Tag Archives: the PIP

By Rosalie Tirella

Some Worcester projects just drag on and on and on.

For example: The Wyman Gordon site, at Green Island’s Lamartine Street. Now a brown field, it was once a thriving factory and serious economic booster for Green Islanders. Today it lies empty, ugly and toxic.

… or Piedmont’s Chandler Elementary School. The families there need a larger school building to accommodate the hundereds of kids that the city educates there. A good chunk of the student body is being bussed daily to other learning sites in the city. On a smaller scale, up until very recently, its trashed back doors and side windows needed replacing … (pics:R.T.)

These projects in our urban core just never seem to get off the ground. Like the perennial lead balloon, these inner-city sites – a reflection of Worcester political leaders’ lack of commitment to poorer/minority neighborhoods and poor/minority folks (usually people with little political clout ) – just keep rolling along Lamartine Street, Murray Ave or Chandler Street. Every election cycle our politicians ever so elegantly dance over these lead balloons: Yes! they say, we feel your pain! (they absolutely do NOT!). Yes! we know half of Chandler Elementary school’s student body is being bussed out to other city buildings to learn because the building is so over populated! (How many West Side parents would put up with that kind of school-day disruption for their precious kiddies?!) Yes! We know the school’s back doors are wooden and rotten and look like some one’s trying to kick them in and the wood windows are damaged badly, but, hey, we’re working on it! (finally – yes – the school’s doors were recently replaced with heavy green metal ones and the damaged heavy wooden windows replaced with new ones – see photo, above)

Here is our latest urban core lead balloon over which the city is self-flagellating but not moving on – even though a BEAUTIFUL USE for it was recently presented to the City Manager and Co. by former Worcester City Councilor Juan Gomez :

It’s the old PIP building in Main South – and the LATINO ARTS/PERFORMANCE CENTER it could have become!

Formerly one of the state’s two or three only “wet” shelters (drunk, high, stoned homeless welcome here!) residents and small businesses in Main South and city leaders (most notably former District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller) clamored for years for the PIP to be shut down. The drug users were shooting up heroin a few streets outside the PIP’s doors and then staggering into the social service agency for supper, medical care and a cot to sleep in for the night . Morning came and they walked out into the Main South neighborhood, some on their way to getting clean and sober, but most looking to get high all over again and repeat the brutal cycle. Usually just yards away from the PIP’s back doors! Nearby Main South small biz folks were outraged, lower Main South residents fearful and without hope.

Then a few years ago, the unimaginable happened: Thanks mostly to Haller and Main South community activist Billy Breault, the PIP was FINALLY shut down. Homeless addicts and hardcore alcoholics are now being helped in other places in the city – social service agencies that refuse them if they are high and transport them to hospitals for detoxification; places/half way homes with more security; social service agencies with impressive, structured programs.

So now the old PIP building has become another Woo lead balloon!

For their/your information: the PIP building ITSELF is STILL attracting junkies, staggering alcoholics and high homeless folks! Scrawny, weather beaten women are STILL TODAY walking the walk outside its doors, along Charlton Street, looking to sell their bodies to buy a bag of cheap smack from the heroin dearler who himself is usually just a few yards away. The tired and high but hopeless STILL sit on the curb stones by the PIP nodding off, heads in their hands, rocking to and fro, murmuring to themselves. So sad…They are still breaking into nearby vehicles to “sleep it off” or look for money in glove compartments to buy drugs. Guns are still being fired.

The PIP building is STILL an affront to the hardwordking small business folks who are trying to make a living and create jobs! It’s STILL a late night, cacophony-filled nightmare for Main South residents trying to hold down jobs and raise their families right!

Enter the adorable, strong-willled, smart-as-the-bow-ties-he-wears Juan Gomez, executive director of Centro on nearby Sycamore Street – just two streets down. Gomez, a former Worcester City Councilor and a recent city councilor candidate, has been head of the city’s premier Latino social sevice agency for several years now. And he’s run with it! Programs for the Hispanic elderly, hungry and displaced have expanded! Their outreach to the Worcester Hispanic population grows stronger by the day. Education, art, small biz … Juan is trying to support it all! Do it all! The yearly summertime and terrific Latino Music Festival, put on in large part through support from Centro, is another jewel in Worcester’s cultural crown. In other words, Centro, which has been around for years, is UP AND COMING !, thanks in no small part to the little power house and biz-savvy, Republican, feet-on-the-ground-but-not-afraid-to-dream Juan Gomez, himself a second generation American and a profile in courage as a cancer survivor.

So I cheered when Centro purchased a few pieces of tired property, really a good bit of Sycamore Street, next to and across the street from Centro. For additional office space and parking, Juan says. Needed because their expanded services and mission needs more space in a very densely populated inner city neighborhood.

Here’s the most intriguing/best part…Centro, through Juan, planned on buying the PIP building to create a Latino Arts Center/Community Space open to ALL. It would have showcased the arts/culture and artists of Puerto Rico and Central America. Worcester folks with roots from those countries and territory would be able to enjoy a beautiful slice of their or their parents/grandparents homelands. THEIR ROOTS. THEIR HERITAGE. A POSITIVE PICTURE. There were plans for a performance space with a stage for dancers, musicians, singers, poets. There would have been classrooms for artist workshops and community art or music classes. All with an eye on nurturing and promoting Latino art and artists!

TERRIFIC! I thought to myself. What a wonderful addition to the Worcester Family! To a CITY that SAYS it embraces racial and economic DIVERSITY as manifested through its population!

Juan applied to the City of Worcester for a $100,000+ community block grant to help buy the PIP building. The City Manager’s office said NO, NOPE, no thanks. Not interested in supporting this arts center. The grant money went to other Worcester social service agencies – all doing fine work but nothing as WONDERFUL and INSPIRED/INSPIRING as what this Latino Arts building would have meant to our Latino/ minority community, ALL WORCESTERITES and DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION.

The PIP is a big, multi-storied building that is in EXCELLENT shape (I toured it a few years ago). It would have made a great arts center. It has a big commercial kitchen, many bathrooms, meeting rooms and a big open first floor space. Perfect!

Yet city leaders, who claim to be urban visionaries, couldn’t “see” the brilliance and beauty of Juan Gomez’s vision. For his people. For downtown. For all of Worcester County, really.

So often the Latinos that make the news – and shape our collective vision of their culture – are in the stories about Latinos in Worcester riding illegal dirt bikes, getting arrested for drug dealing, getting stabbed over that, shot over this. THE FEW BAD SEEDS. (I’ve always been amazed that grinding poverty and prejudice haven’t made more people angry killers!) Wouldn’t it be great to read, daily, about the good and amazing in Latino culture? The famous Latino guitarist visiting the CENTRO ARTS CENTRE or those wonderful Salsa dancers who performed over in Main South at the CENTRO ARTS CENTRE … or the city kids who are discovering a famous Hispanic painter in the summer art class they’re taking at the CENTRO ARTS CENTRE?

That is how you cure white people of racial prejudice!

Present a different – the TRUE – PICTURE of a culture to them!

Keep doing this every day…and prejudices will begin to melt away. Work to have people, white, brown, black, poor, rich interact with each other every day – meet in celebratory, educational places to see WHO THEY REALLY ARE.

That is how we break down barriers and make society more equitable, freer…

The CENTRO ARTS center would have been a BOON for all of us! Instead the city manager and city staff and city political leaders shut their eyes and missed an opportunity with the PIP building! Which is really nutty and pathetic, besides being horribly short-sighted, because they often talk about how there is little racism in Worcester or how seriously they take racial inequity. That’s a lie. They don’t know any better. Yet they need to!

If anything, out of self interest:

Main South is only a block or two away from our planned BRIGHT NEW SHINY DOWNTOWN! City Manager Ed Augustus wants a BEAUTIFUL and BUSTLING downtown Worcester to be his legacy. He’s got an urban renewal game plan and making it happen. It’s a shame he can’t walk just two blocks up from his beloved downtown and his office in City Hall to see all the horrible shit STILL GOING DOWN IN FRONT OF AND ON THE SIDE of the PIP building . The junkies STILL passed out in front of the PIP are just the beginning…

Now, I ask you, how can we create a downtown Worcester that WILL DRAW MILLENIALS AND THE UPWARDLY MOBILE AND THE MIDDLE CLASS EMPTY NESTERS if, on their way to a show at the Hanover or a road race that starts at City Hall or a visit to a cool, urbane downtown restaurant for martinis and sushi, they see some guy pretend butt fucking some gal outside the PIP building, like I have? Or several more lost souls sitting on the curb or overturned gray plastic milk crates picked out of Dumpsters waiting for their man so they can shoot up and get high?

What will this little gritty scene say about the new and trendy Worcester to people who will, in some cases, be driving by the PIP?!

Can you dig it?!

We can!

The City of Worcester movers and shakers can’t.

Why?

No need to plumb city leaders’ psyches for a deep answer…But let’s just say the city is run by a bunch of unforgiving vindictive shit heads who never forget a slight or a misstatement or a move that was not in sync with their political plans and have no trouble turning the lone riders the lone visionaries into PERSON NON GRATA. Crap. Juan Gomez, as a Worcester city councilor, was always his own man. But in a very nice, respectful way. Sometimes he’s been passionate about what he truly believes in. Nothing wrong, everything right, about that! But his passion for the Hispanic livery drivers and their customers during his last few months as a Worcester City Councilor (that’s why they were his last few months!) turned lots of political movers and shakers off. They whispered amongst themselves: Juan’s gone rogue! When he lead a group of clapping chanting livery drivers out of City Hall as a show of solidarity during a city council meeting when he was city councilor, well, that didn’t do at all! His political demise was written on the City Council chambers wall…

We loved it! Juan was right! Juan was real and cool and INSPIRING! The city shitheads renounced him, in their heads, right then and there! Here was the Juan who used to eat lunch with former City Manager Tom Hoover over at the MID TOWN MALL, across from City Hall, over at the Latino lunch hot spot SABANA’s being mentally blacklisted! He used to tell Tom Hoover: Come! Enjoy the spicey treats of my culture! Hoover did! Along with the scores of other cool folks! The line for lunch at Sabana’s used to go our the door! The old cool Worcester vibe! Back then it wasn’t all smug and phoney and boutiquey. Just urban. A white Polish guy from Toledo breaking bread with a little Puerto Rican guy from Worcester! Enormous!

Can you imagine Ed Augustus eating lunch in the MID TOWN MALL (a place on his urban renewal hit list) with Juan Gomez, a political outcast? Especially after Juan felt cheated after this election and held a press conference or two about it and almost pushed for a ballot recount?!

Of course the City of Worcester wasn’t going to give Juan his Latino arts center, give him the $$$hundred-plus grand he needed to begin his project.

It’s the Worcester way!

So the PIP continues to languish and be an unsightly magnet for drugs and crime EVERY DAY. And Worcester’s Hispanic community and Downtown Worcester don’t get a cool, racial barrier busting Latino Arts Center!

Another lead balloon rolls down Worcester!

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Go, Ronny, go!!!!!

October 8, 2015 admin

MAIN SOUTH: The PIP is gone, but the crime remains the same

By Ron O’Clair

Hit and run …

Early Wednesday morning the 7th of October as I was still at my post watching the nefarious goings on in my area of concern here on Main Street in the 700 block, I heard a terrific crash right outside my window.

I was able to look out in time to see the same Dodge Ram pick up that had been terrorizing the neighborhood all night long previously running up and down Main Street at a high rate of speed making U-turns and coming back to interact with the street denizens who habituate my area.

I had almost called in a complaint on the truck for that behavior earlier, but the response times from the Worcester Police Department often are such that I figured they would be gone by the time the police arrived.

The guy in the black truck had been burning rubber during those U-turns which tended to be at Main & Hermon, and Main & Sycamore.

Several times during the course of the night, the offending vehicle would park outside of my building on the Charlton Street side and make transactions with the street dealers that perpetuate this particular spot in our beautiful City of Worcester.

I have tried to get the WPD to investigate the street level dealings that take place all night long outside my windows that are readily apparent to anyone that cares to look, but so far have not had much success.

Apparently, hanging around all night long outside of residential and commercial property that is clearly posted with No Trespass with no legitimate purpose is allowed in this section of the City of Worcester. At times there are as many as 20 people congregating outside of this building. You can travel the length of Main Street and not find that anywhere but here at ground zero at 2, 3, 4, or 5 in the morning.

It is the same people, doing the same things, day after day, night after night, and nothing is being done in the way of rectifying an intolerable situation, outside of my own objections, actions, and vigilance. I am ready to throw in the towel and give it up as a lost cause.

I thank the 580 Worcester voters outside of myself who cast a ballot in my favor in the preliminary election for City Councilor At-Large, I am grateful that there are still some people who can see the truth of the situation that exists here in the 700 block of Main Street.

Once in a while, someone is caught in the act of criminal behavior and actually has to face the consequences.

It just so happens that the driver of the black Dodge Ram truck was caught this morning. The woman whose car was destroyed may be able to get compensated for the damages, none of which would have happened had I not been witness and willing to do what is required of a citizen when he or she witnesses a crime.

It is your civic duty to assist the police in maintaining order in your community. Many people fail to do that duty for various reasons, and the result is that the police are hamstrung by lenient laws designed to protect the innocent from false charges which many times allow the criminals to continue their crimes without consequence.

So, after striking the vehicle, the guy revved the engine and pushed the car ahead a full car length, before finally backing up and fleeing the scene, only going as far as Wellington Street where he quickly parked the vehicle. This gave me ample opportunity to witness the incident, and telephone the police.

While waiting for the police to arrive, the woman who owned the damaged vehicle came out of 718 Main Street with a friend, saw me in the window and asked if I had seen who did it.

I pointed out the black truck now parked on Wellington Street, at which point the passenger that was riding in the vehicle at the time of the crash saw me doing my duty as a citizen.

There was some panic at that point among the perpetrators, and I believe an attempt was made by them to forestall summoning the police because the passenger whistled after the two women who were now heading back to the building I assume to summon the police.

The driver, with his shaven head plainly visible had exited the vehicle and was staggering all over the place on Wellington Street in what I surmise was a drug/alcohol induced state of intoxication.
It bordered on the bizarre, this whole scene, but really it was just another day in the hood. When the police finally got here, the operator was inside the drivers seat clapping his hands. The two women were taking cell phone pictures of the license plate of the truck which I had already reported to the call taker for the Worcester Police Department having read it with my telephoto lens as it sat parked on Wellington Street.

The black Dodge Ram got towed away by the police, which probably means that it was unregistered and that the plate did not belong to it which will no doubt cause problems for the woman who had her vehicle damaged. The operator was taken away in the Paddy Wagon, and the damaged car remained parked outside my building for several hours.
I am quite certain that had I not done my duty, the occupants of the black Dodge Ram had no intention of owning up to the fact that they had caused the damage to the woman’s vehicle.

Certainly I am not winning any friends among the criminal element by my taking the moral high road and doing the right thing in these situations, but my faith in the system demands that I do it. If we fail to do our part, it is only a matter of time until there would be total chaos and anarchy on the streets.

People need to do their part, the police alone can’t control the situation. If we all do what is required of us as citizens as laid out by our forefathers, we could restore out inner cities to order in no time. It is a sad state of affairs that I have to call the police to report people sitting right on my front steps smoking crack cocaine out in the open on Main Street, only to have them come too late to catch the offender in action. Same goes for my witnessing trespassers doing drugs on the private property or when vehicles come to make drug buys, by the time the police arrive to investigate the suspicious vehicle report, the transaction has taken place and the next one occurs. It is a never ending cycle of lawlessness that is not being halted.

Perhaps getting this out there in print will help change that.
I urge other concerned citizens who reside in my location to start phoning the police with complaints about the activities that go on outside their windows on a 24/7 basis. When enough complaints are made, things will start to happen.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Worcester, can our urban core turn the corner?

September 13, 2015 admin

Text and photos by Rosalie Tirella

Yesterday, while running errands, I saw this heap of garbage on the corner of Endicott and Millbury streets, behind a restaurant no less:

Disgusting. Demoralizing.

Across the street in front of Our Lady of Czetchowa/St. Mary’s Church parking lot – not the Ward/Richland streets side but the Endicott Street side – I saw more shit: a mattress box spring leaning against a fence, a tall garbage can overflowing with garbage and much more trash strewn on the surrounding sidewalk. A mini landfill! I did not take a photo cuz there was a tough guy putting more crap there, and you know how that goes here in the hood …

The pastor of St. Mary’s, a Polish priest, who has ZERO interest in the neighborhood his church is smack dab in the middle of so he is ALSO PART OF THE PROBLEM, has refused to cooperate with the City of Worcester in any way – will not allow city workers to install a video camera on church property to catch the illegal dumpers, so they can be fined or at least shamed at their pig-pile ways.

This “pastor” will not even allow the Worcester Public Library book mobile LIBBY to park in his precious church parking lot. But he does allow LIBBY to idle there for his St. Mary’s School students – his church’s mediocre, dying parish school.

Public library for private school kids. No public library for Worcester inner-city kids! One of the school’s marketing points, for parents: IT’S A SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

Nope! With all the garbage, junkie used syringes and guns found on Ward Street NEXT DOOR TO ST. MARY’S, St. Mary’s School is located in one of Worcester’s least SAFE neighborhoods.

The Polish pastor does NOTHING to safeguard his students because he does NOTHING to improve the neighborhood.

Here’s his PRECIOUS parking lot in the middle of being repaved:

Then a quick drive by the old PIP in Main South where, a few weeks ago, I saw this homeless recovering addict lying in a nearby doorway in hospital scrubs and yellow socks:

This time, yesterday, at the corner of Main and Charlton streets, the hood HOT SPOT while the old PIP wet homeless shelter existed for so many years I saw: 15 or so people in a roiling urban dystopia – hookers, guys and gals watching drug deals going down, a guy pretending to butt fuck a lady against the wall, people sitting on the curb, people sitting on overturned milk crates, many on the phone, many dazed and confused, most all looking to score junk, crack, pussy … a carnival of urban despair/violence … a 10 minute walk from Worcester City Hall, the downtown city leaders are working so feverishly to resuscitate.

I drive by the area every day. THIS IS THE WAY IT ALWAYS LOOKS. … THIS IS EXACTLY THE WAY THIS INFAMOUS CORNER LOOKED WHEN THE PIP WAS OPEN. THE PIP WAS BLAMED FOR THE URBAN DYSFUNCTION. But the PIP has been gone for a few years now AND YET THE SCENE LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME!

How can we save the inner-city when the inner-city refuses to save itself? On any level. Even if that means throwing your trash into a trash barrel or NOT kicking in your back or front door just cuz you want to?

Uncivilized behavior has created an uncivilized urban environment.

How are we going to take back our urban core, Worcester?

InCity Voices

My wish for 2015: we support local and state police departments throughout our country

January 2, 2015 admin

By Ron O’Clair

It is my wish for the upcoming year that we here in Worcester can lead the rest of the nation into a new era of racial equality, respect for each other, regardless of what is on the outside, and show by example that support for Law Enforcement is a bedrock principle of our Democracy.

The shameful displays of disrespect for authority without valid reason, as in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri, and the associated shootings of officers in various locales trying to be justified by the evildoers as “revenge” for Mike Brown shows how twisted our social norms have become in America.

If you are going to exercise your right to protest an injustice, make damn sure there was an injustice in the first place.

The protesting college students who caused traffic tie ups and inconvenience but did not escalate to looting and burning here in Worcester all clung to that tired old “Hands up, don’t Shoot!” mantra, even though it has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the bullets all entered Brown from the front of his arms. How then could the hands have been raised?

Officer Wilson faced an extremely aggressive thug who had become accustomed to getting his way by using his bulk and brawn as a weapon of intimidation. Forcing the store clerk to let him leave with the box of cigars proved that.

All the evidence is in favor of Law Enforcement on this issue, yet people have been blinded by hatred. People see only in black and white and still cling to the notion that a crime was committed against Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson.

I pray that 2015 brings about change, and that we as a nation can all see that we absolutely need to support our local and state police forces throughout our country. Hold them accountable if they break the law themselves, but we need to support the concepts of Truth, Justice and the American way at the same time.

No system is perfect, and mistakes are made that cost innocent lives on occasion – that is a sad truth about any system of justice.

The proliferation of illegal drugs in our society, along with chronic alcoholism, has spawned a subculture of malcontents who fail utterly to do their civic duty to help the police eradicate crime in their communities.

My D-Day inspired campaigns that I have undertaken each 6th of June for several years has made an impact on my crime-infested neighborhood here in the 700 Block of Main Street (across from the former PIP) primarily because I employed a new weapon in my arsenal of Democracy. A video camera. For several months now I have been making videos of nefarious activities in my Main South neighborhood and posting them on You Tube. I installed a security camera system on my building, which I manage for the landlord, and that video camera records all activity up and down the street. It has also helped curb illegal activity.

I have been at various times branded as a “snitch” because I believe it is a citizen’s duty to cooperate with law enforcement and intervene whenever possible to halt crimes in progress and follow that through with an appearance in court, if needed, to convict the guilty. Those who refer to me as a ‘snitch’ have no concept of honor. They are part of the subculture that is destroying our country, one crime ridden area at a time.

My long and continuous battle against overwhelming odds has borne fruit, and my neighborhood has improved, rather than declined further. My unorthodox methods have had an impact on the lives of those in the area, including ones who were part of the problem. My “Zombie Walk” video was responsible for getting the girl in it, Samantha [last name withheld], into treatment for drug addiction and perhaps will lead to a reconciliation with her family, if she is successful in treatment. If she fails, I will unlock the video of her that went viral with 114,766 views in the 10 days. I posted it and it brought attention to the problem of drug addiction in our neighborhood – as was my intent in filming it. Case closed. But it brought me a lot of condemnation from various quarters. But it was ultimately directly responsible for the girl getting the help she so obviously needed in dealing with her drug dependency issues!

Two of the other of the worst of the worst daily offenders on my videos have been clean and sober for quite some time now. Hopefully, I will be able to attend the January 27th ceremony recognizing six solid months of recovery for Wanda, whom I had prosecuted for breaking into my truck so she could get out of the cold and get some sleep after a day’s long crack cocaine binge. The Judge who sentenced her will be on hand to present her with her coin. I certainly hope she and her boyfriend Mike [last names withheld] can remain clean and sober until that time, and far beyond.

That would not have happened if not for my video-taping efforts, and I am grateful that both Wanda and Mike have thanked me in person for my efforts on their behalf. Now that they are drug free, they can see why I do what I do. Most of those who currently condemn me will come to understand my motivation is for the benefit of all Worcesterites, not one or another subset, race or culture.

I stand firmly on the side of law enforcement.

Here is hoping that 2015 brings about a new era focusing on recovery for those addicted to drugs and alcohol and more cooperation between the public and police throughout communities in America.

InCity Voices, Uncategorized

The “Prostitution” meeting, the PIP, crack cocaine and so much more

October 14, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By Ron O’Clair

I attended the “Prostitution” meeting held at the board room of the Community Development Corporation Headquarters located at 875 Main Street, which was quite well attended by community activists like me, and just plain old ordinary citizens who are fed up with the everyday bullshit that comes along with the associated crimes that prostitution helps support.

Since that time, returning to what I refer to as: “ground zero”, the property that I manage located right next door to the venerable P.I.P. Shelter, and armed with a new resolve not to let the insanity continue unabated, I had the good fortune to be renovating a vacancy that sits smack dab on top of the action outside the window, and due to my penchant to work unorthodox hours continuing throughout the night, I was able to see and hear what my tenants have to endure every single night without fail.

The tenant that we finally got shed of was involved in lots of the goings on outside the windows, and sad to say had contributed to my building being perceived as a place to go to use and abuse drugs. Even though I have a “No visitor policy” in effect to prevent just such a thing. I found several cut baggie corners and a whole lot of cut knots, that indicate that lots of crack cocaine was smoked in that room. The tenant always professed to be in recovery, and not doing that anymore, but the evidence tells the tale better than anything else. Not to mention the two used glass crack pipes that I found while cleaning out the room Continue reading The “Prostitution” meeting, the PIP, crack cocaine and so much more →