Living in Main South for almost 8 years there was nothing I wanted to go to less than the Latin American Festival. Mostly because of years of encountering things like this:
I have to say though that all those years I was really missing out. What a good time this is!
Really this is all I have to say about it. Very very very good music and very very very good food being enjoyed by very very very good people having a very very very good time.
Musical highlights for me were Murga La de Todos (Uraguay), Franroy Figuero & Carlos Boys Band (Cuba), Grupo Boriken (Puerto Rico), Gregorio Uribe Big Band (Columbia) and Yomo Toro and the Frankie Morales Orchestra.
Just incredible. I am already looking forward to next year. Take advanage in 2009 folks. This is world class pro music that could be commanding quite a heavy admission charge and it is totally free and happening right here in your city. Do not sleep on this next year.
9 comments:
I still think is is unnessary and embarrassing for the city that so many leave this festival that is a jewel for the city in such a disgraceful manner...every year the police have to close down Main South and there are fights..it is unnessary and the Hispanic/Latino should be addressing this..I think this is a huge factor in why more of other heritages are not embracing it.
These things aren't happening at the actual festival though. The festival itself is total family atmosphere. At least while I was there.
Can't say that about the St Patty's Day parade can you?
Also, and I hate to say it like this, but if the city was more defined neighborhood wise most other heritages wouldn't even see this part of it because they wouldn't even be going into Main South because they would have no reason to go there.
It took me a long time to figure that out and now I am hardly ever there. Aside from One Love there is nothing in Main South for me. I lived there for as long as I did simply because I didn't know any better.
This response is going to piss a lot of people off I think. Worcester prides itself on being so ethnically and culturally diverse but I think there is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to that. There aren't many natural neighborhoods with their own cultural identity in the city. Places where a transplant can say,"okay, these are my people, this is where I want to live."
Sometimes it feels like there is just the west side, the lake side, and the urban core. Three neighborhoods. Pitiful shit.
they are still to many leaving the festival in a disgraceful way Gabe..you can spin it with ohers any way you choose to (I state this respectfully:>). I also am on the St. Paddy's course (two properties) and I would not condone the same type of behavior..I have not seen it as I am usually in Boston for this time of year or in Ireland.
I am not anti-Hipsnaic Gabe...but I am not afraid to state my opinion on the my thoughts regarding the citizen contribution inequities between the local Hispanic/Latino comunities and the remaining Worcester collective comunities..I want to see more leadership mate!
The City should not have to shut down to the World a neighborhood because they do not feel the residents of a neighborhood are able to act responsibley after a festival...I witnessed gangs of kids 8-10 years old riding the streets on bicycles harrassing the police and regular cats like you and me..adults everywhere in Main South actinbg like fools...I don't care what happens elsewhere..we already have a huge image problem in this city locally and outside our borders..anyone new to this city would say sayonara in one minute..if parents happened to be visiting their freshman daughter at Clark they would drag her out in seconds....again spin it any way you want to..poor behavior is poor behavior and at one time in mi short life I was an expert on poor behavior:>(
It is unfortunate that a percentage that is much smaller than the good folks attending from all walks stagnates this festival but unfortunately that is life and how many good folks decide on where to visit/live...it is to bad that there is not enough peer pressure to stop this year after year sore on the festival which I have many times stated is a jewel for the city:>)
Paulie
Regular people visiting Baltimore never set foot in Sandtown. There is a reason for this. The city goes out of their way to point them elsewhere and then makes sure that that elsewhere is a no fuck around zone.
Worcester doesn't have an ounce of the crime that Bmore has yet if you were to take a Baltimore outsider and put them in Federal Hill or Fell's Point and take a Worcester outsider and put them in Downtown or the Canal District who do you think would feel safer?
If I had my say the first thing I would do as unpopular as it might be is completely step up the police presence in Elm Park, Downtown, North Main, The Canal District and Shrewsbury St until they were almost as safe as the West Side.
If I had to pull police from main south I would do so. We can't work on the entire urban core at once. The whole thing is almost equally as shitty and before we start to work on the bad parts the so so parts that just need a little tinkering need to become a priority. At that point we will have people with actual money living in those parts and our tax base will increase.
Police presence, beautification and then marketing, marketing, marketing to let the rest of the world know what we offer. We have to point people in the right direction though.
Unfortunately, councilors that have no idea why anyone would want to live in an urban area have no idea what that direction even is.
well I am glad you want to leave those of us doing the right thing to the wolves Gabe because you want to see some gentrification:>) I'd have a pretty difficult time of it with out the WPD matey...I have had many physical confrontations down here mate and the coppahs have been most gracouis (sp) in helping me out..we need more NOT less..this all being said I understand your mind set:>)
In New Orleans they literally set up a French Magnet Line around the core entertaiment section of NOLA to keep out the riff raff..the last thing NOLA needs is for travelers to get mugged or killed in a city that is seeing 1 murder a day in it:>(
Missing Main South is pretty unavoidable if you are going to Clark and I would rather see more of what is around Clark than what is there now..
"There aren't many natural neighborhoods with their own cultural identity in the city."
Worcester had ethnic neighborhoods that had organically evolved up to the sixty's. Some vestige of it may remain but they are slowly dissolving. You may be too young to remember that when the Yankee blue hairs (Old Money Hoarders )persuaded the public to vote to rip RT 290 through the center of Worcester, they ( I believe intentionally) murdered the ethnic neighborhoods.Completely destroyed the black neighborhood at lower Belmont and Summer Streets, cut off Lebanese and Italians at lower Grafton street, and what ever immigrant neighborhoods that were left had road blocks or discouraging ways to access downtown or the west side of the City. Can you guess who occupied the west side of the city and owned most of the buildings downtown? Rt. 290 is a racist line separating old Jewish, Black, Italian, Polish, and Irish neighborhoods and others. Today, many of the people from those old neighborhoods melted into the city. Some out of pride and spite stayed and what ever development continued in Green island, Main South, Shrewsbury Street happened organically, without city or political intervention. As we are all aware Worcester government intervention only results in disenfranchising and separating and pissing people off. Those old ethnic neighborhoods were very cool and anyone could enjoy what each group had to offer such as food, music, art, etc. The racist line served to fuel resentment for new immigrants who came in afterwards. Now the city boast of diversity which is bullshit, typically taking the credit for things that happen organically. It's not that there is too much of a good thing there is just not enough unified support for it. You can thank the city government and those we voted for for that.
even with gentrification changing the landscape of Boston..the ole tribes still run most section..North End is still represented by Italians in the House and Senate..Roxbury,parts of Dorchester & Mattapan still represented by Blacks in the House & Senate...Charlestown, Southie, parts of Dorchester, West Roxbury still represented by the Irish in the House & Senate...Italian Mayor after years of Irish and the leading contenders to succeed Menino...Chinatown finally has Chinese representing them and the Latino's for a cup of coffee had Felix Arroyo until Felix got lazy after one term and did not campaign...and all local & state are real city folks!
I love when I hear our leadahs call Worcester a ciy of neighborhoods....it always makes me say which ones?? They are neighborhoods in name only!
Drive by the islands in the urban core of the city..is even one in good shape..from almost every angle entering the urban core the city looks like shite.
We do not have even one minority on the City Council yet all we hear is how diverse our community is...I wish just once someone in leadership would state what we have..a community with a lot of very lazy people living within it's boundries..
check out the front page of the Boston Globe today Gabe..there is something wrong when this is happening everywhere these festival's take place
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/23/police_arrest_dozens_before_annual_festival/
I went to this festival in Worcester.. and I somehow forgot the woman's name.. She was on the stage and I think from Univision. Can you help me out? I have been trying to find her name since... well, I'm deaf that's why I couldn't hear her name. Thanks.
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