In This Week's Issue:

• The lantern night people will ask about Monday
• A BrickBox show with actual teeth
• One small-room WCUW story worth keeping
• A Sunday Exchange Street fallback plan
• Rocky, a verified adoptable WARL dog
• A WAM courtyard night with poetry and portraits
• A Goddard rocket nostalgia stop

Wormtown Weekend Poll

Which Worcester moment owns your weekend?

Pick the one you would send to the group chat first: the glow, the noise, the wander, or Rocky.

One tap records your answer and takes you to our confirmation page.

Start Here

Two timely picks, one glowing and one useful, before we get to the music.

Elm Park gets the glow-up

Sat, July 25, 5:30-9:30 PM · Elm Park

The Water Lantern Festival is the most visual plan in the stack: food trucks, music, lantern decorating, and a launch window from 8:30 to 9:30. This is the one to send to the person who always says Worcester needs more pretty nights.

Build-your-own Sunday on Exchange Street

Sun, July 26, 11 AM-2 PM · Exchange Street

Market on Exchange is the easy Sunday add-on: local farms, bakers, food trucks, craft beer, live music, and a low-pressure downtown wander.

Live Music in Worcester

One big bet, one small room, no filler.

The BrickBox show that should not behave

Fri, July 24, 7:30 PM · JMAC BrickBox

Big Richard is the loudest music bet this week: ferocious acoustic energy, serious chops, Royer's One Man Band opening, and a listed run time around 2 hours and 15 minutes.

A Tower of Power guitarist in a 910 Main St. room

Sun, July 26, 5 PM · WCUW FrontRoom

Jerry Cortez brings the big-stage resume into the FrontRoom with DJ Laney and Debbie Gurrieri Maloney. Small room, real chops, easy Sunday plan.

Local Culture & Community Buzz

A courtyard night at WAM, then Rocky's adoption story.

A summer night in WAM's courtyard

Thu, July 23, 4-7 PM · Worcester Art Museum

This is the better kind of community item: free courtyard entry, live music by Alex Calabrese, poetry-and-romanticism gallery tours, $5 portrait drawing, and a reason to meet someone after work without overplanning the night.

Pet of the Week

Always verified, always pictured, and this week especially worth sharing.

Wormtown Time Machine

For anyone who likes a little Worcester memory with their weekend plans.

Worcester's rocket story is having a centennial moment

Museum of Worcester · Thu, July 23 at 5:30 PM

The Museum of Worcester has a July 23 guided tour of its Goddard Rocket Centennial exhibit. It has the ingredients people tend to pass along: Worcester roots, family memory, invention, drama, and the start of something much bigger than one city.

The local-history angle

NASA notes that on March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the first successful liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts. It flew for only 2.5 seconds, reached 41 feet, and landed 184 feet away, but it helped launch the modern space age.

Wormtown Chronicles

A little nudge for the people who say there is nothing to do.

Worcester asked: what should we do tonight?

From the local conversation stream

A Reddit thread asked for ideas for friends meeting up in Worcester. That is the job here every Thursday: turn a vague “what should we do?” into a real local plan. Forward this issue to the friend who still claims Worcester is boring.

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Wormtown Weekly is locally owned, locally operated, and built one useful local note at a time.

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