CastleRock took place in the cavernous Dorney Park dance-hall, Castle Garden. The "Garden" was built in the early 20's and hosted all the famous big bands of that era. By the late fifties it was called CastleRock. The Philadelphia recording stars, such as Frankie Avalon and Freddy Cannon would routinely perform. By my teenage era, in the early mid 60's, it was mostly disc jockeys. The Park was free, no admission. Pay to park, and maybe a buck or so for the dance-hall.
By then the nightclub tables shown in the photograph were gone, and sitting was around the sides. There were no shootings, and rowdiness was restricted to sneaking on a ride without buying a ticket. The dance-hall overlooked the lake, it was destroyed by a fire on Thanksgiving in 1985.
Reprinted from Sept. 10, 2008
Wonderful stuff.
ReplyDeleteCastle Garden was a fairly popular roller skating rink, too, I remember.
No gang warfare and shootings, either.
We were overprivileged and spoiled back then.
i believe that there was a separate roller skating ring, which was across the road and up the hill, beyond the arcade.
ReplyDeleteYour right I'm 79 went many times as well as Arena Gardens of south 4th.st. Sure was a great time growing up 1n the 50's
DeleteActually, I believe I was at teh skating rink all of once so I trust your geography with respect to actual location.
ReplyDeleteSee what happens when time passes?
Details get lost!
Thanks for the memories.
What's next?
Bill Daniels Music Factory remembered ...
Michael said, "i believe that there was a separate roller skating ring, which was across the road and up the hill, beyond the arcade.
ReplyDeleteIt was.. and in the end became the whacky shack which burned down along with the with the Chanticleer carousel they had stored inside of it.
The Chanticleer had sunk on a ship on it's way to America. It was raised and the ride made it all the way to Dorney park only to perish in that fire in the 70's
Castle Garden became a "part time roller skating disco" venue after they converted the former rink building to the Whacky Shack
On my former website (I no longer have) I did a whole piece on Dorney's history in detail. Perhaps that should be reworked for my current blog if I have time.
Click Here for more info from Dorney's site