Monday, December 21, 2009

From Peter Rosa #5

Posted by Buckles at 12/21/2009 05:58:00 AM

8 comments:

JIM ELLIOTT said...

Any idea where this photo was taken? . I see plenty of carnival game tents, in the left forground.

21 December, 2009 08:10
Buckles said...

I think this has been identified as Philadelphia where RBBB and Strates shared the lot.
In the GSOE movie there is a scene where the show is tearing down at night and carnival ride lights can be seen in the background.

21 December, 2009 08:44
Anonymous said...

It does appearto be the Phila. location of the Lighthouse Boys Club, Front St. & Erie Ave. The identifying keys are the baseball diamond & the cemetery beyond left field. Many years ago we played at the site & have subsequently umpired there in more recent times. Ringling played there, successfully by crowd counts, in the 1950s. -- Bill Hall

21 December, 2009 10:36
Richard Reynolds said...

I believe this is 1955. We see the new 5-pole menagerie tent. This was the first separate menagerie tent since 1950. It was narrower than those of 1950 and earlier because it had only one row of quarter poles.

The ticket wagons are lined up across the front of the main entrance, a practice that was begun a few years earlier.

Note the doniker wagons set up in the connection.

21 December, 2009 10:58
Hal Guyon said...

That looks like the Bill Ballentine painted bannerline. Also the menagerie tent is there instead of the 5 pole big top. I think Strates played with them in both Philadelpia & Washington. Also, notice that the end sections of the big top are more triangle shape instead of curved, this was to accommidate the seat wagons. I would guess 1954-55. What looks like a cemetery is in the background, that may give a clue of the location.

21 December, 2009 11:59
Roger Smith said...

When we played Philadelphia on the 1964 Beatty show, we were on Lighthouse Field for 11 days, which by then had become a Beatty show tradition. Strates was in front of us, which I see from other observers had been the arrangement for many years with both RBB and Beatty. I recall being told this lot originated from Lighthouse for the Blind, and waa a tie-in with the Lions Club, whose mission is protecting eyesight.

I noticed during this engagement the circus folk and the carnies almost pointedly did not associate.

One cageboy we had, Junior (no connection with Mr. Ruffin), stole $50 another cageboy was holding for Norma Wilford, one of the Digger Pugh girls from England (or Limey Broads,as we irreverently called them). Junior screwed the lot and tried to lose himself with Strates. Somehow, the police showed up and easily found Junior, who was on the lam from other charges, but the scratch was gone. The cageboy borrowed it from Mr. Beatty to get straight with Norma.

As I have noted here previously, Philadelphia was the hometown of Oscar-winner Grace Kelly. Through Beatty's friendship with Prince Ranier, the Kelly family got Beatty in with the top, high-society doctors there, when he sought diagnoses for many early discomforts. They missed the esophogeal cancer, which progressed and necessitated the first surgery in Chicago, in August.

On closing night, everyone realized the 11-day "vacation" was over, and we hit into the extended string of one-nighters.

But, oh the memories of Lighthouse Field.

21 December, 2009 16:53
Chic Silber said...

Yes Roger your note certainly

brings back vivid memories of

some great times at Lighthouse

Field and recall the Ranier

family visits there

64 may have been the last year

on that lot and for a couple of

years the show played a horrible

lot on Street Road (or something)

that had been a fallow farm field

Rain for days turned it into the

most soggy swamp that dried with

deep ruts and was returned to

treacherous mud for the slough

For several years after that the

show played Liberty Bell Park

with the Vivona Show (A of A)

Philly was the 2nd longest run

of the season after Commack

21 December, 2009 21:09
Roger Smith said...

On the 1981 Beatty show, from May 8-12, we played a lot in Philly such as Chic describes, at Fairmount Park Station. We were across from the football stadium, on soft black earth, and lord, did it rain. Everything sank at least to the axles, bringing hardships beyond the efforts of the elephants. A giant Caterpillar tractor arrived. I asked the operator what he charged. "Sixty-five an hour, two hours minimum!" He was needed there into dawn the next day.

23 December, 2009 04:58

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