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On May 19, 2015, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Board unanimously approved State designation of the Salisbury Cultural District, the city’s first official cultural district. For Application Team Co-Chairs Erin Williams, Worcester’s Cultural Development Officer and I, this was the culmination of a year long process which required multiple public hearings, approval of a resolution by Worcester City Council in support of the designation, a Memorandum of Understanding between The City of Worcester and Worcester Art Museum as the District’s “lead stakeholder”, an inventory of the district’s cultural assets and annual public events, and well as an extensive application outlining the proposed district’s mission, goals and management structure. All this while simultaneously wrangling nine Founding Stakeholder institutions and three dozen participating district stakeholders to share a common, collaborative vision. It was a process!
Worcester’s Salisbury Cultural District is conveniently located near Interstates I-190 and I-290 adjacent to the city’s historic Lincoln Square. Within a two block radius of this Lincoln Square keystone a dozen historically significant cultural and civic buildings stand. Click to see a map of the Salisbury Cultural District. The district includes cultural institutions such as: the Worcester Art Museum; the American Antiquarian Society; Tuckerman Hall (home to the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra); the historic Salisbury Mansion; and the main campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). It includes Institute Park (with its Levenson Concert Stage and Gazebo) and Salisbury Pond (a historic mill pond fed by Mill Brook, one of the water sources for the Blackstone Canal which once connected Worcester to Providence, RI). The district is home to six Houses of Worship (including the Armenian Church of our Saviour, the oldest Armenian congregation in America); 17 restaurants; 6 specialty galleries/gift shops; over 50 adaptively re-used properties; and 10 National Historic Register buildings. These entities collectively host over 1000 community events annually.
