From Around the Valley
I've been busy the last few days, but even if I can't write my camera is always close at hand. Here's a potpourri of stuff:
The Amherst Reservoir this afternoon.
Hampshire College barncat.
This waterfall is located on the townline between Montague and Sunderland.
The reason I was in Montague was to visit the Bookmill.
Located as part of the Bookmill complex is a branch of Northampton's Turn It Up records.
The restoration of the front of Northampton's Academy of Music appears to finally be complete. Looking good!
Pumpkins for sale at Northampton's Stop and Shop.
Pumpkins for sale at Northampton's Serios. That picture of a woman in the window is someone (the owner?) who I remember used to always sit in front of Serios and when she died they put her picture in the entrance so that she could continue sitting there posthumously.
The pond in the back of Springfield's Saint Michael's Cemetery showing the old Picknelly Estate, which is now a daycare center for MassMutual.
An eerie entrance to a crypt in Saint Michael's Cemetery.
The playground of Springfield's World Famous Thomas M. Balliet Elementary School. At least now it has grass; when I was a kid it was a rocky dustbowl.
A time capsule now abandoned by the closing of the original Balliet.
Balliet totem of a sort that was put up at schools all over the city in the 80's. I wonder which politician's relative in the cement business cashed in on making those worthless things.
Look at how badly designed this strip mall on Boston Road in Springfield is from an environmental perspective. I can remember when I was a kid how it was all woods here before they cut down all the trees to put in a Topps Department Store and a Shoprite. It is set so far back from the road that there's all this dead space where no one parks. Those trees died for nothing.
The environmental crimes against Springfield are surpassed only by the historical and political ones.
Today's Video
Goldwater is a new Northampton band. The name may refer to a famous Arizona Senator, or some kind of musical alchemy or maybe they just call themselves that because every band needs a name. Here's Goldwater playing in Hamp last weekend.
5 comments:
Great pictures Tom!
It was Towers Dept Store. (Where Stop & Shop is) I used to plow the parking lot. Do you remember the houses along Boston Rd on the same side of the street going toward Wilbraham? They sat on a small hill. I only remember that because I was one of the truckers that hauld the hill away to Indian Orchard. We dumped it on another hill up behind the A&P.
Across the street, before you were born, before Eastfield mall was built was cooks camps a tourist court. Going toward Wilbraham once again, about where Friendlys Restarant is, was another place with tourist cabins, made out of Fancy Concrete Blocks and a few 8 X 25' to 35' trailer homes. Going back west was a bottleing plant, (Moxie Sign out front) and "Popes Market (fruit & veggies) where they sold "statues" of every kind imaginable.
Lots of changes since I traveled that road every day to High School at Trade from Wilbraham with my Father. He would drop me off at Trade on his way to Mass Mutual.
Tom...wasn't that picture (where you say used to be Stop and Shop)where Shoprite used to stand?
LR...the bottling plant you mention with the moxie sign...was that Xtra bottling?
Yes you are right, it was Shoprite! The brain cells are fading....
Yes it said "X-Tra" Bottling" I believe Herman Minckly owned it. It was a silver cement block building. The Mincklys were the same ones that that owned Minkleys Pig Farm where St Catherines Church is on Parker St. What a smell that used to be! And behind H.O.T. (if it's still there) used to be the 16 acres Riding Stable.
Shoprite was behind the original Kappys on Boston Rd in that shopping center. All the R. M. Sullivan Drivers used to cash our checks there on Friday nights, go next door to some topless bar and have a couple of beers before going home.
And old Pop Warner, whom the Warner School was named after on the corner of Parker & Boston Rd once told me that when he was a boy he could walk from 16 acres to Chicopee and never leave his Fathers land. His son Charlie was terminal manager at R.M. Sullivan when I worked there.
Howard Johnsons was where Applebees is now, on the corner of Boston Rd and Parker, on the S.W. corner. Even had an orange roof. I had a bank that looked just like it as a kid that my mother's mother bought me.
I am old enough to remember the horses pulling the garbage wagons in E Spfld . I lived there until I was 8 years old. (60 Years ago). In Winter, they would also pick up the ashes from the coal furnace and spread on the State St Hill cobblestones in place of salt or sand. I remember the coalman, Uncle Steve the Oilman, The Ragman, The Bread Man, The Milkman, The Scissor Sharpener, the Fruit and Veggie vendor with the pushcarts in Summer, the Laundryman, but not the "Yeastman" that my Grandmother used to talk about.
And later on, the Soda Man, The Ice-cream Man, and the TV Repairman. We used to have a lot of people come to the house at one time in history!
I would make a safe bet to say that the last 100 years have brought the most significant changes ever.
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