Old Ford pics

[hemidave]

[CobraJoe]

[FiveSevenLiter]

Marx Service Center

[SkylinerRon]

Those old Marx tin toys are cool, I have a 0 gauge Marx tin train from that era.

Lavender was a popular color around 1960, my 61 Plymouth is almost the same color.

Ron.

[mustang6984]

The sedan Delivery and Ranchero in Marx's Service Center are oh so sweet! I'd like to have one of those set-ups for my model collection! Nice!!!

[hiball3985]

Eight rancheros, a custom 4 door, and a fairlane hard top WOW!!!

[hemidave]

[Ecode70D]

   Joe
    That video about t he 36 ford pick up was real cool.  Is that what we are coming to?
     Thanks for posting it.
      Did you get a lot of snow?
Jay

[CobraJoe]

Jay about 8" of wet, heavy snow. How about you guys?

[mustang6984]

Three inches of angel's dandruff in Shell Knob. People around here do  drive well in snow...they see it so seldom. I was told this was the first snow in over 5 years. 

Most of it is gone now...it was Sunday when the angels shook their heads.

[Ecode70D]

Jay about 8" of wet, heavy snow. How about you guys?

      We got about the same amount.  I haven't even been out of the house today. I'm glad that I don't have to go out and drive in it.  My cars are nice and happy inside the shop.
        Ed out back got everything all plowed out.
.

[hemidave]

[Ecode70D]

  It was just normal to park those nice 57 Fords outside in the bad weather in
those days.     

[RICH MUISE]

Not familiar with the "Tatnuck area"...........is that our Woosta?

[CobraJoe]

That's the one Rich, here's an old article about the area:

"WORCESTER, MA - People who live in the Tatnuck section of Worcester almost feel as if they reside in a bucolic suburb, not in the second-largest city in New England.

Tucked into the westernmost part of the city abutting Leicester, Paxton and Holden, Tatnuck is a largely residential area with a smattering of small businesses lining Pleasant and Chandler streets in Tatnuck Square.

It's a very nice neighborhood,said Bruce Gerardi, owner and operator of Gerardi's Service Center at 1123 Pleasant St. for 35 years. It's like being in the country, but the city is a minute away. Two minutes you go down here to Holden and you've got a beautiful reservoir. A lot of hiking. It's definitely a family neighborhood.?

Mr. Gerardi enjoys road-testing cars down Olean Street toward the Holden Reservoir because it's so scenic.
It's wonderful, said Monsignor Thomas J. Sullivan, pastor for more than seven years at Christ the King Parish at 1052 Pleasant St. I see joggers and walkers all day long going by the church, walking their dogs, having a good time. Kids- groups. This is a neighborhood that's alive and energetic and that's nice.

You can buy a house, said District 5 City Councilor Matthew Wally while sipping a coffee at On the Rise bakery at 1120 Pleasant St., in a safe neighborhood on a tree-lined street where there are good schools.

Ray Lauring, 93, has lived in Tatnuck since he was a third-grader at Tatnuck School in 1933 and never saw any reason to leave Tatnuck. He has run a senior softball league at Logan Field and Jesse Burkett Little League since 1990.

It's not downtown, Mr. Lauring said. It's not a busy commercial area, but we're not far from anything. Three or four miles and we can get anything that we need. We're happy not to be in the inner city. We're out in the boondocks really.

Rush-hour traffic

Nevertheless, there's a problem with Tatnuck Square that many believe will grow worse. In the Algonquian language, Tatnuck means "at the great hill," referring to the one that runs up Pleasant Street into Paxton. To many local residents, however, Tatnuck means the traffic that crawls through Tatnuck Square in the morning rush hour and in the midafternoon lasting through the evening rush hour.

I think we have to deal with the traffic, Mr. Wally said. ?I think that's huge. I think that's the No. 1 issue: How do you deal with the traffic I don't know if that includes looking at changes to traffic flow, signage. I don't know if it includes infrastructure, improvements to the square.

Flying out of Worcester Regional Airport, situated atop Tatnuck Hill, is certainly convenient for residents of the West Side. At his annual meeting with area residents in October, airport Director Andy Davis heard from someone who lives on Chandler Street close to Worcester State University who said he waits to see the plane flying in overhead before he leaves to pick up family members at the airport and he arrives in plenty of time.

But as the number of flights increases, so does traffic through Tatnuck to the airport.

The number of passengers out of the airport has risen from 72,000 in 2014 to 121,000 in 2016, and Mr. Davis estimates that number could reach 150,000 by next year when Delta Air Lines will begin flights to Detroit.

I actually think we have problems coming, said Cliff Wilson, owner of Framed in Tatnuck, a custom picture framing center and art gallery, at 1099 Pleasant St. The airport is doing wonderful. Everybody I talk to is starting to take flights out of the airport. We now have three airlines going out of there. From the city where most of the people live you're going through Tatnuck Square so the traffic here is going to get much, much worse.

Routes to the airport

Mr. Davis pointed out that there are three ways to drive to the airport and only one involves driving through Tatnuck Square. Most passengers who travel on the Massachusetts Turnpike drive through Auburn and Webster Square to Goddard Memorial Drive. Signs were erected a few years ago directing passengers through the business section of Webster Square, but many cut through neighborhoods. Other passengers take Mill Street to Airport Drive, but some do take Pleasant Street to the other end of Airport Drive.

Much of the traffic through Tatnuck, however, comes from residents of communities to the west of the city traveling on Pleasant and Chandler streets in and out of the city. Mr. Wally's research discovered that the number of registered vehicles in Paxton, Rutland, Barre and Oakham over the last 20 years has increased by 50 percent. Many of them come to Worcester to work and shop and for medical appointments. In the afternoon, cars heading west on Pleasant Street often back up to Flagg Street.

Mr. Wally filed an order to ask the city manager to have Massport, the state Department of Transportation, the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission and any other relevant parties study the increasing traffic problem.

Each October for the past nine years, Mr. Davis has met with residents to provide an update and take questions.

We appreciate the fact that we are surrounded by residents, Mr. Davis said, and we do our best to maintain good relationships with them.

When a May Street area resident complained at a meeting about the noise of low-flying planes at 2 or 3 in the morning, Mr. Davis said he was surprised because the May Street area is nearly a mile from the airport and 400 feet below the height of the runway, so planes should be 1,400 feet in the air over May Street.

Mr. Davis said Massport has a department to handle noise concerns and he attributed a recent increase in flights over May Street to the closure of a runway for 30 days for resurfacing, but that runway has reopened.

Mr. Davis said American Airlines and JetBlue could arrive in Worcester as late as 1 a.m. if they run late, but he said twin-engine airplanes do deliver medical specimens to Marlboro closer to 2 a.m.

Worcester State parking

Worcester State University is by far the largest employer on the West Side. According to the latest statistics available, in the fall of 2017, WSU had 6,434 students and 567 employees. The university's faculty, staff and students frequent the local businesses.

I think Worcester State does a good job of interacting with the community, Mr. Wally said. They have a neighborhood council that meets a few times a year and that's an open meeting, but even Worcester State would recognize that in the next few years they certainly need to increase on-campus parking.

As a district councilor and chairman of the city's traffic and parking subcommittee, Mr. Wally estimates he receives one or two complaints a week from residents about WSU students parking in their neighborhoods.

Gary Rosen said he received only one or two complaints about the airport during his four years as District 5 councilor before rejoining the City Council as an at-large member this year, but said he said he received far more complaints about students parking on streets near WSU.

Parking on some streets near WSU has been restricted to residents, but not on others. WSU has a satellite parking lot near the airport, but some students choose not to use it.

We are exploring looking at another parking garage, said Barry Maloney, who has been WSU president since 2011, but I also want to keep Worcester State affordable. We?re a bit landlocked.

Mr. Maloney said WSU's existing garage cannot be expanded.

Mr. Maloney said congestion on May and Chandler streets is also a problem. WSU students cross May Street to attend classes in the May Street Building and young students are dropped off and picked up at nearby May Street School and Chandler Street School, adding to already busy roads.

WSU worked with the city to bump out curbs and expand crosswalks on Chandler Street to make crossing the street safer and improve the traffic flow.

Mr. Maloney lives across the street from WSU and said the college does its best to be a good neighbor. According to Mr. Maloney, WSU produces nearly 160,000 hours of service to the community, much of it on the West Side, including holding literacy projects at Tatnuck Magnet School and conducting neighborhood cleanups and neighborhood meetings.

WSU students student-teach at May Street School and Chandler Magnet School. WSU maintains a garden with the students at Chandler Magnet School. Neighbors walk and jog through the campus and on the track.

On Saturday mornings, Central Mass. Striders races begin and end at WSU. The university's Speech-Language-Hearing Center offers free speech and hearing clinics to the public. High school volleyball and basketball tournaments are held in WSU's gym and high school football championship games are played on WSU's football field.

A lot of people judge Worcester State University, Mr. Rosen said, with all its good students, reasonable tuition and fees, good programs, they judge them by cars parked on the street. The neighbors do. Worcester State is a great asset to the neighborhood. I would hate if they moved somewhere else. Then we'd have tons of parking. That whole area would be empty. I want them to stay here and thrive.

Assumption College is also situated on the West Side, opening a campus on Salisbury Street in 1956 after a tornado damaged its campus in Greendale three years earlier.

The West Side has some of the better schools in the city, including West Tatnuck School, Tatnuck Magnet School, Midland Street School, May Street School, Flagg Street School, Chandler Magnet School and Doherty Memorial High School.

Tatnuck Country Club has one of the longest histories of any golf course in the country. The private, nine-hole course, opened in 1898 as one of the first 100 golf courses in the U.S.

Several small businesses, including Tat-Nooks, Subway, Papa Gino?s, a music store, a gift shop and a cellphone store, have closed in Tatnuck Square for various reasons. Rocky?s Hardware in Tatnuck Plaza on Chandler Street closed this month so CVS can enlarge.

City Councilor-at-Large Morris Bergman owns the buildings that housed Tat-Nooks and the music store. He said Charlotte Klein Dance Center is expanding into space formerly used by Tat-Nooks, and a body art jewelry and body piercing business will replace the music store. Mr. Bergman attributed the turnover in small businesses, other than those that provide food or a service, in part to potential customers making purchases online rather than in stores.

Other than the Tatnuck Plaza lot, off-street parking is limited in Tatnuck Square. Mr. Wally would like the city to provide a municipal lot, but existing businesses may have to be removed to make room for one.



For well over a year, the Thomas Energy Center gas station at Chandler and Pleasant streets has been closed while the underground fuel tanks were removed. The station is surrounded by chain-link fence that runs along the sidewalks to keep people away from huge holes on the property.

Mr. Wally said he wasn't able to contact the owner of the station so he filed an order requesting that the city manager ask the city Department of Inspectional Services to provide an update on the status of the construction progress. John Kelly, commissioner of inspectional services, responded on Oct. 4 that the owner of the property had hired a new contractor to complete the project and that the department would continue to monitor the situation. But work on the project hasn't resumed.

It's unsafe, Mr. Gerardi said. That's an eyesore, too. In Tatnuck Square, we keep everything as nice as we can up here.


Joey's Bar & Grill, West Side Steak & BBQ, the Corner Grille and Nancy Chang are among the relatively few restaurants located on the West Side, but Tatnuck Grille, located in Tatnuck Plaza, closed in April. The owners of Funky Murphys on Shrewsbury Street have gutted Tatnuck Grille and plan to open a bar and grille called Scruffy Murphys in January, according to an employee at the Shrewsbury Street location.

It would be helpful if we had more restaurants, Mr. Wally said. I know a lot of people who drive to Shrewsbury Street. Even if they want to get takeout, they drive to Grove Street to Ciao Bella. I do it all the time. We want to attract high-quality restaurants.

The West Side has long been considered to be the most affluent section of the city, but Mr. Wilson, owner of Framed in Tatnuck, wonders if that's still true.

This isn't really as high-end as it used to be,' he said, and the people with money don't shop in Worcester. Some do, there's a few, but most of the people with money still think they have to go to Boston or New York. So as a business here in Tatnuck where all the money is, in quotes, we have to cater to the people who don't have a lot of money. The rest of the city thinks Tatnuck Square is rich. Tatnuck Square really isn't rich.?

Jewish population

Most of the city's Jewish population resides on the West Side, where all five of Worcester's five synagogues are located. Mr. Bergman researched the history of Jewish politics in Worcester for a Torathon presentation he gave last month at Congregation Beth Israel, and he discovered that the Jewish population peaked at 13,000 in 1927 and had dipped to 9,333 in the 1950s with 7,000 of them, 75 percent, living on the West Side. Ward 9 on the West Side was 32 percent Jewish in the 1950s. Today, an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people live in Worcester who identify themselves as Jewish and roughly three-quarters of them live on the West Side.

With 2,254 parishioners encompassing 920 families, Christ the King is one of the largest Catholic parishes in the city and the largest place of worship on the West Side. Monsignor Sullivan has noticed more ethnic groups moving into the Tatnuck area. Africans and to a lesser degree Hispanics have joined Christ the King in recent years.

We see it at Mass, Monsignor Sullivan said, but also I see it at the bus stop. The bus stop is right in front of us and the majority of students picking up the bus are people of color. So that means people have found a way financially to secure homes who probably were never able to afford that before in this area, which is a good thing. A mixed neighborhood is a good thing for the city.

In addition to conducting Masses, Christ the King holds several community programs.

?Our parking lot is filled every single night and often times during the daytime,? Monsignor Sullivan said. ?So we?re vibrant. We have five Scout troops here. It's nothing for us to have three or four events going on at the same time.?

Mr. Lauring moved to Tatnuck so long ago, he predated the opening of the original Christ the King Parish  a wooden structure built in 1936 in the parking lot of the existing church on Pleasant Street  by three years. He remembers taking the trolley to Blessed Sacrament Church because there were no buses from Tatnuck back then."

There wasn't much traffic in those days.