Vacant

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Main South video finds hope in the ’hoodScreening opens dialogue


WORCESTER— Pregnant drug addicts, prostitutes, violent criminals, homeless alcoholics, poverty, mice and mosquitoes are all part of life in the city neighborhood with probably the highest concentration of vacant and abandoned buildings. Residents of Main South describe these problems in “Vacant,” a new multimedia production filmed and photographed by the Main South Oral History Project, made up of a Clark University graduate student working with a 56-year-old neighborhood man and three local teenagers.

The 40-minute work — a combination of still photos and video footage narrated in English and Spanish with subtitles in both languages — was screened yesterday afternoon for the first time at the Boys & Girls Club on Tainter Street. Its creators say they want the video to spur activism and redevelopment and help put abandoned buildings back to use by getting them renovated, a trend they depict as already happening in the neighborhood. Describing the old Sears & Roebuck building at 661 Main St., one of several narrators says the display window of the vacant and dilapidated edifice, most recently owned by Caravan Coffee, is “dirty and disgusting.”

“I always wonder when my building is going to fall over,” says Deb Sinha, who lives in a run-down apartment building on Castle Street next to several abandoned buildings he says are frequented by homeless people, rodents and raccoons. “But rent is cheap. I guess that’s the reason I stay there.”

The city councilor who represents the neighborhood, District 4 Councilor Barbara G. Haller, makes several appearances, talking about a once-dilapidated abandoned building she eventually moved into at 34 Castle St., and expressing cautious optimism that the neighborhood is slowly turning around.

One woman calls her building at 5 May St. “one of the biggest crackhead areas in town.” Another resident tells interviewers that prostitutes, pimps and gang members with guns are everywhere on the street. “It’s not safe here,” a woman says of her block. Dennis Hourihan, 56, one of the filmmakers, says part of the problem is “there is no work in Worcester.” “There used to be shoe shops, piano shops,” he said. “It’s all gone.”

But “Vacant” is also a vehicle for hope. The filmmakers included shots of the handsome new Boys & Girls Club and views of colorfully and artfully restored affordable three-deckers on Hollis Street that are part of the massive Kilby-Gardner-Hammond urban reclamation project. “Main South has changed a lot,” Eliut Martinez, a Hollis Street man who moved here from Springfield 20 years ago, says in Spanish.

After the screening, some in the audience of about 50 split up into small discussion groups and wrote down their responses to the video and how they would like to improve the neighborhood. Erin Anderson, a 23-year-old student in Clark’s graduate program in community development and planning, was the project’s coordinator. The video, produced in six months with $3,500 in grants and support from nonprofit groups, is a call to action, Ms. Anderson said. She said she plans to burn the footage onto DVDs and distribute them to community groups and city councilors.

“The idea is to get people thinking and working on issues surrounding vacant buildings in their neighborhoods,” the Seattle native said. One person in the audience, Stephen D. Patton, a former city councilor who is now executive director of Worcester Common Ground, a nonprofit community development corporation that turns dilapidated buildings into affordable dwellings, was impressed by the video’s melding of criticism and optimism. “It’s always good to get it right from the street,” he said. “I did largely sense some hope. I’m not sure that five years ago you’d be able to say that.” The other members of the project are Linette Serrano, 18, and Betsy Jovel and Meiry Salinas, both 16.

Support was provided by Clark University, Family Health Center of Worcester, the Regional Environmental Council, Worcester Youth Center, Greater Worcester Community Foundation and the Southern Poverty Law Center.