Worcester CanalFest

[skully]

(courtesy of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette)

Thursday, August 24, 2006
CanalFest to celebrate history, promote future

Sept. 9 event to be on top of Blackstone

By Nancy Sheehan TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF


WORCESTER— A new Worcester festival is making a splash.

The first-ever Blackstone CanalFest in the city will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 9 between Temple and Winter streets. The festival will feature horse-drawn wagon tours of the neighborhood, food, concessions from neighborhood restaurants, musicians, dancers and street performers.

But the main attraction likely will be a full-sized water-filled replica of the Blackstone Canal sitting just above the original canal, which is buried under Harding Street. The replica will be 75 feet long and 12 feet wide. It will contain 10,100 gallons of water, weighing 84,000 pounds.


The replica canal, being built just for the day, is meant to draw attention to a proposal to build a permanent watercourse along Harding Street, which backers believe will revitalize the neighborhood and, ultimately, the city. A group called the Blackstone Canal Task Force has been working to promote that idea, which has worked well in other cities, including Providence, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis. The task force, in collaboration with the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, is putting on CanalFest.

"Water draws people. They're just fascinated by water," said ranger Chuck Arning of the National Heritage Corridor. "This is all about promoting the canal and showing people the wonderful resources water can provide in an urban environment."

The festival also will include children's activities, a cooking contest and a landscaping competition.

At 6 p.m., the street festival morphs into a film festival, as the action moves inside to Fiddler's Green Pub, 19 Temple St., where films 15 minutes in length using the Blackstone Canal as one of the film's characters will be shown in a juried competition.

The Blackstone Canal was opened in 1828 and established a commercial water link to Providence and the Atlantic Ocean. Railroads superseded the canal, and it was covered over in the 1890s. It still flows beneath the city.

Admission to the festival is free.



More info: http://www.blackstonecanal.org/details

[Megster]

Knowing that the canal is buried under the street reminds me of Ghostbusters 2.

[Prometheus]

We've got pictures of one of the Canal locks in Lincoln, RI on squatteam.org ... is the portion under the streets accessible in any way?