Any Hell’s Acres readers ever swim in the quarry pond behind Bass Pond? My friend was swimming there once and saw an old horse drawn wagon sitting on the bottom. The water was that clear. I wonder how long it has been down there.
Then again, one of the people who lives off of Bass Pond on the South Branch Parkway have this wagon below on their lawn. Maybe they dragged it out of the pond!
While I’m asking questions, does anyone know what these red plants are? During my winter hike around the quarry pond they were all over the place.
I make my way past the quarry pond and over to Bass Pond. Yes, those people in the bottom photo on the left are walking on very thin ice!
I heard some Classical seniors used to hit the Tic Toc at lunchtime when the drinking age was 18. That must have made for some interesting afternoon classes.
Coo coo hours? They’re thinking about bringing back happy hour in Massachusetts, so why not take it to the next level?
Is that a “rooms for rent” sign in the second floor window above the Showbar? That makes a lot of sense.
Hard to believe that Orange Julius survived outside McCrory’s all those years—especially since McCrory’s had a snack bar.
They never did knock down the monkey house. In fact, they kept Morganetta the elephant in there for a short time after the zoo cleared out all its the animals in 1979. Now it’s the site of farmers’ markets—minus the cages.
A colorized version of the House of Television sign from one of those Springfield Facebook groups. Nice touch! If only there was an app for animating a flashing HOT sign at night.
From the Great Western Mass Forum: a Blast to the Past Facebook page: In West Springfield, before The Palace Theater opening on Riverdale Street, the entrance to the Riverdale Drive-in was across the street from Morgan Road and was lined with these lights. But the driveway had to be moved to past the north side of the new theater’s parking lot, and they didn’t bother moving the lights. The person who took the photo has saved the lamps for more than 50 years, always planning to rewire them and use them in backyard, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. He evidently was an employee there. “I totally regret not having collected at least one speaker/heater pole,” he writes. “I probably worked on almost every pole and speaker in that 1000+ car drive-in. If anyone just happens to have a pole/speakers/heater, I would just love to buy it from you.” His name is Paul Meagher—look him up on Facebook if you happen to have a pole!
I wore my 1979 Led Zeppelin brass belt buckle for Get the Led Out at the Calvin Theater In Northampton on January 25, 2020—was this my last concert before COVID hit?
Our view from the balcony seats.
You can bet I wore my Jimmy Page baseball cap too. As you guessed, I am a real Led Head!
Joe Premont was a Holyoke guy who played drums and sang the Paramounts’ biggest hit: Uh-Poop-E-Doo! He died last year.
Belli’s, built in 1920, was a nightclub staple in the area into the 1960s, but had a sporadic existence after that, becoming a Ground Round at one point. Its final incarnation was Dorothy and Leroy’s Soul Food Kitchen before being abandoned for 20 years and finally demolished in 2019.
The above photo, other than the below postcard of the place, is the only picture I could find of Belli’s in its prime.
The building was the subject of my endless fascination of ruins as I photographed its weird architecture for a blog post back in 2014:
I fantasized about someone buying Belli’s and rehabbing it, but no dice. On January 28, 1986, while working at Stateline Potato Chips, I grabbed lunch in the Belli’s building (forgot what they called the restaurant that year) and watched the space shuttle Challenger explode on the bar’s TV.
From the Springfield Sunday Republican on July 7, 1963: Sixteen Acres catcher Bob Kemple tags out Holy Name’s Bob Cary at Kenefick Park in the North End. Holy Name poured it on that day, winning 21-5. Kemple was my assistant coach for a couple of seasons on Acres teams that were head coached by his dad. The younger Kemple had a fast Ford Galaxy 500. His younger brother Billy had a badass 1970 Chevelle SS—the baddest American muscle car—that ruled The Acres back in the late 1970s.
The Kemple father-and-son duo taught us a lot about baseball—they took it seriously and our discipline showed. After a strikeout with no one on base they insisted we throw the ball around the horn. The problem was that in practice we kept screwing it up—errant throws and mindless drops. Believe me, we did the drill endlessly until we got it right. You simply didn’t belong in the infield if you couldn’t play fucking catch without errors, even if they didn’t matter. Stay focused or get benched, punk!
I took this photo of Lebron James’ son Bronny as he warmed up before his Sierra Canyon team’s game during the Hoophall Classic at Springfield College. That was in January of 2020–probably the last crowded sports event I attended before COVID hit. They canceled Hoophall in 2021, but hopefully they’ll have it this year at the MassMutual Center. Blake Arena is just too small—the overcrowding there is a safety hazard.
The Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis at Mountain Park’s Stardust Ballroom in 1965. From around 1962 to 1968 the Stardust hosted some top-notch shows: Gene Pitney played there, along with the likes of Ray Charles, The Animals, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Bobby Vinton and Roy Orbison. The Yardbirds had a concert in the ballroom in ’67.
Check out the write-up commenting on Jimmy Page’s curious effects (for 1967): feedback, the wah-wah pedal, and the violin bow.
In 1966 the place was evacuated when someone threw a tear-gas grenade into the audience during Question Mark and the Mysterians’ performance of their number-one hit, 96 Tears. I shit you not: tear gas during 96 Tears.
The Beach Boys were there on August 17, 1963: can you imagine seeing these guys locally pre-British invasion, when surf rock ruled and this band was at the top of the heap? You’d think they would have found a bigger arena. The ballroom fit only 2,000.
If you enlarge the photo, you might notice that guitarist David Marks was a member of the Beach Boys back then, but not for long. The following October he left the band. He performed on their first five albums, but Beach Boys manager Murray Wilson, the father of Brian, Carl, and Dennis, didn’t like Marks, their neighbor from across the street. That’s right, Murray the tyrant and psycho who once hit Brian in the head with a two-by-four, permanently damaging his hearing, drove the 14-year-old Marks out of the band. The Beach Boys fired Murray a year later.
Incredibly, the day before the Beach Boys came to Holyoke, Jan and Dean performed two shows at this venue. The ballroom (below), built in 1909, burned down in 1971.
I got Jim Rice’s and Doug Griffin’s autographs in Ludlow in 1975—just before the Sox swept the A’s in the playoffs and took the Reds to game 7 of the World Series. I asked Doug who his baseball idol was, and Jim pointed to himself, laughing. They were also good enough to sign the cover of my 1975 souvenir program. It was seven days after Rice suffered a broken bone in his hand, courtesy of a Vern Ruhle pitch. What would have happened if the Sox had Jim Ed’s bat in the World Series? Oh well.
