In Search of Emma Goldman in Worcester, MA

So I have been on this journey before. Only the last time it was a fruitless and frustrating search in my hometown of Springfield, MA and I was looking for the photoshop she was alleged to have worked at with her co-anarchist friends Berkman and Stein (not his original name).

Another March has rolled around, and once a teacher, always a teacher- only now with only one student-myself, I embark on a women's history month hunt. I happened to be headed to Worcester for other reasons and I had a few extra moments, so of course I head to the library and hunt down the reference librarian. In a totally modern facility is a lovely older woman who is thrilled to have a curious mind come to her with a poser (vs. a request to sign up for the all taken computers that are throughout this modern library). She gathers the affiliated books and invites me behind the desk and we begin our discussion on the almost imperceptible footprint of Emma Goldman.

The problem as the reference librarian sees it is one I had also already concluded years ago. Women radicals (and even some that were not) were not necessarily popular in their day and often faded into obscurity after their brief moment of fame (Emma's was a tad longer than brief). Then posthumously, a rediscovery occurs, in her case around the late 60's + early 1970's with the women's rights movement, and curious minds like my own then want to find out more about her, so we hunt. 

I find the traces of her in an old Jewish enclave neighborhood downtown by the canal and waterways that backed up to a rather large industrial section on the Eastern side of Worcester, MA.

As the reference librarian pointed out, even though she was Jewish and must have had some contact with other Jews to journey from Russia to NYC, then New Haven, Ct., onto Spfld, MA, and this brief (6 mths. they say) sojourn into Worcester right before the famous act in Pittsburgh (the attempt to kill the industrialist Henry Clay frick, whom they believed responsible for the awful Homestead Strike and Union-busting activities of 1891), many in the Jewish community here in Worcester didn't like her, not necessarily because she was this kooky anarchist with odd pro-labor, free-thinking, sexual freedom-practicing, women's rights believing radical. No, they didn't particularly like her because she was a very public atheist and this was anathema to the Jews. I chuckled when the librarian told me this, and said, "Oh I get it, I too am an atheist." I left out the part of being a radical.

So pointed in a direction, I headed down to the Harding-Winter Street district of downtown Worcester. The district is a miserable mess of chopped up neighborhoods due to the construction of interstate 290 begun in 1958. The Jewish enclave was in the area of Winter/Water/Providence St. and the purported ice cream store that Emma and her lover(s)  Alexander Berkman, and his cousin, Modest Stein (who by the way
 changed his name after the Pittsburgh incident and went on to have a long career as an artist in NYC) were to have opened and run was said to be on Winter St. Following is what I found in the area.

I actually began the day here. A nice reuse of a mill building in downtown Worcester on Grove Street. In its heyday, this mill made wire and this building is one of 3 that operated in town. By 1889 this company had a workforce of 3,000, but then by 1978 they, like others before and all around them, were no more. Unique to this co. in its immigrant workforce was an enclave of Swedish immigrants, who were recruited by Moen who had studied in that country. There is a great deal of my beloved brick down here in the old industrial areas.

The Worcester Public Library happens to sit very close (or even amongst) the old neighborhood in which Emma came to briefly live. Now called the Canal District, the city is attempting to revitalize the area.

Industrial Worcester, or the remnants of a once vibrant, once industrious city of a polyglot of immigrant workers. It is a bit ironic that in the search for Emma Goldman I find on the street (Winter) that she was alleged to have opened an ice cream store these shabby pieces of loves labor lost. Why was Goldman even in Worcester? Laying low and plotting violent revenge against labor enemy and huge Industrialist in Pittsburgh, Henry Clay Frick? Very little is known about her time spent here, she left but a mere trace of herself and the conjunctive memory of retro-fitting historians has grappled with where to put her.

So much of this ravaged downtown area looks like this. Shifts and changes and retrofits. Some vacant, but others reused. Brick is is the stuff of Northeast life. 

Worcester, like many Northeast communities that grew into industrial meccas, was a city that became divided by the workforce. On the eastern side were the working class immigrants and on the western side was the upper class- those Americans that had been here for a few hundred years before the new “immigrants” came to fill out the workforce.

Was it a school? Or an industrial building? The area- Harding-Winter St. Manufacturing district is a designated Nat’l Historic district but I couldn't find out about this property. It looks like the white sign was added later, perhaps signifying a change from school to manufacturing? 

Unfortunately, this historic district, like too many I've seen was fragmented and destroyed by urban redevelopment and the construction of Interstate 290. So frustrating when you’re chasing ghosts! And because the areas are blighted and desolate, sometimes it feels like all you see are demons in black hoodies.

Once the JH + GM Walker Shoe Factory, it looks like it now is marked with the kiss of destruction (the red circle with a white slash thru it sign tacked to the building) Brings such sadness to my soul.

The Harding Winter District originally contained 6 buildings built between 1870 and 1898. Four of the buildings still stand today. This area was Worcester's Shoe manufacturing district originally. Also near here was once the Israel Underwear Company. Such a bummer (bahaha- sort of a pun there, right?) that it was torn down. I would be interested to know more about it. Some other day.

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMHWDP_Harding_Winter_Street_Manufacturing_District_Worcester_MA

You can only be reincarnated so much. Worcester’s famous triple deckers lurking to the left. 

 A little side obsession thrown in for good measure! Worcester’s East end fire hydrant hails from Elmira, NY and is from the Kennedy Valve Co. produced in the 1890’s

Harding Street, one of the border streets of the Harding-Winter district. The whole area has such a worn-down look.

More of the layered reuse look that is prevalent down here, What was it? And how did it change? Did Emma and crew live in one of those back of the building apts.? I'm afraid I'll never know.

With little work in this blighted area, industrious humans “do what they gotta do.” For Emma it was work as a garment worker and sewing factory worker in Rochester NY, a corset factory worker in New Haven, Ct., piece worker at a silk waist company in NYC, and finally:

1892

Winter and Spring

In search of a financial base, Goldman moves to Massachusetts--first to Springfield to work in a photography studio with Modest Stein ("Fedya"), and then to Worcester, where, with Alexander Berkman, Stein and Goldman open their own studio. When the photography business fails, they open an ice-cream parlor with the renewed aim of returning to Russia to respond to the political repression under Czar Alexander III. 

Too see Emma's time line go here:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/goldman/Guide/chronology6900.html

Harrison Street was another side street in this very chopped up district. First the Irish immigrants came to build the canal that ran thru the area, but by the 1890’s the canal was covered over and  the area then became home to mostly Eastern European immigrants by the 1920s. 

And what immigrant population do you think gained ownership for this building? It is now a social club, but I was just dying to know what it was originally.

If you guessed Polish, you would be right (it was not my first guess, but my very smart husband came and took one look at the sign, deconstructed it for me and correctly deduced it was Polish folks. I love my very smart husband soooo much).

And on to what was the White Eagle building once upon a time? Here is a great link to a walking tour of the area (I did a drive by):

http://www.preservationworcester.org/pages/documents/BytheCanalTour_PrintVersion.pdf

What a hoot, once a temperance society building of the Irish, and now a private drinking establishment for Polish folk. Now that is funny, creative building reuse!

I found this charming little shop on this odd side street. How would anyone ever know to come down here? I was here for a purpose- to find the spirit or footprint of Emma Goldman, otherwise why would I ever come down here? Is this a transitional neighborhood now and who are the inhabitants? Although there is work being done to revitalize the downtown area, it certainly has some glaringly blighted spots all around this district. I was tickled to visit this place (because we all know how I ADORE thrift shops), and I could almost imagine a similar space on the more blighted Winter St. that would've served as an ice cream parlor.

Green St., still a mixed-use and multi-ethnic neighborhood. Once a main residential area for the Irish workers who came to build the Canal in the 1830's, it now is a polyglot of spaces and faces. Urban renewal can be seen to the far right of picture, and then a funky music hall that has been there for about 16 years now (where you can go from Hip hop, to Flock of Assholes, and if you head there tonight, 3/14/15 you can check out the "StoneCrushers," a metal band), and on the end the Vietnamese Thai Binh Jewelry store.

Green and Winter St. One reference puts the alleged ice cream shop of Emma + her 2 co-owners on Winter St. although no such place is in the directories of the time. As you can see the area is pretty much extant, with some name and industry changes. I can imagine that a small shop like Binx-An could come and go. In fact I couldn't find out any information on it besides listing as an Asian grocery store. I even wonder how long the store has been there and if the term "Oriental" is a self-identified use, or early American immigrant word to describe a region that folks came from. I don't see or hear this term used much anymore. On the other side is "G Bar," a new incarnation opened in August 2014. I haven't a clue what "G" means or stands for and I wasn't about to go in to find out. There were, surprise, surprise, quite a few "dive" bars in the area!

The construction of I-290 destroyed a huge swath of housing to the east and largely cut off access from Grafton and Vernon hills. This area was also mentioned as having homes of Jewish folks. 

So what was this place?  Well first it was a 12 acre estate of a mill owner, George Crompton who had a large loom mill complex on Green St. (ran until 1915). He bought the property with the mansion Mariemont on this hill in the early 1860's. I could not find a single picture of the mansion. The above picture is remnants of the St. Vincent Hospital that once proudly sat on this hill. Now home to places like the Dept. of Children + Families, Alcohol + drug treatment, etc. Not a very welcoming place.

Allegedly Worcester Academy bought up some of this land for reuse, but not sure what happened. See link:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100826/FLASH/8260655/1239/flash05&TEMPLATE=FLASH&WT_CAME_FROM=flash05

Check this photo out of St. Vincent's in its heyday:

St. Vincent has now merged with Fallon Health and have some new swanky space somewhere else in town while their old spaces get divided up among the social service venues.

  This being another example. Now a complex of buildings which are senior services, it looks as if this wing is in a state of disrepair. It seems the social service providers use only parts of the complexes, and let the rest rot. It just is ugly and bleak and sad. 

The hospital was once so big that the above picture is but a small section of what was the nursing students residence.

 The nursing residence is in the left forefront. Quite a difference, huh? 

Across the street from the senior center were these beauties! Worcester’s famous triple deckers. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of triple-deckers were constructed, mostly in the New England region of the United States, as an economical means of housing the thousands of newly arrived immigrant workers who filled the factories of the area. The economics of the triple-decker are simple: the cost of the land, basement and roof are spread among three or six apartments, which typically have identical floor plans. The triple-decker apartment house was seen as an alternative to the row-housing built in other Northeastern cities of United States during this period. In Worcester, Massachusetts sewer connection charges were based on street frontage, so builders favored houses with as little frontage as possible, This is one reason why three-deckers are often situated on narrow lots and are in rectangular shape, with the smaller sides at the front and the rear.

Could Emma have lived in one of these? This is an answer I am definitely sure of + it is "No." The no is because these buildings weren't built until 1920's + 1930's and by 1920 Emma was deported back to Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_Street_Historic_District

So I didn't find Emma in Worcester, MA just as I didn't find her in Springfield, MA. A tad frustrated? Yes, but look at the wealth of learning I gleaned in the hunt. Perhaps I'll try NYC next!