I'm Back (In the Saddle)

So where exactly have I been in 2018 and 2019? To put it mildly: taking a break. Since December of 2017! For during that period I decided to spend my extra hours watching my kids grow up, and I still plan on doing that, but after it’s high time I started blogging again.

Herein lies the dilemma. I take a look at this blog I call Hell’s Acres and I think, “Whoa, I was on a roll! Ten years!” And I marvel at the length of the posts: epic sized! I don’t know how I found the time. I’ll confess to you right now that I’m not going to put THAT kind of time into Hell’s Acres in the near future. I still want to spend quality time with my family—even though I’m writing this right now at my daughter’s swim practice instead of watching her.

So there will be shorter posts—hopefully they’ll be good—to “keep the mother rollin’”—and keep you entertained!

 

I’m baaaaaack!

Comebacks are a tricky thing. Just look at Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when they got back together in 1995. They were shadows of their former selves. Page’s guitar was subdued (though he did have some of his amazing chops left) and Plant’s voice was pretty shot. Yet, they still had it in them to make great music together. They could still write and perform great new songs, like this one:

Page and Plant gave a whole new generation an opportunity to hear them live. The lure of millions was obviously a motivation, but they also wanted to prove they could still do it—albeit a watered-down version and fans to be creating again is beautiful thing.

I’m back!

I’m no Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin, but what the hell.

So let our ride begin again.

This is the Sixteen Acres Inn at the corner of Parker and Wilbraham in 1938, courtesy of the late, looney J. Wesley Miller’s diaries:

“My atlas has it down as originally belonging to A.A. Foster, who gave the land to Foster Memorial Church,” he wrote. “Afterwards it was owned by Howard F. Gebo and his wife Cecilia who also sold gasoline. In its later years it had a reputation as a whorehouse.”

On of Miller’s neighbors on Birchland told him she used to go horseback riding across Parker Street at the stables and  the Sixteen Acres Inn was closed by the time she remembers it, but she heard it had a reputation for being “a red light district” and “very disreputable.”

It was on the northwest corner, where Otto Welker’s Mobil was, next to Giovanni’s (now Bruno’s) and Peter Cymmer and Co.

In 1926 it was known as the White Bear Inn, opening on May 15 of that year.

Halloween shenanigans in 1927

All in fun in 1928

Then it became Club Tangerine later in 1928 before changing its name the following year to Club Dolan, named after Bert Dolan, who led an orchestra.

Did it try to shed its roadhouse image by stating it’s “where the smart set dine”?

Bert Dolan played at The Worthy Hotel as well.

My uncle described the Acres place as a “roadhouse.” It must have been quite an adventure for city people to seek misadventure and drive out to “The Sticks,” as The Acres were referred to back then, for some entertainment.

Next time I see him I'll ask him if this “roadhouse” had some whoring going on there!

It was also used as a meeting room in the early 1930s:

“Mrs. Ratner” acquired the Club Dolan property and planned to build a filling station there in the mid-1930s.

I don’t know quite what became of it during the rest of the ’30s and ’40s, but I suspect it got rundown and became somewhat of a flophouse that sold gasoline. Does anybody know what on there during this time period? Were the brothel rumors true? Write a comment or send me a message!

In 1951, at the end of the building’s existence, Mrs. Mabel L. Barnes, mother of six children, lived in the place, described as a one-time hostelry. She was ordered to vacate the premises as they shut off the water and prepared for demolition. They started tearing it down in December of that year.

The Gebo Bros. Service Station was built at the corner in 1952. It had several owners before Otto Welker and his brother Eddie bought it and renamed it 16 Acres Mobil in the 1970s:

Welker sold it in 2012 and the property got rundown again before it became an “Applegreen” in 2017.

*  *  *  *  *

Do you call it Picknelly Field or still refer to it as Quinn Field?

Anybody remember The Friendly on State Street next to the Keg Room? Really small place. The take-out counter was on the left after you walked in the door.

I tell all the youngsters, at the risk of sounding like Grandpa Simpson (Abraham Jebediah Simpson II) that I remember when the city of Springfield once had 17 Friendly's restaurants: State Street downtown, Baystate West, State Street in Winchester Square, Berkshire Avenue, Sixteen Acres (one on Parker next to Acre Drug, and then one Wilbraham Road), Cooley Street, Eastfield Mall, Sumner Avenue near Longhill, Sumner Avenue in East Forest Park, Belmont Street, Boston Road (Pine Point-the first one), Bay State Medical Center, East Springfield (near O'Brien's Corner, next to Palmer Paving), Springfield Plaza (a small one), 660 Liberty Street (where Liberty connects with the rotary), and Boston Road next to the Wilbraham Plant.

The Friendly's restaurants weren't quite all there at the same time. The Pine Point Friendly's on Boston Road probably closed long before the others (by the mid-sixties, I believe), and the Cooley Street one appeared before a few of the others closed.

Well, that’s it for now. It’s good to be back in the saddle.