Worcester Parks - A Wonderland or Wasteland?

When's the last time you visited a Worcester area park? Is visiting a local park a regular destination for you?

We visited Elm Park this past Sunday for about 5 minutes. Fast huh. It looked bad. Real bad. So we resorted to Plan B - visit Institute Park for the swan races. It was called because the swans were stuck in muck.

Our last visit to Elm Park was about a year ago. And before that, um... a while. The park looks and smells awful, not to mention the ominous looking riffraff chillin out. The impact of 10's of thousands annual visitors has taken its toll on the park. Well at least it has toilets.

Here's a thought. How come there's a Friends of Newton Hill group, but no Friends of Elm Park? Where are all the activists?

Wonder what F. L. Olmsted would say today? Here's a fun link: Ten design lessons from Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture. Compare his lessons and then look on the city's Institute Park Master Plan. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Recently drove by Institute Park several times to watch the renovation work. So last Sunday (Plan B) we decided to take a closer look. Pretty impressive. Oughta be, its costing millions. Wonder when opening day is?

What I don't get is why in these economic times the city went forward with that and the Main South pool/sprayer project.

Been thinking. How is it that Salisbury St./WPI gets a major renovation and Main (The Money Pit) South gets... um peanuts? I guess the thinking goes, if City Hall can throw away millions on some sprayers for the Po folk, the gentry (Friends of Institute Park) oughta get their fair share of government largess too. Like between $22.3 and $31.3 million.What was the price tag for the sprayers?

I wonder how that was finagled. Heck, Main South residents were bought off with some cheap sprayers and renovated pools and D4 Councilor Babs, as in Haller, said nothing? That's government for ya eh?

Wonder what will happen to Institute Park once the locusts i.e, public swarms in. Suppose it'll look like Elm Park in a couple years. Who'll pay for the upkeep? The Parks Dept. has been decimated with budget cuts. Maybe one of our many corporate citizens?

Perhaps WPI? Don't bet on it.