The year's Metro class -- for the uninitiated, "Metro" is Urban Studies-speak for UR 212 American Metropolitan Evolution -- did a little fieldwork in the Canal District today. Walking along Green Street to Kelley Square and about halfway up Water Street, the class took in the city on foot, catching glimpses of all the little things you cannot see when you are driving through the area. This was a practical approach to help them see how to approach the research and writing for their semester term papers, The Neighborhood Paper . At the corner of Green and Winter Streets, for instance, we all wondered, what's the story here? It was a scene in which the build-out of an older house gives the impression that it was just dropped into the middle of an international grocery. We'll have to investigate it more closely in the Worcester House Directories in CityLab. Sometimes we had an easier time making connections across decades as with the building at 97 Water Street. A...
A blog for the activities of the Department of Urban Studies at Worcester State University.