Coasting to a stop at Whalom Park
There were plenty of signs the end was coming: When Whalom Park finally closed its gates, after more than a century as a Central Massachusetts landmark; when its ballroom burned down and its antique carousel was auctioned off, horse by horse; when a developer bought the lakefront site and made plans to build condos.
Still, for many area residents whose teenage years were defined by weekends spent at Whalom Park, who remember their first kisses at the roller-skating rink and their first dates in the Rose Garden dance hall, the end of the amusement park was not quite real until yesterday morning, when a roaring yellow excavator tore a hole in the park's best-loved attraction, the Flying Comet roller coaster (also known as ``The Black Hole").
As the 60-year-old wooden coaster was demolished, a steady stream of spectators, a few choking back tears, parked by the shore of Whalom Lake and stood outside the chain-link fence to watch.
``I'm broken-hearted," said Bill Murphy, the caretaker of the 30-acre park since it closed six years ago. ``It hurts; it really does. It's part of my childhood, gone."
By the end of yesterday, the roller coaster was gone, along with most of the other major structures on the property. The demolition, which began a week ago, is on track to be finished next week, officials said. Construction of 240 condominiums on the property will begin next spring, said Carl Pearson, vice president of Global Property Developers Corp., the Bridgewater firm that purchased the former park earlier this year. An appeal by neighbors who oppose the project was dismissed by a judge; they have appealed the dismissal, said their lawyer, June Riddle of Lunenburg.
Yesterday, as a piece of local history vanished before their eyes, reduced to a field of broken lumber and tangled, rusted, 20-foot sections of steel track, residents snapped photos and reminisced with strangers. Some visitors sought company, while others stood apart, quiet, seemingly lost in a fog of memory.
When it first opened in 1893, Whalom Park was a traditional, English-style park of gardens and walking paths, created by a streetcar operator in Leominster and Fitchburg as a way to lure riders on weekends. Its carousel, with 58 hand-carved animals, was installed in 1914. Animal exhibits, summer stock theater, and a dance hall arrived, The first roller coaster was built in the 1920s, according to Pearson. After World War II, with the added excitement of skee-ball, arcades, a funhouse, and bumper cars, Whalom thrived.
Its decline began in the 1970s, after Walt Disney set new standards for theme parks. The thrills of Whalom, along with other parks of its era, began to seem faded. One by one in the decades that followed, small, family-owned amusement parks were shuttered, from Rocky Point on Warwick Neck in Rhode Island to Revere Beach, once known as the Coney Island of the North.
The rides at Whalom -- the Black Hole; the Whip; the Bouncer -- ``were nothing compared to today, but back then, it was the cat's meow," said Gerry Farinelli, 65, of Attleboro, as he watched the excavator crush the roller coaster.
Installed in the early 1940s, after the infamous hurricane of 1938 flattened its predecessor, Whalom's Flying Comet coaster offered sweeping lake views from its high point 60 feet above the ground, but it was just as well known for its creaks, rattles, and ominous vibrations, onlookers said.
``It would always shake, and you knew it would shake, and you went on it
anyway," said Jean DiBona, 63, who traveled to Lunenburg from her home in North Providence, R.I., to bid farewell to the roller coaster. ``I used to cry on the way up, and I'd cry on the way down -- and then I would go on it again."
David Pothier, 52, of Lunenberg, remembered the wooden slide in Whalom's Funhouse, where children would ride scraps of burlap. Another ride was a spinning wooden disc that children rode, without seat belts, until the speed of the rotation was enough to throw them off, he said.
Not all of Whalom's pleasures induced bruises or screams of terror. Residents recalled leisurely summer picnics under the pine trees on the property and trout fishing in the lake. An organ player provided live music in the roller rink. There were Easter egg hunts and New Year's Eve dances and car races on the frozen lake in the winter.
Perhaps the oddest attraction was featured in the 1920s, when a trained horse would ride a waterslide into the lake, Pearson said.
For many former patrons, Whalom was a place for young romance. Bill Phelps, 62, met his wife on the dance floor at the Rose Garden, where the roof opened up to the stars in the summer and some of the biggest names of the Big Band era played.
``If my wife was alive, she would be crying," Phelps said.
One section of the roller coaster's track was salvaged yesterday, along with some of its cars, and Pearson said there are plans to incorporate fragments and memorabilia into the final design of the condo development. The building where the carousel was housed may also be preserved.
Onlookers mused yesterday about the strangeness of the altered landscape and about the likely name of the condo complex.
``No matter what they call it," Nancy Nurmi said, ``people will call it Whalom Park."
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