> I’ll stop ranting. But the city as a whole is very nice. Ask any local and they’ll say they been hearing the same thing for decades “Worcester has been on the up and coming”

I mention this every time it comes up, but the earliest I've ever seen the phrase "Worcester Renaissance" used is from January '05 when they started to push the Paris Cinema to shut down in earnest. I know they were using it before then because people in the articles talk about it like it's some ongoing process, but it's just so patently Worcester.

There's all these civil servants in the articles saying, "Worcester's a developing city! We're in the Renaissance! We can't have a porno theater right next to City Hall! It needs to be shut down so we can build something good there!"

So they shut it down. What happened to the property? It sat there, vacant, for twelve fucking years. And after twelve years what did they put in its place? The Beer Garden. Quite possibly the shittiest restaurant in Worcester.

I'd take the porno theater over that place any day, at least the Paris was honest about what it was. It wasn't a faux-gastro pub with sub-Denny's quality food.