Worcester Center Galleria and the Lost Downtown Grid
Factories had lost jobs, families had moved to the suburbs for bigger yards, and I-290 had cut through downtown, making it easier to drive past Main Street instead of stopping there.
In the early 1960s, a study from Columbia University suggested a new solution: get rid of the struggling downtown and build an indoor mall, the Worcester Center Galleria, to bring shoppers back together in one place.
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