Sunday, March 1, 2020

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.

25 comments:

  1. It’s great to have you back, you have been missed!

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  2. Thanks Missy, good too be back!

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  3. Once again sir, it is truly great to have you back! Will you be attending the discussion this Saturday with E.J. Fleming, the author of "Death of an Alter Boy" at Barnes and Noble? I would love the opportunity to shake your hand, and say thank you personally for all of your content. I think I have a fairly accurate idea of who you are, and your work over the years has been quite enjoyable to read.
    Also, lest not forget about the Friendly's in the Eastfield Mall, across from Burger King :)
    Last but not least, would you be willing to sign my copy of "The Circle" if you were to attend the event with E.J. Fleming?

    Best regards,
    -Chris-

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  4. Hi Chris,

    Thanks for the kind words. Sorry, I won't be going to Barnes and Noble on Saturday. I went to his talk at the Wilbraham Public Library last year. It's good to be writing again, and I will certainly write more on the Croteau murder in the future.

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  5. Love to see you writing here again. I'm a new and younger reader here that started last summer but I have read through so many of your posts

    My introduction being your post about the disappearing pond in 16 acres. I live on Creswell Dr, right next to it, and as someone who spent a lot of time there, it was illuminating to see what was once there and interesting to know that it has been a place for adolescents for decades, even now as the pond is gone.

    Thanks for your posts and I look forward to your future ones

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  6. Hi Jeremy,

    Thanks for commenting. You mean teens today still party in the Putnam's Puddle woods?

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  7. I wouldn't say party but I know myself and some of my friends long ago often went down there and hangout and smoke weed and do whatever else. Often when I do head back there, I find new things there so people definitely go there somewhat often. It is definitely still a place, even now, to just go down there and hangout and have your feet dangle off the bridge/dam

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  8. Wow, deja vu! There was a proposal a few years ago to dismantle the dam and return that area to its natural state to prevent the further siltation of Breckwood Pond downstream. But so far nothing's come of it. That is for a future Hell's Acres post!

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  9. Again, welcome back.

    As I kid, I used to marvel at the number of Friendly's in downtown Springfield. These days, they could only be rivaled by the number of Dunkin Donuts in downtown Boston.

    About, oh, 15 years ago, when I was living in Boston I got summoned for jury duty in Springfield (Massachusetts must have had my parents' address still listed for me,) and instead of getting it changed to Suffolk County I thought, meh, whatever. I'll hang out with the folks and just take care of my civic duty at the same time. If I recall, the date was a Monday anyway. At lunchtime, I went to the deli that was then in that old Friendly's location. The inside still looked just like an old-time Friendly's, with the wrap around lunch counters and the open kitchen.

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  10. Kenny the whale lemons Chicopee
    Septembers bar Chicopee
    Sam Williams Penny candy on Belmont ave Springfield

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  11. Good Post, It's great to have you back. Thanks!!

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  12. There was an 18th Friendly's on Chestnut St, across from Apremont Triangle and between the Tarbell & Watters building and Kimball Towers. It closed sometime in the 1970s and is now the site of a parking lot.

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  13. I knew I’d miss a Friendly’s! Thanks for the info.

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  14. Great to see you're back! I used to look forward to your posts at the first of the month. Fascinating to learn some of the lore of my old stomping grounds.

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  15. happy to see your posts again ...

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  16. Do you have a new Email address? HELLSACRES@GMAIL.COM. is broken. I wonder if you know what happened to the bridge near South Branch Parkway and Bradley. My GPS still trys to send me over it.

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  17. Hi Tom E,

    The email address still works. I just tested it, although it took a few minutes from my yahoo account.

    You mean the redstone bridge on Bradley? Still there as far as I know.

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  18. Cool background material on the 16 Acres Inn. Apparently it was at least a somewhat respectable place for most of its incarnations, the cathouse rep having developed in its later years. A lot of its pay by the hour patrons were said to be business and political people from downtown who would cruise out to the Inn for "lunch" with their secretary-mistresses. In more modern times The Ranch House on Boston Road and the dive motels on Riverdale Road in Westside played similar roles catering to the infidelity scene.

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  19. Hey Tom,

    Thanks for commenting. I haven’t checked on the J. Wesley Miller diary in a while. Is it completely transcribed now?

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  20. I fear I will not live long enough to post the whole diary, which goes back to 1968 while I am still on 1999. I find it intriguing that the 16 Acres Inn was once run by an orchestra leader who performed in his bar. My late Uncle's memoir of growing up in Pine Point in the 30's, 40's and 1950's mentions Lorraine Hall, where Springfield's version of Fitzgerald's Lost Generation used to Charleston and Jitterbug down by the lake. Apparently the Acres once had a lively music scene going on out in the sticks, what with Dolan and his Orchestra and the guest orchestras booked at Lorraine Hall. Were there other establishments in the Acres doing music at the same time? An intriguing aspect of Acres history that would be great to know more about. Here's the Lorraine Hall reference from The Hood Street Anthology - https://hoodst.blogspot.com/2018/10/uncertain-lives_43.html

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  21. The redstone bridge on Bradley Road is indeed still intact. Earlier this week (Nov. 2020) I was in town and decided to poke around along that stretch of South Branch Stream. I remember fishing Opening Day there a couple times in the ‘70s. Since the fishing season in MA went 365 maybe 30 years ago, Opening Day (and the anticipation that came with it) is but a distant memory. I think the state still stocks the stream. A little bit upstream of Bradley Road are what we called “Three Bridges” which were foot and cart crossings for Vets. There were always native brook trout hanging out in the shade that those structures provided. I’ve wondered since those days if the stream was still clean and cool enough to support the brookies.

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  22. Welcome back, mysterious 16 Acres guy! I've been away for quite a while myself.

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  23. Well done B but plants voice nicer than ever Croteau only the tip. U need a insiders view of the dioceses ills and the library is not on fire

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