic nights all are friendly and supportive -- and many are: * Former or currently signed recording artists * Award-winning pro’s or semi-pro’s * Regularly gigging paid-performers * Published songwriters * Recording studio owner/ operators * Combinations of any and/or all of the above. To check the schedules and open slots visit Facebook. Any slot marked as “open” usually is! Free! Free! 6:30-9:30 p.m. Kretschmann Brewing Co (KBC

CA LL A HE A D F OR T TAKE -OU

Brewing) - Brewery and Beer Garden, 9 Frederick St., Webster.

Dave Gordon. 7-11 p.m. The Monument Tap, Leominster. 978-7981242.

Ken Macy. 7-11 p.m. The Mill 185, 185 West Boylston St., West Boylston. 774-261-8585.

Open Mic Nights. 7-10:30 p.m. Medusa Brewing Company, 111 Main St. Hudson Ma, Hudson. 978-310-1933.

Chris Reddy Acoustic Loops from Hell. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Rye & Thyme, 14 Monument Square, Leominster. 978-534-5900.

John Brazile. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Quinn’s Irish Pub, 715 West Boylston St. 508-459-2025.

Open Mic Night With David Bazin. Acoustic Style, bring your acoustic instrument down and or sing and share your talent! No Cover.

8-11 p.m. Belfont Hotel, 11 South Main St., Millbury. 508-917-8128.

T.C. Polk. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. The GazBar Sports Grill, 1045 Central St., Leominster.

Audio Wasabi. 8:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Gardner Ale House, 74 Parker St., Gardner. 978-669-0122.

HiFi Wards electric blues. Peter Ward, Bob Berry and George Dellomo play the blues and some classic country too! No cover charge.

8:30-10:30 p.m. Dunny’s Tavern, 291 East Main St., East Brookfield.

Carlos Odria Trio. Carlos Odria is a breathtakingly talented musician, fusing elements of Latin American folk music, Spanish flamenco, jazz and Afro-Peruvian rhythms into a fascinating mélange. Listening to a song such as his “Two is One,” it’s impossible to not be struck by the lush sound, the immense technical skill and sheer beauty he creates. 9-11:59 p.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030.

Center Stage Karaoke. Come on down and take center stage.

Thursday is Karaoke night at Beatniks. 9PM...No Cover No Cover. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Beatnik’s, 433 Park Ave. 508-926-8877.

Jim Devlin. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Michael’s Cigar Bar, 1 Exchange Place.

508-459-9035.

Karaoke. DJ Nancy, of Star Sound Entertainment. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-798-8385.

Karaoke Party with Matty J! 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Padavano’s Place, 358 Shrewsbury St. 774-823-3022.

Sam James Performs at Loft, Thurs at 9. 9-11:59 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

Thirsty Thursdays. Worcester’s New Weekly Club Night brought to you by Subterra Entertainment When: Thursdays Where: The Cove Music Hall Why: Because you like to Party! All your favortie tunes mixed and remixed! Pop | Dance | House | Remixes | Underground | Vocal $2 Drafts | $3 Beers | $3 Shots | Drink Specials. Huge sound & light show! Free Street and Lot Parking all night Hosted By: Massappeal DJ Ray Toreba Spacedrift 9pm - 2am // 21+ // $5 Door Ladies Free Before 10pm No Dress Code $5 at the door- Ladies free until 10pm. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. The Cove Music Hall, 89 Green St. 508-363-1888 or thecovemusichall.com DJ Cuzn Kev. 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water St. DJ 21+Canal. Live Dj pushing out all the latest hits for you’re listening and dancing pleasure! (Thursday is college night @ the Canal ) 10:30 p.m.-1:45 a.m. Canal Restaurant & Bar, 65 Water St. 508-926-8353.

DJ X Kaliber Performs at Loft at 11. 11-11:59 p.m. Loft 266

Celebrate the Holidays with Us! CHRISTMAS EVE OPEN 12:00pm-11:30pm CHRISTMAS DAY CLOSED

Gift Certifica Available!

Banquet Rooms Available Catering Available

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T HINK A HE A D F OR NE W YE A R’S E V E!

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

tes

176 Reservoir St.

508-829-2188

Hayriders. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Rye & Thyme, 14 Monument Sqare, Leominster. 978-534-5900. >Friday 15 Hip Swayers Deluxe! Sway our way apres ski! Free. 8-10 p.m.

Katie OBrien Duo. The Mill 185, 185 West Boylston St., West Coppertop Lounge/Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, 499 Mountain Road, Boylston. 774-261-8585.

Princeton. 978-464-2300.

Thank Friday It’s Dr. Nat! Start your weekend with Nat Needle at Hot Mess. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Tavern on Central, 3 Central St., Ashburnham.

Nick’s Worcester, 124 Millbury St. No cover charge this and most Fridays. 978-827-1272.

Thank Friday It’s Dr. Nat (TFIDN) is an unfettered romp through Nat’s Jay Graham Performs at Loft, Friday at 8. 8-11:59 p.m. Loft musical imagination backed up by his hefty piano chops and hip vocals! 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

Special guests are welcome to sit in, and often do! Help me make this Kevin Shields. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Quinn’s Irish Pub, 715 West Boylston St. the time& place to connect, escape, network, chill, eat, drink, and above 508-459-2025. all be merry... but if you’re blue, why be alone? 5:30-7:30 p.m. Nick’s Bar Live Music. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Black Sheep Tavern, 261 Leominster Road, and Restaurant, Cabaret, 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030 or find them Sterling. 978-422-8484. on Facebook.

Lizzy Marquis. 8-11 p.m. 435 Bar & Grill, 435 Lancaster St., Bill McCarthy Every Friday at Barbers Crossing North.

Leominster.

Now catch Bill McCarthy playing his heart out every Friday at Barbers TC Polk. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. South Side Grille & Margarita Factory, 242 West North (Sterling, MA) @6:30pm Visit: BillMcCarthyMusic.com for info.

Broadway, Gardner. 978-632-1057.

Free! 7-10 p.m. Barbers Crossing (North), 175 Leominster Road, Sterling. Every Friday Karaoke. 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Wong Dynasty and 978-422-8438.

Yankee Grill, 176 Reservoir St., Holden. 508-829-2188.

Brian Richard. 7-10 p.m. Compass Tavern, 90 Harding St. 508-304- Karaoke. 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Foodworks, Route 20. 508-752-0938.

6044.

Live Music. 8:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Gardner Ale House, 74 Parker St., Colette Aimee. 7-10 p.m. Medusa Brewing Company, 111 Main St. Gardner. 978-669-0122.

Hudson Ma, Hudson. 978-310-1933.

Every Friday - Original Rock Bands. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Speakers Mike Freestone. 7 p.m.-1 a.m. The Monument Tap, Leominster.

Night Club, 19 Weed St., Marlborough. 508-439-9314.

978-798-1242.

Guest and House DJ’S. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. MB Lounge, 40 Grafton St. The Hoovers ~ Rob Adams & Lisa Brumby. Rob Adams of 508-799-4521 or mblounge.com New England Weather together with Lisa Brumby of She’s Busy. Two great Hoodoo Revelator. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Michael’s Cigar Bar, 1 Exchange artists playing together, what a night it will be. Definitely “not” a night to Place. 508-459-9035. be missed! N/A. 7-10 p.m. Canal Restaurant & Bar, Bar / Lounge, 65 Karaoke. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Partner’s Pub, 970 South St., Fitchburg. 978Water St. 508-926-8353 or find them on Facebook.

345-5051.

Vanna - Final Show. 7-11:30 p.m. Palladium, The, 261 Main St. Karaoke Fridays at Three G’s Sportsbar. Join Magic Mike 508-797-9696.

Entertainment every Friday night for Karaoke! Free! 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Three Dan Kirouac. Dan has been part of the regional music scene for thirty G’s Sports Bar, 152 Millbury St. magicmikeentertainment.com years. When not busy with the tribute band Beatles For Sale, his solo Karaoke with DJ Bruce. Free. 9 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Meiji Asian performances showcase vocals accompanied by a six-string acoustic Cuisine, 24 Leicester St., North Oxford. 508-731-0120. guitar. From the one-hit wonders to the lost classics, from the 1960s to Little Black Dress. Acoustic Duo with a twist. Come experience today, every show is a different experience, drawing from almost 500 our versatility of being able to go from an emotional (guitar and voice) contemporary and oldie songs. More information at dankirouac.com. ballad to a full band sound. Live guitar looping, percussion and a Free. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Marconi Club, 36 Birch St Passway, Fitchburg. vocal harmonizer add “spice” to our acoustic interpretations of upbeat 978-343-9657. contemporary music, jazz standards, pop and many other music gems Handbell Extravaganza. Handbell choirs from across the county in between. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury St. gather together to ring in the Christmas season. Refreshments provided. 508-753-4030.

Free. 7:30-8:30 p.m. First Baptist Church of Worcester, 111 Park Ave. The Brumbletones. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water St. 508-755-6143 or fbc-worc.org The Flock Live at JJ’s. 9 p.m.-midnight JJ’s Sports Bar and Grill, Steve Tolley. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Happy Jack’s, 785 North Main St., 380 Southwest Cutoff, Northborough. 508-842-8420.

Leominster. 978-466-3433.

Torpedo. Torpedo is a high-energy indie rock band playing a mix of Brett Casavant. 8-11:30 p.m. Blueprint New American Bar & Grill, 9 originals and covers. $5. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Beatnik’s, 433 Park Ave. 508Village Square, Westminster. 978-668-5580.

926-8877.

Chris Reddy. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. The GazBar Sports Grill, 1045 Central St., Lavender Restaurant Karaoke. Join Magic Mike Entertainment Leominster.

DJ’s for Karaoke Night every Friday & Saturday Night! Free. 9:30 Free Entertainment. Free. 8-10:30 p.m. Chuck’s Steakhouse, 10 p.m.-1 a.m. Lavender Restaurant, 519 Boston Post Road, Sudbury.

Prospect St., Auburn. 508-832-2553. magicmikeentertainment.com

Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

“It’s the Liquor Talking” Radio Show & Podcast!

Broadcasting LIVE from Julio's Liquors

Saturday 11am - 1pm!

Listen on WCRN AM830 or stop by Julio’s and join the fun!

No Radio, No problem!

night day &

On the Rocks. 9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Padavano’s Place, 358 Shrewsbury St. 774-823-3022.

DJ Tec Threat (upstairs). 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water St. DJ’s. 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Compass Tavern, 90 Harding St. 508-304-6044.

DJ 21+Canal. Live Dj pushing out all the latest hits for you’re listening and dancing pleasure! (Thursday is college night @ the Canal) 10:30 p.m.-1:45 a.m. Canal Restaurant & Bar, 65 Water St. 508-926-8353.

DJ Joe T Performs at Loft at 11. 11-11:59 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

Safe House Radio Show. This is a live radio broadcast with 2 living DJs hoping to drag you out of your lonely IPods and phone apps to hear the local & national metal, thrash, screamo , punk and alternative you wont hear on mainstream radio.Tune into WCUW 91.3FM in the Worcester and surrounding areas. Or stream live on wcuw.org (hit the listen live button in the upper left corner of screen) Join your DJs Summi and Momma Bear for an hour of metal, thrash, screamo, punk & alternative. You’re not alone in your digital world. Were out here live!

Call in to let us know your listening @ (508)753-2284 after 11pm.

Hope you tune in to hear local and national metal and more! 91.3fm or wcuw.org It’s your community radio! So enjoy it already! Sheesh! 11 p.m.-midnight WCUW Studios, 910 Main St. 508-753-2284 or find them on Facebook.

>Saturday 16

Sip & Stitch Saturdays. Every Saturday at 1PM. Most every Saturday afternoon Creatives come together at Nick’s armed with knitting bags and sewing needles. Come with an existing project or start a new one. Meet like minded people, knit/sew/crochet, share food and drinks made by Jeff at the Bar and have fun! Come as you are, Come as you will. Drop in, drop out. Free! 1-5 p.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030 or find them on Facebook.

Bill McGoldrick Duo. 6:30-9:30 p.m. Basil n’ Spice, Thai Cuisine, 299 Shrewsbury S. 774-317-9986 or basilnspice.com Open Mic! Come join our weekly open mic night! Hosted by Stephen Wright. All family friendly performers welcome. Show up and add your name to the list. Look forward to having you! 6:30-9 p.m. Nu Cafe, 335 Chandler St. 508-926-8800 or nucafe.com Alias. ALIAS is a talented and engaging classic rock duo. If a fun night is what you’re looking for then come on in for some great food, drinks, and music. Join us for a night to remember! N/A. 7-10 p.m. Canal Restaurant & Bar, Bar / Lounge, 65 Water St. 508-926-8353 or find them on Facebook.

Dana Lewis Live! Every Saturday night. Live, acoustic music, Family food, Full Bar, Lottery and Me! Playing the Hits of the 50’s to the 80’s.

“The Sound Track of your Youth” No Cover. Be There! Free! 7-10 p.m.

Nancy’s Quaker Tavern, 466 Quaker Hgwy (Route146a), Uxbridge. 508779-0901 or find them on Facebook.

Lost Artifacts. 7 p.m.-1 a.m. The Monument Tap, Leominster. 978798-1242.

Mike Melendez. 7-10 p.m. Medusa Brewing Company, 111 Main St. Hudson Ma, Hudson. 978-310-1933.

John Girouard. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Happy Jack’s, 785 North Main St., Leominster. 978-466-3433.

Amanda Cote. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. The GazBar Sports Grill, 1045 Central St., Leominster.

Dan Kirouac. Dan has been part of the regional music scene for thirty years. When not busy with the tribute band Beatles For Sale, his solo performances showcase vocals accompanied by a six-string acoustic guitar. From the one-hit wonders to the lost classics, from the 1960s to today, every show is a different experience, drawing from almost 500 contemporary and oldie songs. More information at dankirouac. com. Free. 8-10:30 p.m. Tavern on the Common, 249 Main St., Rutland.

508-886-4600.

Dave Ashman Performs at Loft, Friday at 8. 8-11 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

Joe Macey. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. The Mill 185, 185 West Boylston St., West Boylston. 774-261-8585.

Live Music. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Black Sheep Tavern, 261 Leominster Road, Sterling. 978-422-8484.

{ listings}

Ricky Duran. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Quinn’s Irish Pub, 715 West Boylston St. 508-459-2025.

Sean Daley & The Hooligans. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. South Side Grille & Margarita Factory, 242 West Broadway, Gardner. 978-632-1057.

Glass Onion - Beatles Tribute. 8:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Rye & Thyme, 14 Monument Square, Leominster. 978-534-5900.

Live Music. 8:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Gardner Ale House, 74 Parker St., Gardner. 978-669-0122.

Guest and House DJ’S. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. MB Lounge, 40 Grafton St. 508-799-4521 or mblounge.com Jeff Rosen Duo. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water St. Karaoke-DJ Fenton with Music and Dancing. A jewel in the fashionable Canal District sandwiched between Harding and Water St @ Kelly Square in Worcester, MA...A great fun, and exciting social gathering that allows you to be relaxed, sing your heart out or just sing along with those who love to take the mic and belt one out. Also, enjoy warm, efficient servers who will get to know your name and have your drink request before you ask for it. Take a tour of political memory lane of photos, bumper stickers and artifacts that line the wall...if walls could speak! But proprietor Guy Glodis states...leave the politics at the door and come in enjoy an evening of friends, music and cocktails or beer. Drinks are also very reasonable...a top shelf straight up martini is priced way under $10...other places have them over $10..Shaken not Stirred! Free.

9 p.m.-1 a.m. The Ballot Box, 11-17 Kelly Square. 774-243-1606 or find them on Facebook.

On the Rocks Live at JJ’s. 9 p.m.-midnight JJ’s Sports Bar and Grill, 380 Southwest Cutoff, Northborough. 508-842-8420.

Seth Newton Live at Nick’s. Seth Newton Returns to Worcester after an extensive Nationwide tour. reverbnation.com/ “National-SingerSongwriter-Multi-instrumentalist” Nominated ‘Best Male Vocalist’ 2015 NE Seth Newton was born in the outskirts of Worcester, Massachusetts.

He began playing music at the age of ten and by the age of twelve was performing professionally in notable hard rock venues throughout New England. Since then he has completed multiple nationwide tours, worked with a vast array of creative musical groups and artists, successfully completed multiple recordings / albums including sessions at Longview Farms Studios (MA), Nada Recording Studios (NY) and the private studio of Jesse Cannon (asst. Ross Robinson) in New Jersey. Seth Newton has performed for thousands of people and shared the stage with a countless number of well known acts including Deftones, Free Dominguez (Kidneythieves), Jimmy Gnecco&Static(Ours). 9 p.m.-midnight Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030 or find them on Facebook.

Shock the System. $5. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Greendale’s Pub, 404 W Boylston St. 508-853-1350.

Tequila Bonfire. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Frank’s, 274 Shrewsbury St. 774420-2253.

Testify. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Michael’s Cigar Bar, 1 Exchange Place. 508459-9035.

The Tonelli Family Trio. 9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Padavano’s Place, 358 Shrewsbury St. 774-823-3022.

DJ’s. 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Compass Tavern, 90 Harding St. 508-304-6044.

Texas Death Match...Snowflakes in Hell Show. A Perfect Storm Of Old-School Hard Core, Thrash & Groove Metal...Texas Death Match, Strangler Needsa Manicure & Burns From Within...10PM Show Time $5. 10 p.m.-1 a.m. Beatnik’s, 433 Park Ave. 508-926-8877 or find them on Facebook.

DJ 21+Canal. Live Dj pushing out all the latest hits for you’re listening and dancing pleasure! (Thursday is college night @ the Canal) N/A. 10:30 p.m.-1:45 a.m. Canal Restaurant & Bar, 65 Water St. 508-9268353.

DJ Joe T Performs at Loft at 11. 11-11:59 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

>Sunday 17

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D E C E M B E R 1 4 , 2 0 1 7 • W O R C E S T E R M A G A Z I 11/8/17 N E . C O M3:0035 PM

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picking and a plucking provided by a rotating roster of bluegrass rock stars. Free W/ Brunch. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bistro, Bull Mansion, 55 Pearl St. 508-755-6070 or find them on Facebook.

Celtic Christmas Concert To Benefit Community Radio WCUW 91.3 FM. Celtic Christmas Concert To Benefit Community Radio WCUW 91.3 FM Join us for a Sunday afternoon Christmas concert to benefit Community radio station WCUW 91.3 FM. The concert will feature Robbie O’Connell (guitar and vocals) and Rose Clancy (fiddle and mandolin) in their annual celebration of the mid-winter season with music with a distinct Celtic flavor extending from the little known Kilmore carols of Wexford to the Irish-American vaudeville stage as well as both the Christian and Pagan traditions surrounding the Winter Solstice, in a mixture of songs and instrumental pieces. Hibernian Cultural Centre 19 Temple Street, Worcester at 2 p.m, on Sunday, December 17, 2017. $20 Advance - $25 at the door. 2-5 p.m. Worcester Hibernian Cultural Centre, 19 Temple St. 508-792-3700 or coolbawnroadconcerts.com Holidays at WAM: Merrimack Valley Ringers. The Merrimack Valley Ringers, an auditioned community hand bell ensemble, delight audiences with their infectious joy, and make it their goal to capture their audience from the first note with their gusto and warmth. Don’t miss this favorite of the Holidays at WAM season. mvringers.org Free with museum admission. 2-3 p.m. Worcester Art Museum, Renaissance Court, 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406.

‘Messiah’ Sing. The Christmas portion of Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” in addition to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ will be sung by audience members sitting amidst Assabet Valley Mastersingers in sections according to voice parts. Accomplished organist Brett Maguire will provide accompaniment, and vocal soloists will be soprano Deborah Selig; mezzo Shiba NematNasser; tenor Neal Ferreira; and baritone Ryne Cherry. Robert P. Eaton, Artistic Director of Assabet Valley Mastersingers will direct the ensemble in this enjoyable annual event. Those who prefer to simply listen are

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equally welcome to do so and to share in refreshments following the approximately hour-long program. Suggested Donation: $10. 3:30-5 p.m.

First Church in Marlborough (Congregational), 37 High St., Marlborough.

978-562-9838 or AVMsingers.org A Ceremony of Lessons and Carols. Come share in the holiday spirit, and support an amazing cause! Church of St. John the Evangelist and the St. John’s Schola Cantorum invite you to join us as we celebrate this Advent season of light and joy in anticipation of Christmas with readings, Choral Music, and Hymns and Carols of the Season. Come make the season bright with us! All are welcome! This event is free and open to the public. Please join us in the grace and beauty of our 1845 Church, Worcester’s oldest Church building. Church is accessible, and restroom facilities are available. Voluntary donations will be taken in support of Be Like Brit Foundation and their amazing work at the Be Like Brit Orphanage in Haiti. belikebrit.org. Free. 4-5 p.m. St. John’s Catholic Church, 44 Temple St. 508-756-7165 or find them on Facebook.

Annual Family Holiday Concert. WYO’s most popular concert of the year! Celebrate with family & friends the festive sounds of the season.

Featuring the WY Symphony Orchestra, WY Philharmonic & String Orchestra, WY Wind Ensemble & WY Jazz Band with special guest The Shepherd Hill Regional High School Choirs. New and familiar favorites will get you singing along with our talented students. Why not join us for dinner? Let us handle the cooking while you sit back and enjoy the show. A three course afternoon meal is served at our Table Seating along with Wine. We’ll even do the cleaning up. All included in your ticket. With an attendance of more than 800, purchase your tickets early to take advantage of savings and to get your preferred seating! $15 Balcony, $47 Table Dining Seating in Advance. 4-6:30 p.m. Mechanics Hall, 321 Main St. 508-281-9976 or worcesteryouthorchestras.org

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Emergency Walk-ins Welcome • We Accept Most Insurances DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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Open 7 Days a week

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ReadyMED accepts most health insurance plans, cash, personal checks and major credit cards.

38 W O R CLandmark E S T E R MfullA page G A Z12.17.indd I N E . C O M1 ReadyMED

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

Four convenient locations: Auburn 460 Southbridge Street (Route 12) Hudson 234 Washington Street (Route 85) Milford 340 East Main Street (Route 16) Worcester 366 Shrewsbury Street 12/5/2017 4:44:02 PM

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Follow the Star. This concert showcases music written for Epiphany and shines a light on the Magi’s journey toward Bethlehem as we approach the holidays. This festive program includes selections by Telemann, Geist, and a modern day revival of a cantata by Graupner.

Featuring soprano Jessica Petrus, mezzo-soprano Catherine Hedberg, and tenor Jason Wang. $35 preferred seating/ $30 general admission / $10 students. 4-6 p.m. First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St. 781-4666694 or oldpostroad.org Dana Lewis Live! Playing the Greatest Hits of the 50’s to the 80’s in the lounge “The sound track of your Youth” Best Wood fired Pizza’s, Italian Food, Full Bar, Lottery & me! No cover. Come on out! Free! 6-9 p.m. Cafe’ Sorrento, 143 Central St., Milford. 508-478-7818 or find them on Facebook.

Open Mic Sundays @ Park Grill & Spirits. To check the schedules and open slots visit: Bill McCarthy’s Open Mic World on Facebook. Bill McCarthy (originator of the “Half-Hour Sets!”) is your host at another great Open Mic Night! Email Bill McCarthy to reserve it at: openmcc@verizon.net (make sure you put “open mic” in the email’s “subject box”) Network * Collaborate * Learn. Over sixty different musicians regularly support my open mic nights all are friendly and supportive -- and many are: * Former or currently signed recording artists * Award-winning pro’s or semi-pro’s * Regularly gigging paidperformers * Published songwriters * Recording studio owner/operators * Combinations of any and/or all of the above. To check the schedules and open slots visit Facebook. Any slot marked as “open” usually is!

Free! 6-9 p.m. Park Grill and Spirits, 257 Park Ave. Karaoke. DJ Nancy, of Star Sound Entertainment. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-798-8385.

Karaoke. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-7988385.

Karaoke. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Partner’s Pub, 970 South St., Fitchburg. 978345-5051.

Karaoke with DJ Soup. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water St. The Blue Light Bandits. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Michael’s Cigar Bar, 1 Exchange Place. 508-459-9035.

Tim Pacific. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Quinn’s Irish Pub, 715 West Boylston St. 508-459-2025.

>Monday 18

Norrback Holiday Concert. Join Harriet Forman and the Norrback Holiday Concert. This will truly get you in the spirit. Please make sure you attend and support this talented group of young students. Free and Open to the Public. 11 a.m.-noon Briarwood Continuing Care Retirement Community: Birches Auditorium, 65 Briarwood Circle. 508-852-9007.

Industry Night With Keith. 5 p.m.-2 a.m. MB Lounge, 40 Grafton St. 508-799-4521.

Blue Mondays - Live Blues. 7-11 p.m. Gardner Ale House, 74 Parker St., Gardner. 978-669-0122.

Jazz Night - Live at JJ’s. $10. 7-10 p.m. JJ’s Sports Bar and Grill, 380 Southwest Cutoff, Northborough. 508-842-8420 or jjsnorthboro.com Karaoke. DJ Nancy, of Star Sound Entertainment. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-798-8385.

Karaoke. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-7988385.

>Tuesday 19

$1000 Singer/Songwriter Contest. 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Padavano’s Place, 358 Shrewsbury St. 774-823-3022.

Tuesday Open Mic Night @ Greendale’s Pub with Bill McCarthy Local Musicians Showcase! To check the schedules and open slots visit: Bill McCarthy’s Open Mic World on Facebook. Bill McCarthy (originator of the “Half-Hour Sets!”) is your host at another great Open Mic Night! Email Bill McCarthy to reserve it at: openmcc@ verizon.net (make sure you put “open mic” in the email’s “subject box”) Network * Collaborate * Learn. Over sixty different musicians regularly support my open mic nights all are friendly and supportive -- and many are: * Former or currently signed recording artists * Award-winning pro’s or semi-pro’s * Regularly gigging paid-performers * Published

{ listings}

songwriters * Recording studio owner/operators * Combinations of any and/or all of the above. To check the schedules and open slots visit Facebook. Any slot marked as “open” usually is! Free! 7:30-11:30 p.m.

Greendale’s Pub, 404 W Boylston St. 508-853-1350 or find them on Facebook.

Dam Chick Singer Jazz Trio. Jazz with style, soul and groove.

Free. 8:30-11 p.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, Cabaret, 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030 or find them on Facebook.

Boogie Chillin’. Bluesy, bluegrassy, acoustic band with a twist. Jon Bonner - Guitar & Vocals Fernando Perez - Percussion Zack Slik Mandolin & Vocals Dan Villani - Violin/fiddle Rose Villani - Bass Free! 9 p.m.-midnight Vincent’s Bar, 49 Suffolk St. 508-752-9439 or find them on Facebook.

Karaoke. DJ Nancy, of Star Sound Entertainment. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-798-8385.

Karaoke. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-7988385.

Karaoke with DJ Bruce. Free. 9 p.m.-midnight Antonio’s Pizza by the Slice , 268 Chandler St., Worcester, MA. Karaoke Tuesdays at 9:30. 9:30-11:59 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

>Wednesday 20

The Motown Jukebox. Join “Motown Tom” Ingrassia--Worcester’s very own Agent Double-O Soul--every Wednesday morning from 9 am to noon for The Motown Jukebox on WCUW 91.3FM for 3 hours of Motown music and the stories behind the hits. “Motown Tom” is a Motown historian and author. His current book--Reflections Of A Love Supreme: Motown Through The Eyes Of Fans was named the Best Music Book of 2016 by the National Indie Excellence Awards. “Motown Tom” has twice been named Best Radio Personality in local media polls. WCUW streams live online at wcuw.org. 9 a.m.-noon WCUW 91.3 FM - Worcester’s Community Radio Station, 910 Main St. 508-753-1012 or wcuw.org Open Mic Wednesdays at CJ’s Steak Loft in Northborough. To check the schedules and open slots visit: Bill McCarthy’s Open Mic World on Facebook. Bill McCarthy (originator of the “Half-Hour Sets!”) is your host at another great Open Mic Night! Email Bill McCarthy to reserve it at: openmcc@verizon.net (make sure you put “open mic” in the email’s “subject box”) Network * Collaborate * Learn.

Over sixty different musicians regularly support my open mic nights all are friendly and supportive -- and many are: * Former or currently signed recording artists * Award-winning pro’s or semi-pro’s * Regularly gigging paid-performers * Published songwriters * Recording studio owner/ operators * Combinations of any and/or all of the above. To check the schedules and open slots visit Facebook. Any slot marked as “open” usually is! Free! 6-9 p.m. CJs Steakloft, 369 W. Main St. (route 20), Northborough. 508-393-8134 or find them on Facebook.

Jazzed Up featuring vocalist/pianist Mauro DePasquale.

Worcester’s own Mauro DePasquale has become an institution at Bull Mansion and his duo will get you Jazzed Up! This week’s destination for cool. No Cover. 6:30-8:30 p.m. GAR Hall, Bull Mansion, 55 Pearl St. Take Down The Wall Cafe Dec. 2017. Monthly 3rd Wednesdays Open Mic bringing artists with and without disabilities together to share creativity and humanity. Refreshments and snacks free. Sign up for your act at the door. Free. 6:30-8 p.m. Alternatives Worcester Satellite, Coffeehouse Room, 454 Grove St. 508-579-5997 or natneedle.com Worcester Men of Song. The Worcester Men of Song is a Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, founded in 1949. They have been performing throughout the Worcester County area continuously for the past sixty years. Don’t miss these talented gentlemen! Free and Open to the Public. 7-8:30 p.m. Briarwood Continuing Care Retirement Community: Birches Auditorium, 65 Briarwood Circle. 508-852-9007.

Josh Briggs. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Quinn’s Irish Pub, 715 West Boylston St. 508-459-2025.

Music Bingo Wednesdays Starting at 8. 8-11:59 p.m. Loft 266 Bar & Lounge, 266 Park Ave. 508-796-5177.

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Fitchburg Art Museum, Hours: noon-4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday, noon-4 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. 25 Merriam Parkway, Fitchburg. 978-345-4207 or fitchburgartmuseum.org Open Mic. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. The Raven, 258 Pleasant St. 508-304-8133. Fitchburg Historical Society, Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday - Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, closed Thursday - Saturday. Admission: Free. 781 Main St., Fitchburg. 978-345-1157 or >Wednesday 20 fitchburghistoricalsociety.org Worcester Jazz Collective. The Worcester Jazz Collective is an Fitchburg State University: Hammond Hall, 160 Pearl St., award winning group that explores jazz in its many forms. The group’s Fitchburg. fitchburgstate.edu repertoire spans the genre of jazz from traditional to contemporary Framed in Tatnuck, Hours: closed Sunday - Monday, 10 a.m. to and draws on the diverse backgrounds and musical experiences of its 6 p.m. Tuesday - Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. 1099 Pleasant St. members to bring a unique musical performance to each audience it 508-770-1270 or framedintatnuck.com performs for. The WJC was formed in 2014 by bass/baritone guitarist Tom Lubelczyk and pianist Martin Gohary. Since its creation, it has been a Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard. 978-456showcase for the many wonderful musicians that make up the Worcester 3924 or fruitlands.org Gallery of African Art, Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 jazz scene, often featuring different lineups and musical identities for p.m. Monday - Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to each performance. No Cover. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, 5:30 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Admission: Donations 124 Millbury St. 508-753-4030.

Karaoke. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Club KasBar, 234 Southwest Cutoff. 508-798- accepted. 62 High St., Clinton. 978-265-4345 or 978-598-5000x12 or galleryofafricanart.org 8385.

Highland Artist Group, 113 Highland St. highlandartistgroup.com Karaoke. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Partner’s Pub, 970 South St., Fitchburg. 978Mass Audubon: Broad Meadow Brook Conservation 345-5051.

Karaoke with DJ Soup. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Whiskey on Water, 97 Water Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, Hours: 12:30-4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. 414 Massasoit St. Karaoke with Mikey Mic’s. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. MB Lounge, 40 Grafton Road. 508-753-6087 or massaudubon.org Museum of Russian Icons, Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, St. 508-799-4521.

What’s that tune Trivia. 9 p.m.-midnight The Pint, 58 Shrewsbury closed Monday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday - Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday. Admission: Adults $10; Seniors (59 +), $7; Students, $5; St. Children 3-17, $5; Children <3, free. 203 Union St., Clinton. 978-5985000 or 978-598-5000 or museumofrussianicons.org Old Sturbridge Village, Cabinet Making in Early 19th Century New England, Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, through ADC Performance Center (@ The Artist Development Dec. 31; Make No Little Plans, Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Complex), 18 Mill St., Southbridge. 508-764-6900 or adcmusic.com Fridays, Saturdays, through Dec. 31. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Anna Maria College, 50 Sunset Lane, Paxton. 508-849-3300 or closed Monday - Tuesday, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday - Saturday. annamaria.edu Admission: $28 Adults, $26 Seniors (55+), $14 Youths (4-17), free for ArtsWorcester, Hours: closed Sunday - Monday, 1-4 p.m. Tuesday, Children 3 & Under, $14 College Students with valid college ID. 1 Old 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday - Friday, 1-4 p.m. Saturday. Admission: Sturbridge Village Road, Sturbridge. 800-733-1830 or 508-347-3362 Free. 660 Main St. 508-755-5142 or artsworcester.org Asa Waters Mansion, Admission: $3 for guided tour $7-10 for tea. or osv.org Park Hill Gallery, Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday 123 Elm St., Millbury. 508-865-0855 or asawaters.org Friday, closed Saturday. 387 Park Ave. 774-696-0909.

Assumption College: Emmanuel d’Alzon Library, 500 Post Road Art Center, Hours: closed Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 Salisbury St. 508-767-7272 or assumption.edu p.m. Monday - Saturday. 1 Boston Post Road, Marlborough. 508-485Booklovers’ Gourmet, “Musical Sketches” by Tim Oliver, Through 2580 or postroadartcenter.com Dec. 30. Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday - Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. 55 East Main St., Preservation Worcester, Hours: closed Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday - Friday, closed Saturday. 10 Cedar St. 508-754-8760 or Webster. 508-949-6232 or bookloversgourmet.com preservationworcester.org Clark University: University Gallery, Hours: noon-5 p.m.

Sunday, closed Monday - Tuesday, noon-8 p.m. Wednesday, noon-5 p.m. Prints and Potter Gallery: American Arts and Crafts Thursday - Saturday. 950 Main St. 508-793-7349 or 508-793-7113 or Gallery, Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday - Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday, clarku.edu 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. 142 Highland St. 508-752-2170 or Clark’s Cafe and Art On Rotation Gallery, Hours: 6 a.m. to printsandpotter.com 1 p.m. Sunday - Saturday. Admission: Free for gallery. 310 High St., Quinebaug Valley Council for the Arts & Humanities, the Clinton. 978-549-5822 or 978-365-7772 or aorgallery.com Arts Center, Hours: 2-4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday - Friday, 2-4 College of the Holy Cross: Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art p.m. Saturday. 111 Main St., Southbridge. 508-346-3341 or qvcah.org Gallery, Rethinking the Afropolitan: Photographs by Héctor Mediavilla Quinsigamond Community College: Administration and Christopher López, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, through Dec. 15. Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 Building, 670 West Boylston St. qcc.edu Rollstone Studios, Hours: 11-4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday p.m. Monday - Friday, 2-5 p.m. Saturday. 1 College St. 508-793-3356 Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday - Saturday. Admission: free. 633 or holycross.edu Main St., Fitchburg. 978-348-2781 or rollstoneartists.com Danforth Museum of Art, Hours: noon-5 p.m. Sunday, closed Salisbury Mansion, Hours: closed Sunday - Wednesday, 1-8:30 Monday - Tuesday, noon-5 p.m. Wednesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, 1-4 p.m. Friday - Saturday. 40 Highland St. 508-753p.m. Friday - Saturday. 123 Union Ave., Framingham. 508-620-0050 or 8278 or worcesterhistory.org danforthmuseum.org SAORI Worcester Freestyle Weaving Studio, 18 Winslow St. EcoTarium, Hours: noon-5 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday, 10 a.m. to 508-757-4646 or 508-757-0116 or saoriworcester.com 5 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. Admission: $15.00 adults; $10 for children Sprinkler Factory, Admission: Free. 38 Harlow St. sprinklerfactory. ages 2-18, college students with ID & senior citizens. Children under 2 com & EcoTarium members free. Additional charges apply for Tree Canopy Taproot Bookstore, Hours: noon-5 p.m. Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Walkway, Explorer Express Train, planetarium programs & other special Monday - Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. to event. 222 Harrington Way. 508-929-2700 or ecotarium.org 7 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. 1200 West Boylston St. 508Fisher Museum Harvard Forest, 324 N. Main St., Petersham.

853-5083 or TaprootBookstore.com 978-724-3302 or harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu

arts

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Tatnuck Bookseller & Cafe, Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday - Thursday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday - Saturday. 18 Lyman St., Westborough. 508-366-4959 or tatnuck.com The Foster Gallery, 51 Union St. 508-397-7139 or thefostergallery. com Top Fun Aviation Toy Museum, Hours: 1:30-4:30 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday - Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday. 21 Prichard St., Fitchburg. 978-342-2809 or 978-297-4337 or topfunaviation.com Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. Admission: $12 Adults, $9 Seniors & $7 Youth, free to Members & Children under. 11 French Drive, Boylston. 508-869-6111 or towerhillbg.org Worcester Art Museum, Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England, Through Feb. 4, 2018; Jeppson Idea Lab: Master Vases from Ancient Greece, Through April 8, 2018; Last Defense: The Genius of Japanese Meiji Metalwork, Through Sept. 2, 2018; Nude Drawing in the Galleries, Thursdays, through Dec. 28; Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard, Through Feb. 25, 2018; Sunday Public Tour, Sundays, through Dec. 17. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday - Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Admission: Free for members, $14 adults, $12 seniors, free for youth 17 and under. Free for all first Saturdays of each month, 10am-noon. 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406 or worcesterart.org Worcester Center for Crafts, Exhibition: The Cup Show, Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, through Dec. 25. Hours: closed Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Saturday. 25 Sagamore Road. 508-753-8183 or worcestercraftcenter.org Worcester Historical Museum, Hours: closed Sunday - Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. 30 Elm St. 508-753-8278 or worcesterhistory.org Worcester Public Library, Hours: 1:30-5:30 p.m. Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday - Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday - Saturday. 3 Salem Square. 508-799-1655 or worcpublib.org WPI: George C. Gordon Library, 100 Institute Road. wpi.edu

town in Texas. However, with the Bumiller family in crisis, the lights going out on Joe Bob Lipsey’s production of A Christmas Carol, and the sinister Christmas Phantom on the loose, will anyone’s Christmas truly be merry?

Watch as two actors play over twenty characters in this hilarious yet touching story. All seats are cabaret style seating. Produced by Special Arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. $15 each, $50 for a table of 4.

2-4 p.m. Barre Players Theater, 64 Common St., Barre. Call 978-3552096 or visit barreplayerstheater.com 10th Anniversary Production of A Christmas Carol Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Friday, December 15 - Saturday, December 23. “God Bless us, everyone!” Celebrate the holiday season with New England’s largest production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Join us for our 10th annual production, adapted by president and CEO Troy Siebels and featuring the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, New England’s largest theatre pipe organ. You know the story and you love the message of redemption, but you’ll never see another Christmas Carol like this! The show is refined and revised each year, and the 10th Anniversary production will feature more magic than ever before. The show includes an array of spectacles from different kinds of smoke and fog to spectacular flying stunts. New and returning cast members tell the tale of curmudgeonly miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future. This brilliant musical, set with timeless music, colorful costumes and spectacular lighting and scenery, follows Scrooge as he discovers the true spirit of the holiday season.

Jeremy Lawrence plays Scrooge for the sixth year in a row, having guest starred on TV’s The Blacklist and Shades of Blue, as well as worked with directors Brian De Palma, Rob Howard and Stephen Daldry. Lawrence is also known for his portrayal of playwright Tennessee Williams. Tickets are $28, $45 and $55 depending on seat location. 7-9:30 p.m. Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St. Call 877-571-7469 or visit thehanovertheatre.org 10th Anniversary Production of A Christmas Carol Saturdays, Saturday, December 16 - Saturday, December 23. “God Bless us, everyone!” Celebrate the holiday season with New England’s largest production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Join us for our 10th annual production, adapted by president and CEO Troy Siebels and featuring the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, New England’s largest theatre pipe organ. You know the story and you love the message of redemption, but you’ll never see another Christmas Carol like this! The show is refined and revised each year, and the 10th Anniversary production will feature more magic than ever before. The show includes an array of spectacles from Dick’s Beantown Comedy Escape at Park Grill & Spirits different kinds of smoke and fog to spectacular flying stunts. New and - Fridays, Saturdays, Saturday, September 18 - Tuesday, December 31.

Dick Doherty’s Beantown Comedy Escape at Park Grill & Spirits 257 Park returning cast members tell the tale of curmudgeonly miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Ave Worcester MA 01609 Dick Doherty’s Beantown Comedy Future. This brilliant musical, set with timeless music, colorful costumes Clubs Showtimes: Friday 9pm-Saturdays 8pm -$20pp Reservations Recommended at 800-401-2221 Prices: $20 Fri/Sat pp except Special and spectacular lighting and scenery, follows Scrooge as he discovers the true spirit of the holiday season. Jeremy Lawrence plays Scrooge for Events Drinks and Appetizers available in the show room Full Dinner the sixth year in a row, having guest starred on TV’s The Blacklist and Available before Show in Restaurant $5off with College ID and Shades of Blue, as well as worked with directors Brian De Palma, Rob Reservations 2 for 1 Active Military or Veterans and Reservations $4 off Howard and Stephen Daldry. Lawrence is also known for his portrayal of with Dinner Receipt and Reservations. Fri & Sat Dec 1st & 2nd Kyle Crawford Sarah Martin and Friends Fri & Sat Dec 8th & 9th Don Zollo EJ playwright Tennessee Williams. Tickets are $28, $45 and $55 depending on seat location. 2-4:30 p.m. Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Murphy and Friends Fri & Sat Dec 15th & 16th Dan Crohn Emily Ruskoswski and Friends Fri & Sat Dec 22nd & 23rd Peter Costello Dick Southbridge St. Call 877-571-7469 or visit thehanovertheatre.org 10th Anniversary Production of A Christmas Carol Doherty and Friends Fri & Sat Dec 29th & 30th Chris Zito and Sensory Friendly Performance - Sunday, December 17. “God Friends Special Event! Sunday Dec 31st 2 Shows! 7:30pm & 10:30pm Double Headliners $35pp Show Only Includes Champagne Toast (21+) Bless us, everyone!” Celebrate the holiday season with New England’s largest production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Join us for our and Favors Corey Rodrigues Dick Doherty and Sarah Martin Dick’s 10th annual production, adapted by president and CEO Troy Siebels and Beantown Comedy Escape at Park Grill & Spirits Great Food and Fun Make Reservations Early at 800-401-2221 or online at dickdoherty.com featuring the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, New England’s largest theatre pipe Comedy Open Mic in the Cabaret! - Mondays, Monday, May 15 organ. You know the story and you love the message of redemption, but - Monday, December 18. The 1st and 3rd Monday of every month! Sign you’ll never see another Christmas Carol like this! The show is refined and ups are at 7:30 and the show starts at 8:00! Free. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Nick’s revised each year, and the 10th Anniversary production will feature more magic than ever before. The show includes an array of spectacles from Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury St. Call 508-753-4030. different kinds of smoke and fog to spectacular flying stunts. New and A Tuna Christmas - Sundays, Sunday, December 10 - Sunday, returning cast members tell the tale of curmudgeonly miser Ebenezer December 17. Barre Players Theater is proud to present A Tuna Christmas By Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, Ed Howard Originally produced Scrooge, who is visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future. This brilliant musical, set with timeless music, colorful costumes

by Charles H. Duggan Directed by: Erik Gladwin Starring: Anthony and spectacular lighting and scenery, follows Scrooge as he discovers Masciangioli and Andrew Bigelow Not your average Christmas show! In the true spirit of the holiday season. Jeremy Lawrence plays Scrooge for this hilarious sequel to Greater Tuna, it’s Christmas in the third smallest the sixth year in a row, having guest starred on TV’s The Blacklist and

theater/ comedy

night day Out of this world selections, { listings} down to earth prices &

Shades of Blue, as well as worked with directors Brian De Palma, Rob Howard and Stephen Daldry. Lawrence is also known for his portrayal of playwright Tennessee Williams. Tickets are half off $28, $45 and $55 depending on seat location. 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St. Call 877-571-7469 or visit thehanovertheatre.org 10th Anniversary Production of A Christmas Carol Sundays, Sunday, December 17 - Saturday, December 23. “God Bless us, everyone!” Celebrate the holiday season with New England’s largest production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Join us for our 10th annual production, adapted by president and CEO Troy Siebels and featuring the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, New England’s largest theatre pipe organ. You know the story and you love the message of redemption, but you’ll never see another Christmas Carol like this! The show is refined and revised each year, and the 10th Anniversary production will feature more magic than ever before. The show includes an array of spectacles from different kinds of smoke and fog to spectacular flying stunts. New and returning cast members tell the tale of curmudgeonly miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future. This brilliant musical, set with timeless music, colorful costumes and spectacular lighting and scenery, follows Scrooge as he discovers the true spirit of the holiday season. Jeremy Lawrence plays Scrooge for the sixth year in a row, having guest starred on TV’s The Blacklist and Shades of Blue, as well as worked with directors Brian De Palma, Rob Howard and Stephen Daldry. Lawrence is also known for his portrayal of playwright Tennessee Williams. Tickets are $28, $45 and $55 depending on seat location. . 4-6:30 p.m. Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St. Call 877-571-7469 or visit thehanovertheatre.org Comedy in the Cabaret Hosted by Shaun Connoly - Monday, December 18. Start your week off with a Laugh this Monday at Nicks.

Open at 4pm with Sean behind the bar. Tonight, Shaun Connolly hosts

local comedians in the Cabaret at Nick’s starting at 8pm then Bruce host’s his famous Midnight Trivia in the front bar at Midnight. shaunconnollycomedy.com/ 8-11:59 p.m. Nick’s Bar and Restaurant, Cabaret, 124 Millbury St. Call 508-753-4030 or visit Facebook.

Jerry Caruso - Vets Comedy Night - Tuesday, December 19.

7-11 p.m. The Monument Tap, Leominster. Call 978-798-1242.

family >Thursday 14

Art Cart: Classical Europe & Asia. Explore the Classical world through art and object. Discover the art of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Learn about and create Greco-Roman mosaics. Or color your own Mandala.

One or more of these activities will be available. Ask our friendly docent what topic will be on tap today! (Programming subject to change) Free with Museum admission. 1-2 p.m. Worcester Art Museum, The Renaissance Court, 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406.

Art Cart: Medieval. The Middle Ages! The name brings to mind images of knights and princesses, of sinners and saints, and heroes and villains. You might discover the armor worn by knights and how it was used. Or create your own heraldry so your friends (and foes) can identify you. Ask our friendly docent what topic will be on tap today!

(Programming subject to change) Free with Museum admission. 2:303:30 p.m. Worcester Art Museum, Medieval Gallery, 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406.

Gingerbread Houses. Get into the winter spirit with Gingerbread House Decorating! Engineer your fantasy gingerbread house and also make a piece of yummy art! It might be messy but it will be sweet. All ages welcome. All materials provided. Free. 3:30-4:30 p.m. Goddard

- Tatuaje - Padrón - General Cigar - Rocky Patel - DrewEstate, Liga Privada, T52 & Unico - A. Fuente Opus X

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560 LINCOLN St., WORCESTER 508-852-5700 Mon. - Fri, 9am-6pm • Sat. 8am-4pm • Sun. Closed

DEC. 16th 7:05pm

STAR WARS SPECIALTY JERSEY TO BENEFIT THE

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DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

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night day &

{ listings}

Branch - Worcester Public Library, 14 Richards St. 508-799-8330.

>Saturday 16

Tour of the Month: Coming Away: Winslow Homer & England. Join us as we tour this exciting exhibition featuring the most comprehensive group of oils made during or emerging directly from Homer’s time abroad. Shown alongside comparative paintings by English artists, these works complicate our understanding of Homer’s art as purely American in subject and style. Tour begins in the Lancaster Welcome Center. Free with Museum admission. 2-3 p.m. Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406.

>Sunday 17

2017 Brunch with Santa Claus. Join the Beechwood Hotel for a very merry holiday gathering. Brunch with Santa Claus invites you to embrace the magic and flavor of the season with our award-winning brunch offerings and a meet and greet with Father Christmas himself.

Children will be given a special token from Santa when he visits each table in the Grand Ballroom. They’ll be many opportunities to take photographs, so pack your camera! Menu: Breakfast Selections Scrambled Eggs Maple Cured Bacon Smoked Breakfast Sausage Homefried Potatoes Texas French Toast with Vermont-made Maple Syrup Cheese Blintzes with Fruit Topping and Sour Cream Assorted Breakfast Mini Pastry with Whipped Honey Butter Salad Selections Freshly-tossed Caesar Salad Assorted Field Greens with Dressings and Toppings Assorted Cut Melons and Pineapple Three Chef Selected Salads (Changes Every Sunday) Seafood Selections Sliced Smoked Salmon with Accompaniments Assorted Freshly Baked Bagels Whipped Plain and Chive Cream Cheese Peel and Eat Shrimp with Spicy Cocktail

Sauce and Horseradish Stations Omelet Station - Fresh made-to-order Omelets, Toppings Include: Onions, Peppers, Ham, Tomatoes, Spinach, Mushrooms and Cheese Waffle Station - Fresh made-to-order Malted Waffles, Toppings Include: Vermont Maple Syrup, Whipped Honey Butter, Whipped Cream and Assorted Fruit Compotes Carving Station - Two Roasted Carved Items with Accompaniments (Changes Weekly) Hot Food Station – Chef’s Selection which may include Chicken, Fish, Pasta, Rice and Vegetable Crepe Station - Fresh made-to-order French Crepes with Assorted Toppings Including: Chocolate Chips, Fruit Compotes and Whipped Cream Dessert Station - Chef’s Choice of Holiday Desserts which may include: Assorted Tortes, Mini Pastries, Mousses, Cookies, Brownies and a Hot Dessert Adult Cost: $46.95 plus taxes; Children, ages 6-12 Cost: $19.95 plus taxes All prices are subject to a 12% service charge, 10% taxable administrative fee and 7% Massachusetts tax.

10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Beechwood Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 363 Plantation St. 800-344-2589.

Armenian Village Child Life. Sunday, December 17 at 1:30 PM Fellowship begins at 12:30 (snow date Sunday, January 28) Take part in everyday life in the village of Kharpert, Western Armenia. An enjoyable afternoon for all ages as you learn about Armenian heritage. Admission is free and open to the public. Non-perishable items and donations are gratefully accepted by the Northbridge Association of Churches’ Food Pantry. 1:30-3 p.m. Alternatives Unlimited, Inc. & Whitin Mill Complex, 50 Douglas Road, Whitinsville. 508-278-3810 or alternativesnet.org

>Monday 18

Gingerbread Houses. Get into the winter spirit with Gingerbread House Decorating! Engineer your fantasy gingerbread house and also make a piece of yummy art! It might be messy but it will be sweet. All ages welcome. All materials provided. Free. 3:30-4:30 p.m. Tatnuck Magnet Branch - Worcester Public Library, 1083 Pleasant St. 508-7998329.

Christmas by candlelight

>Wednesday 20

Stroller Tour: Egypt. It’s never too early to visit the Worcester Art Museum to start learning about art! This tour is designed for children 0 - 3 years old, their siblings, and their parents/grandparents/guardians.

A Museum teacher will engage caretakers and their infants and toddlers with art and stories in the galleries. Stay for tea, coffee, juice and snacks after your tour. Free with Museum admission. Stroller access to Lancaster Lobby is through our Tuckerman Street Entrance Free with Museum admission. 10:30-11:30 a.m. Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury St. 508-799-4406.

Gingerbread Houses. Get into the winter spirit with Gingerbread House Decorating! Engineer your fantasy gingerbread house and also make a piece of yummy art! It might be messy but it will be sweet. All ages welcome. All materials provided. Free. 3:30-4:30 p.m. Burncoat Branch - Worcester Public Library, 526 Burncoat St. 508-799-8328.

fairs/ festivals >Saturday 16 – Sunday 17

Imagine John Lennon Christmas Festival. Imagine Christmas Event at That’s Entertainment on Park Ave in Worcester Celebrating Christmas + John Lennon. Multi band’s and solo performers singing Lennon, Beatles and Christmas Carol’s. It is a free event! Saint John Lennon book signing event also with Daniel Hartwell So, Please! Come say Hello, Hello! Or better yet, sing it! Any bands, singers, musicians, artists, elves or Santa’s helpers that would like to participate... please let me know. I am happy to have everyone involved! It’s going to be a fun Time! The event kicks off at 1:00 PM with the Amazing Cara Brindisi singing Holiday Faves! Then we jump into everyone singing along

with Beatles and Lennon Favorites! Imagine That! The ever cool Mike Gianfriddo and Jim Weeks will be there along with brother Dave holding down the beat and sleighing it! Looking forward to see you all! Musicians, Singers and Artists feel free to message me to play and be a part of.

SaintJohnLennon.com #Worcester #Boston #ThatsEntertainment #Peace #Love #JohnLennon #SaintJohnLennon #TheBeatles #wormtown #Beantown #worc #waaf #Givepeaceachance #Imagine #Santa #Christmas #Peaceonearth #allyouneedislove #WorcesesterMagazine #WorcesterT+G 0. 1-6 a.m., 2 a.m.-7 a.m., 3 a.m.-8 a.m., 4 a.m.-9 a.m., 1 to 6 p.m. Travel Destination saintjohnlennon. com

college sports Women’s Basketball

Assumption Dec. 19 @ American International, 5:30 p.m.

Holy Cross Dec. 17 @ Rhode Island, 2 p.m.

Dec. 20 vs Dartmouth, 11:05 a.m.

WPI Dec. 20 vs Wells @ Daytona Beach, Florida, 1 p.m.

Dec. 21 vs Spalding @ Daytona Beach, Florida, 1 p.m.

Men’s Basketball Assumption Dec. 16 @ Nyack, 3 p.m.

Holy Cross Dec. 19 vs Iona, 7:05 p.m.

National Marionette Theatre at Old Sturbridge Village

Dec. 2 - 3, 8 - 10, 15 - 17 & 21 - 23

Dec. 27 - 30

Musical Performances Sleigh Rides Decorated Historic Village Festive Foods Quilt Challenge Exhibit Gingerbread Contest

The National Marionette Theatre is coming to Old Sturbridge Village for December school vacation week! Performances are 50 minutes in length and each day will feature a different story.

3:00 – 8:00 pm

North Pole Village returns and families will find Santa and his whimsical elves, Mrs. Claus’ Bake Shop, a magical talking Christmas tree, a kids holiday craft workshop, and an all-new train display.

Shows 11:00 am | 1:00 pm | 3:00 pm

Dec. 27 – Pinocchio Dec. 28 – Beauty and the Beast Dec. 29 – Peter and the Wolf Dec. 30 – Hansel and Gretel

For tickets visit www.osvchristmas.org or purchase at the Visitor Center 42

WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

• DECEMBER 14, 2017

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Classified

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HOMES

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EMPLOYMENT

3 Story Gabled Dollhouse 28”x18”, 6 rms w/ furn., exc. cond. Asking $125. 978-355-0185. Can deliver.

C.S.I.A. Certified Sweep #1529 Insured

Central Mass

CL ASSIFIEDS

IFBs may be picked up at the location above or may be downloaded from our website: www.worcester-housing.com/ purchasing, or call (508) 635-3203, TDD (508) 798-4530. Bidders are responsible for ensuring they have received any/all addenda prior to submitting a bid.

Separate awards will be made for each IFB. WHA reserves the right to reject any or all responses, in whole or in part, deemed to be in their best interest. Award of all contracts is subject to the approval of the WHA Executive Director or Board of Commissioners. The Operating Agency shall indemnify and hold harmless the WHA and its officers or agents from any and all third party claims arising from activities under these Agreements as set forth in MGL c.258, section 2 as amended.

Bid NO.

Release Date

Project Title

Bid Surety

Bid Opening

17-39

12/14/2017

Smart Burners

N/A

2:00PM December 29, 2017

Jackson Restrepo Chief Procurement Officer Visit our website at: www.worcester-housing.com/purchasing

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Real Estate • Jobs • Auto • Services

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HELP WANTED

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WORCESTER HOUSING AUTHORITY ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS December 14, 2017 SEALED BIDS shall be received at the Purchasing Office, 69 Tacoma Street., Worcester, MA 01605

Professional Cleaners Since 1982

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LEGALS/PUBLIC NOTICES WORCESTER HOUSING AUTHORITY The Worcester Housing Authority’s 2018 Annual Plan and its FY2018 HUD Capital Fund Program Plan is available for review and public comment at its main administrative offices located at 40 Belmont Street, Worcester, MA during its regular business hours of 8:00AM to 4:30PM Monday through Friday.

A public hearing will take place relative to both plans in the lower level conference at 40 Belmont Street, Worcester, MA on January 4, 2018 at 9:00AM.

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Brand New Drum Set 4 pc, all deep power sizes, Gloss Black. Complete w/ new hardware & pedal. $250. 774-303-1984

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Eagle Hill School is an independent boarding school serving students with learning (dis)abilities.

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800-861-5445 or 508-886-2624

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• Full Time Bilingual

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To apply, please visit the Careers tab on our website at VIABILITY.org

Or for more information call our Worcester office at

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"Bundle Up"--by wearing something warm.

by Matt Jones

Across 1 6 9 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 23 25 27 30 32 34 35

40 41 42 43 46 47 48 49 51 54 58 60 62 63 65 67 68 69 70 71 72

Fun By The Numbers Like puzzles? Then you’ll love sudoku. This mind-bending puzzle will have you hooked from the moment you square off, so sharpen your pencil and put your sudoku savvy to the test!

Here’s How It Works: Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!

SERVICES

White of "Wheel" fame Knock lightly Prickly plants Orchestra reeds What tree rings indicate Kind of committee Headwear seen at a rodeo Western capital that's its state's largest city DuVernay who directed "Selma" About 30.48 centimeters Tenth grader, for short Half of the Brady kids "Home Again" star Witherspoon Margarine containers Laptop connection option "Monsters, ___" (Pixar film) Former UB40 lead singer Campbell 1969 Roberta Flack song with the lyric "The President, he's got his war / Folks don't know just what it's for" Cancel out Sparks of "Queer As Folk" Art store purchase Corporate getaway of sorts Suffix for social or graph "___ and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Solo on screen Office fixture 2016 Key and Peele movie Quick drive Play it ___ Rounded roof Nest egg letters Hang in folds Political upheaval Fashion magazine since 1892 Java vessel Persona non ___ Food regimens Wanna-___ Art store purchase

Down 1 2 3 4

Word knowledge, briefly From the beginning, in Latin "I don't buy it" Lincoln's st.

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 18 22 24 26 28 29 31 33 35 36 37 38 39 40 44

Beginning from Lake between two states Quartz variety Iguana, for some ___ San Lucas Take in or take on Little barker How-___ (instructional publications) Swelling reducer ___ Linda, Calif.

(Nixon Library site) E-mailed Recap Move like a crab Fun time "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the ___" Egg-breaking sound Mongoose's foe $100 bill, slangily Sticking to the party line, like political speeches Take the rap?

Corn unit Some birdhouse dwellers Electroplating stuff Apparel giant with a World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.

45 50 52 53 55 56 57 59 61 63 64 65 66

Kick drum sound Demolished Love so much Grammatical things Pockets in the bread aisle Steamed Birth-related Bill listings Just beat out Streaming video predecessor King, in Cannes Little leopard Time period split into periods

Last week's solution

©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) Reference puzzle #860

DECEMBER 14, 2017 • WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM

45

Two minutes with...

Alan Day

Can you talk about your history with the city of Worcester? I grew up here. I was

born in Worcester. Raised in Worcester.

Went to high school in Worcester. It was always a great place growing up, but it wasn’t nearly as hip then as it seems to be becoming now. When I was younger, I thought getting out of Worcester would be a good idea, but I’ve done a lot of traveling over the years and I’m still choosing to be a part of Worcester.

At what point did you make the transition from rock star to Christmas tree salesman?

Well, I’d like to think I’m still somewhere in the middle of the two. I’m still touring pretty heavily and playing music. It just so happens that I love Christmas and I always have this time of year off, because we never really tour from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It felt like a perfect opportunity to pick up something extra. I know it’s a random thing for me to do.

When did Al’s Christmas Trees start to take shape? Really, the story began when I

was at a wedding and I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. He had recently met a farmer who owned a nursery and the farmer had convinced my friend to start selling Christmas trees. So, I woke up the next morning and I began thinking about how I would be home during the holidays and I thought it might be fun to look for a position selling trees. It was September and it turned out there were no job postings for a Christmas tree salesperson at the time. I did find plenty of information about how you could start selling trees yourself. My wife came home from work and I expected to tell her this idea: “I’m thinking we buy 400 Christmas trees and try to sell them on the side of the road.” And I expected for her to say, “You’re crazy. No.” But, she loved the idea.

She said, “Let’s do it! Why not?” We went for it that year in Watertown because

Alan Day is the lead guitarist and vocalist of Four Year Strong, a Worcester band formed in 2001 while Day was a student at Doherty Memorial High School. The band’s annual holiday show is slated for Dec. 28 at the Palladium, but until then Day will pass the time selling Christmas trees along with his wife, Emily. The couple’s recent purchase of Bell Brook Farm in West Brookfield marks the launch of their seasonally-inspired floral design business. Al’s Christmas Trees at Crompton Place is in its fourth year of operation. Visit on Saturdays, 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., or Sundays, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., to purchase a premium balsam or fraser fir while chatting with the talented musician himself. that’s where we were living at the time.

How did Al’s Christmas Trees end up in Central Mass? We had a great time doing

it that first year. We ended up buying a house in Central Massachusetts and we decided to start selling trees in Worcester.

Four years later, we’ve bought some land where we can plant our own trees.

We’re starting a flower and Christmas tree farm. My wife still works full-time, but she is also running the flower farm.

ELIZABETH BROOKS

The way we talk about it, she’s flowers and I’m Christmas trees, but she’s really everything.

How did you end up in the Canal District? The bass player of our band, Joe, knew Amy Chase because he used to sell some stuff at her shop, Crompton Collective. Through Joe, Amy found out about us selling trees in Watertown. She said, “You should open a second location in Worcester.” We laughed and told her we were already spread too thin. When we moved back here, we decided to reach out to her and she said she still loved the idea. We’ve gotten closer with her after a few years here. We’ve also gotten close with Rob and Avra of Birchtree, Seed to Stem and Michaelangelo’s Barber Shop. It has been really cool.

Do you have any Christmas traditions of your own? We have a yearly Christmas party

with high school friends. It has dwindled, there are people who don’t make it out anymore, but the core group of people still find their way back to Worcester.

What’s next for Four Year Strong? In

January, right after the holidays, we’re going to Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

How does Worcester measure up to all these places you’ve visited on tour? It’s so much

better than anywhere else. A huge part of that for me is because it’s my home. Every musician says home is the best, you know?

There’s so much here for me that keeps bringing me back. Family, friends and now business. There are areas in Worcester that have become a lot cooler on account of small businesses, restaurants and a new community of people.

— Sarah Connell

46

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