During the mid 1960s, my father, Jerry Perkins, ran the bowling alley in Turners Falls, the Bowladrome, for a few years. I was 14 then, and I’d go down there all the time, especially on weekends, and just bowl for free. I never got that good at it, but it was fun trying.
The downtown at that time was dying in a way, but the movie theater was still open — The Shea. The bowling alley was on the second floor of the theater, on the corner of 3rd Street and Avenue A.
As far as I can remember, the bowling alley seemed to be doing pretty well when my father ran it. Most of its regular money came from the leagues. My father only managed it though, and the alley’s owner wanted to keep it open during the summer, but there was no air conditioning. As a kid, that kind of thing never really bothered you. We never had air conditioning, but to the adults it probably mattered. It was a big thing back then though; most people went to the movies just for the air conditioning.
Therefore, the alley didn’t get a lot of business during those months, especially with no leagues going on. So, my father said he didn’t want to keep it open during those months and the owner told him he’d find someone else. Except, they never did, and the alley never opened again after that summer, which is pretty sad.
The alley had its own entrance on 3rd Street, and on that side of the building there were windows that went all the way to the floor. If the ball ever went off the lane, it could very well have gone right out the window. On the Avenue A side were the pin setters.
Before that, my father owned a roller skating rink — RIVERVU Rollerway — which was a pretty big deal. It’s torn down now, but it was on Millers Falls Road across from George Avenue. It was in a residential area, and before it became the roller rink, it was a big dance hall called Mayo’s Point during the ’40s, when Big Band music was really popular.
My mother and father actually met while roller skating, and my father went on to buy the space in 1949. He was always interested in breaking into the business, and my mother shared an interest in it as well.
Around 1958, he almost doubled the size of the original building. The rink was only open three days a week; it didn’t generate enough income to stay open more days than that. But, it was very popular, especially with teenagers. They would even teach dancing and skating there, and had competitions there against other rinks. Like ice skating, really, but for whatever reason the popularity of roller dancing faded away.
I was pretty good at skating because I started pretty young. I was never interested in the dancing part of it, which is too bad; I just wanted to go fast. I’d do races with other skaters and always win. My father would always say, “We need to give you two extra laps to give other people a chance.” But, I’d still win. Back then, I was faster than anybody else.
And in the summer, they had a playground program for younger kids, which offered things like Little League and different activities at Unity Park. One day a week, the program would take the kids roller skating, like on Saturday mornings. It would be a very discounted price to get in.
We never really took any photos inside, which is kind of sad, but my father took out a lot of ads for the rink in The Recorder. Once, they even had a roller skating horse, so he took out an ad for that. I remember the horse was there all week and walking by its trailer.
People always said movie theaters and television are what killed the roller rink culture, but I don’t know how true that is. But in the ’60s, the rink’s popularity kind of faded away, so my father ended up closing it. It became a warehouse for many years for a furniture company in Greenfield, but it was pretty much an eyesore. They didn’t keep it up, and there were tree branches and tall grass everywhere, which wasn’t great for a residential area. A friend of mine’s sister actually bought the land that the rink was on, bulldozed it and built a house on it in the mid ’90s.
My father’s main profession was tool grinding. He worked at a number of places, one of them Greenfield Tap & Die. He probably worked longest at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, Conn. He commuted from Turners Falls and would stay down there all week, coming home on the weekends. He always liked to run a business, though. He probably was involved in 100 businesses in his lifetime. But, most of them failed. Like a lot of people in his generation, he didn’t really like working for someone else, but he didn’t really have the managerial experience to truly succeed at it. But, he was always trying.
Wayne Perkins lived in Turners Falls for more than 40 years. He currently is retired and resides in Jacksonville, Fla.