Welcome to the land that time forgot. The real reason I made a pilgrimage to Water Street in Worcester was to see the “surreal icons” of artist Scott Holloway on exhibit at the Secret Society tattoo parlor in this funky neighborhood. (And they were great, all anatomical parts shown reverently against fields of gold leaf, displaying the artist’s interest in the dogma, science and painterly craft that all surfaced during the early Renaissance.) But the real find may have been the neighborhood itself, a neglected piece of the past, retaining vestiges of its history as the early home of Worcester’s Polish and Jewish enclaves. Not much left, alas, but what there is delights. Weintraub’s Deli on one side, Widoff’s Bakery on the other. The venerable throwback Broadway Diner and Bay State (Lebanese) bakery just down the block. Before I met my friend (and local resident) Patty for coffee at the Broadway, I had already purchased both bread pudding and a cinnamon/raisin babka from Widoff’s, reluctantly taking a raincheck on the heavily powdered-sugared chruschiki (the “angel wings” cookies I hadn’t seen since the Polish mother of a high school friend had introduced them to me some 45 years earlier.)
No comments:
Post a Comment