WORCESTER, MA -- First, there was the poster the Doors of Dublin. Then came the Doors of Boston. And now...the Chairs of Worcester. In a tongue-in-cheek salute to the intrepid citizens of Worcester, who endured more than 9 feet of snow last winter, a local business has created a poster saluting the tradition of city residents marking their shoveled-out, street side parking spaces with chairs, all different kinds of chairs.

Last year's brutal winter, with snow starting in early November and continuing until April, was particularly tough on city residents who park their cars on Worcester's hilly streets, - to the point where folks had trouble finding somewhere to stack the snow after they shoveled their cars out from the latest storm.

Worcesterites have long had a tradition of marking their carved-out parking spots with chairs. Donna Dufault is one of those. But the seemingly never-ending snow last winter taxed the patience and the manners of some residents in her Plantation Street neighborhood.

Returning home from work at AutumnColor, a digital-imaging business at 70 Webster St., Donna would frequently find her chair, which marked her precious parking space, had been moved - a violation of Worcester's "I shoveled it, I own it" unwritten code. "I was very upset," she recalled. Fuming at the latest violation of the code one day to her boss, Mark Doyle, the owner of AutumnColor, the two began discussing the variety of chairs marking winter parking spots. Recalling the famous Doors of Dublin poster, which depicted the bold colors and lace-covered windows of that city’s residential entrances, Doyle suggested they document the variety and condition of the chairs that mark Worcester’s wintertime parking spots. An idea was born.

Doyle, Dufault and her photographer husband Scott Erb, fanned out through the city and began documenting the chairs and stools used to mark parking spots. The result is a copyrighted poster, Chairs of Worcester. The poster's public debut, at the start on the Street art fair in September, was a smashing success. "People really liked it," said Dufault, "They saw the humor in it."

We are offering three sizes on high quality photographic paper:

• 11x17 at $10.00
• 16x24 at $25.00
• 24x36 at $40.00

Currently the poster is available through AutumnColor located on 70 Webster Street, Worcester, MA 01603 or call 508-798-6612.