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 January 2013
It was a place that survived wars, politics and new renditions of music. To bad that a very suspicious fire took its life in 1985.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1950's it was virtually the only place that teenagers of different backgrounds (except black) could mix and mingle and dance. If you went to Allen High you hardly ever saw or had the social opportunity to meet and dance with anyone from Catholic High or Dierrff or Bethlehem High. But, on Saturday night you could drive to Castle Rock and be in a giant dance floor and see/meet kids from all over. When the "fast" songs came on it was mostly the girls dancing by/with themselves because lots of guys didn't know how or felt awkward jitterbugging. But, when the slow songs came on all of a sudden all the girls would get asked and you could see guys standing around who didn't get to ask a girl in time and so lost out on a dance. Hardly anyone came alone; it was small groups of guys & girls who came.
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