North Policy Neighborhood Changed Due to Residents, Not Canobie

Every time Canobie Lake Park or the Reservoir comes up for discussion, the arguments against those uses amount to they are changing the neighborhood.  That is not correct.  Canobie Lake has been a Reservoir and Canobie Lake Park has been a noisy congested place for more than a hundred years.  Canobie Lake Park was built were it is because no one lived there and hell-raising would not bother anyone. 

Canobie Lake was made a reservoir because there were just a few summer camps on it. I grew up in Salem in the '50s and '60s.  There were just a few houses on North Policy.  There were almost no houses on Brookdale.  And most of the surrounding land was farmland. 

My aunt Mary owned what became Kelly’s School and ran a boarding house there in the '50s.  It is now an overflow parking lot.  Soupy Palermo built a house or two every year on the hill to feed his growing family.  Gus Brown who owned Brown’s market and Captain Dietrich who lived in one of the houses in question at the moment were well known established residents.  Everyone else moved in knowing full well that the Lake was a reservoir and the Park patrons created traffic jams and made a ruckus. 

In the '40s and into the '50s the ballroom had Big Band concerts.  In the '60s there were rock concerts including Sonny and Cher as well as Ray Charles.  The parking lot was full on a big night by 8 or so and patrons parked on the streets.  I know.  I worked the parking lot then.  As I recall fireworks started in the '60s.  There were also Circus Acts with elephants trumpeting all night and the roller coaster screams could be heard from my house miles away.  Anyone who moved near Canobie knew this when they moved in.

Every winter Ray Captel would be busy adding new rides and repairing the existing ones..  The park expanded almost constantly.  Mrs Ulaky expanded the food service every year.  Nino Berni ran the day-to-day operations like clockwork.  Canobie Lake Park has been growing steadily for more than 50 years that I can recall.   Their children run the park today.  This is a family business.  The owner/operators are related. 

So the next time people tell you that Canobie Lake Park is changing the neighborhood, tell them that it is the neighborhood that has changed.  Canobie has been the same for a very long time.  It is the neighborhood that has encroached upon Canobie Lake Park and on the Reservoir.