Everyone’s got a hometown, and mine is Worcester, MA.

These days I love it, especially since I don’t live there anymore and come back to visit. I just got back from one of those visits, and this trip, like the others, had a theme.

I gotta see what’s closed.

This time, the big shock was Tweed’s on Grove Street. Tweed’s was a steady-Eddie pub place, and I was sad to see it gone. I shouldn’t have been surprised since earlier this I was shocked to the bone to see that its neighbor, Gervais Car Wash, was no more.

Across the street from a cemetery, Gervais always looked closed even when it was open. It had a gritty exterior that would have been a perfect location shot for Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, or any Scorsese movie. Gervais is one of my childhood landmarks—my Dad used to take my brother and me there on Saturdays to gussy up his white Buick (the one with no floorboards in the back that he covered with plywood). To make the experience a little less terrifying, Dad gave each segment of the car wash a name, and in no time my brother and I would ask when we’d go see the Whipper Snapper guys suds up the car to get it nice and clean.

The biggest shock about Gervais? My Mom loved it, too. I think that was because it was cheap, efficient and cash only until the end: at its priciest a basic wash was $8—we were convinced it was a mafia front. In the ‘90s Ernie’s, a fancier, cleaner-looking car wash opened right across the street, and everyone predicted Gervais’ doom. My mom went through an Ernie’s phase, but switched back since Gervais was always cheaper, and got your car just as clean. I guess Ernie’s finally won out, but the city’s a little shabbier for it.

At the end of November I learned from my cousin that Widoff’s, the Water Street institution that was one of my uncle’s all-time favorite bakeries, was also closed. My uncle took my brother there to get hot bulkie rolls every Saturday night after they finished working the night basketball league at the downtown Y. Since it had been there forever I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it, and although the neon “open” sign was still burning when I got there, the handwritten sign proved it was gone. I snapped a picture as proof, and saw a few guys removing some shelving as I left. Goodnight, sweet Widoff’s. I always thought the cookies were a little dry and sawdusty, but the bulkie rolls were divine.

“You know how I know I’m in Worcester?” my brother said to me on a recent trip home. “When I see the Ho Toy. That place will never die.”

As far as I can tell the Ho Toy has been rooted on Park Avenue since who knows when. My parents said they’d had lunch there when they dated, so it’s been there since at least the sixties. And it looks it. I bet there are hundreds of bars in Brooklyn that have spent millions trying to mimic the Ho Toy’s pink, Tiki-esque exterior. Like Gervais, the Ho Toy always looks closed, and you can never quite tell if its décor is cheery or dreary. I can’t remember if I’ve ever eaten there but if I did, I think it’s probably where my soy allergy started.

En route to my family’s Christmas Party, I drove down Park Ave and screamed. I saw a new Chinese restaurant on the corner of Park Ave and my heart sank. The Ho Toy was closed! As I drove to the next red light to turn around and double check, I was dreading the text I had to send to my brother: Should I wreck his Saturday, or let him have a fun weekend and drop the bomb on Monday?

There would be no need: I had looked too soon. Relief coursed through my veins as I got to the next red light and saw the pink and green walls of the Ho Toy standing right across the street, where they’ve always been. As I took some do-it-now- before-it’s-too-late pictures I saw a guy standing outside, waiting for it to open. Right at noon, he heaved open the carved wooden door, and went in.

I’ll do the same on my next trip home.