STOPPING BY OLD SULLY’S LAST WEEK
Last week I stopped by Old Sully’s on Thursday night for the April meeting of the Irish American Police Officers Association and applied my gift of gab quite well. Old Sully’s is at the corner of Happiness and Lynde Streets I often say. Not really, it is actually Union and Lynde but there’s always a lot of happiness and laughter inside this
And like the skating rink back in the day they both used to be on the left of Rutherford Avenue traffic and relocated to the left side while never moving an inch.
My Uncle Jim (Callahan) owned and operated the Ward Produce Company at the old Potato Sheds. Most old Townies still know exactly where the site of the potato industry used to be. New people have know idea whatsoever.
Last Thursday, I talked with a few patrons from the hood who showed up for a drink where all the cops were there and I gave them a brief history of the area. I showed them the stoned wall between Lynde Street and New Rutherford Avenue below it. The wall is all that is left of that long history of the Charlestown Potato Sheds that met its demise on May 10, 1962 when all the potatoes turned into French fries in an 8-alarm fire that demolished everything from City Square to just across from Old Sully’s which actually lost an upper floor in the building due to a wind change.
I still remember my Uncle Jim and his co-worker and childhood friend Jimmy Delvin who dined at Old Sully’s often for lunch. They were good pals of Dan Sullivan who opened this watering hole back when my uncle was early 30-something.
Old Sully’s by that stone wall marked where the neighborhood and railroad yards merged.Traffic northbound is now running right through my uncle’s potato shed. I laugh at that thought.
Good thing Old Sully’s is still there along with Boston Sand & Gravel or I would need a GPS to know where all the potato bags were stacked.
As for the Irish American police association, I also belong to the Italian American police association too being the Gaelic-Garlic guy that I am.
Hopefully, there will always be an Old Sully’s on tap in Charlestown.
MUSIC SOOTHES THE SAVAGE BEAST
The above is one of those old sayings about the power of music to calm folks down in their sometimes crazy lives. Over at the Bunker Hill Mall, I always wondered why security always seemed to be playing classical music through out the mall. I only wondered who was selecting the music but never why. Now, I know. The classical stuff is played constantly not because there is great demand for it but because younger people hate the stuff and won;’t hang around the mall. They flee at the sound of public radio music like The Plague. File this story under “Musical Crime Prevention”.