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A historic preservationist comes home to save the family business--one of
the country's oldest amusement parks.
By Michele Herman
The Metropolis Observed
June 2002
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Endangered Whalom Park (top left, in 1930) is home to classic rides like
the Flying Comet roller coaster (top right, during World War II) and the
Super Trooper (bottom), one of many rides salvaged from other now-defunct
amusement parks.
Photos: Top two, courtesy Allyson Bowens; bottom, Allyson Bowens
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Allyson Bowen's life plans did not include Whalom Park, the Victorian-era
amusement park that had been owned and run by her family since the 1930s.
As director of a historic-house museum in Manhattan, she had long ago left
behind the antique rocket cars and wooden Flyer Comet roller coaster in
Lunenburg, Massachusetts. But in the late 1990s, when the Bowens lost their
majority stake in the property, the park went deep into debt. In 2001 it
failed to open for the first time in 108 years, and the new management
sold off some rides and sought a buyer to avoid foreclosure. So 26-year-old
Bowen moved back home to take on the preservation challenge of a lifetime:
buying back Whalom, reopening it, and turning it into a living amusement-park
museum. "I grew up at the park, worked there every summer, and before
that my father did the same," she says. "It's a part of my life--and
a part of everyone's life in central Massachusetts. I knew I would always
regret it if I didn't do everything I could to save the park."
Whalom's current management argues that the park is a dinosaur from the
pre-automobile era that can't compete with nearby Six Flags in Agawam, Massachusetts.
"It was operated as an amusement park--and it lost money and
had to be closed," says Michael Angelini, an attorney for the new management.
Bowen agrees that Whalom can't compete with Six Flags, but by making the
park historically accurate, she says, it will attract "a whole other
segment of the population who loves history and museums and will look at
it from a cultural landscape point of view."
The 13th-oldest extant amusement park in the United States, Whalom is already
a de facto museum filled with vernacular architecture including a cir-ca
1905 roller rink, a bone-rattling "woodie" roller coaster, one
of only five walk-through fun houses left in the world, an original
set of Dodgems bumper cars, and many rare rides salvaged from other late,
lamented parks. Like some 1,500 similar parks that once dotted the country,
it was built by the local trolley operator to increase nighttime and weekend
ridership. Now only a dozen such parks remain.
Bowen is undaunted in the face of huge obstacles, the first being an
agreement with a developer that the park's board accepted in January. She
thinks the agreement, which is less a sale than a hold on the property,
will probably be rescinded. The potential developer hasn't done due diligence,
she says, adding that sleepy Lunenburg is notoriously unfriendly to development.
"If this buyer or any buyer wants that parcel to remain a park, it
is fine with the town government and with the majority of the people
in town," says Marion Benson, chairperson of Lunenburg's planning board.
"If they choose a different route, the town would like to work with
them." Currently the property is zoned for commercial use, which would
allow a small percentage of residential development.
The latest obstacle--a three-alarm fire in early March--destroyed Whalom's
1933 ballroom, where the Dorsey Brothers and Cab Calloway once played. Four
local teenagers have been charged in connection with the fire, according
to the state fire marshal's office. Bowen says the loss of one
of Whalom's most significant historic structures may make it harder
to get the park listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But
instead of getting discouraged, she used the occasion to organize a Save
Whalom rally at the site the following week. "I had to remind people
that there are 35 acres of attractions left," she says.
Meanwhile, Bowen has succeeded in having the park named one of Massachusetts's
ten most endangered sites and is working feverishly to find financing
so that she can pounce if the current deal falls through. To appeal to loyal
Whalom optimists like herself, she is selling special passes for $50 that
will grant buyers free season admission and ride discounts when the park
reopens. In the first three months this brought in $40,000, including
a $10,000 donation from a local resident willing to spend his inheritance
on saving Whalom. "Every time I open another envelope," Bowen
says, "whether it's a five-dollar check or a five-thousand-dollar
check with a personal note, I'm touched again with how much people care."
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