Castle Rock

Castle Rock 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 call Castle Rock. 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 September of 2008