The lost years of Mechanics Hall

By Chet Williamson

On Saturday, Oct. 27, Mechanics Hall will officially celebrate its 150th anniversary (1857-2007), a black-tie affair complete with dinner and dancing. In keeping with the historic number, admission is $150 per person.

Looking at it today, it's inconceivable to think that the venerable venue was facing the wrecking ball at the time of its centennial celebration. This, of course, was 25 years before the campaign to renovate the hall was even considered. Today, the hall presents more than 200 public and private events per year, bringing in more that 300,000 in attendance.

"Through the generosity of the community, we have been able to invest more than $17 million during that time in making and keeping Mechanics Hall as a state-of-the-art meeting place of unique beauty and design," says Executive Director Robert Kennedy. "We enter our 151st year with a mixture of pride and optimism. We are proud of our rich heritage and we know that Mechanics Hall will continue to serve for generations to come."

In 1957, The Worcester County Mechanics Association, which built and maintained the place during the previous century, didn't share Kennedy's enthusiasm. The august organization was ready to sell the place.

By most accounts of that day, the one-time architectural gem was now pretty beat. It was a dusty, musty old place with creaky stairways that reeked of piss and stale beer. Instead of hosting music for longhairs and lectures for arm-chair travelers, the hall had become a haven for broken-faced pugilists, overweight wrestlers and over-the-hill roller derby queens — hardly the high culture attractions that grace the hall today.

The 100th anniversary virtually came and went unnoticed. In fact, on the eve of its centennial, the hall was dark. The famous Mechanics Hall, with its legendary reputation, had once presented presidents William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. It hosted such notable figures as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson — not to mention musicians John Philip Sousa, Anton Dvorak and Enrico Caruso. All of it was about to be thrown onto the scrap heap of history.

Fat City: Three pugilists who spent many a punch-drunk night at the Hall. From left: cut man Chris Rucci, prizefighter Leo Sawicki and “The Kid,” Paul Barry, strike a pose at the Exchange Street Gym.

Margaret Erskine, in her book Mechanics Hall: Worcester People and Places, wrote: "The hall was for sale. In February, 1948, it was thought that the property could bring $400,000, perhaps more. Some of the members strongly suggested that The [Worcester County Mechanics] Association should be disbanded as soon as the property could be disposed of. Only one voice was recorded as opposing the sale of ‘this sacred hall building,' and he was thought to be a little foolish."

In 1982, on the occasion of the hall's 125th celebration, Frank Magiera wrote a feature in Telegram & Gazette chronicling the possible sale of the building. "There was no doubt in 1957 that if the hall was sold, it would be torn down to make way for a gleaming office building or store. At the time the land on which the hall stood was appraised for $225,000 — nine times the value of the building itself."

He then cited a July 8, 1955, edition of the Evening Gazette that reported that a purchase agreement for the building had finally been signed; "that the sale would be completed in the fall of that year and that the hall would be razed the next year to be replaced by a modern office building."

He also pointed out that a few days later the paper ran an editorial stating that the "ancient hall has obviously ceased to meet the needs of the modern city." However, the sale never went through. Magiera says, "The trustees of The Mechanics Association explained somewhat regretfully in the annual report of 1957 that the prospect had failed to show up for the final sale."

Fighter Paul Barry in action.

Joy Hennig, a librarian specializing in local history and genealogy at the Worcester Public Library, recently wrote a paper on the history of the Worcester County Mechanics Association, in which she notes, "Ever since the Worcester [Memorial] Auditorium first opened its doors during the 1930s, the Hall had lost business to the larger, more modern, venue. Even the prestigious Worcester Music Festival, despite the rich history shared with The Association, moved to the newer facility in 1931. The cost of maintaining the building soon exceeded its value and over the next 30 years unsuccessful attempts were made to sell what had become an albatross around the neck of The Worcester County Mechanics Association."

It may be interesting to note that while the early days of the hall are well-documented and there are wells of ink spilled on its life during and after restoration, very little is written about the in-between years. For 50 years — between 1925 and 1975, one-third of its existence — the hall was mainly used for sporting events.

"The grunts and groans of wrestlers were heard more often than the voices of singers," wrote Erskine. "Bleachers were installed on the main floor, around the center ring. The building got dirtier and more out-of-style with every passing day. During the Second World War the windows in the main hall were blocked up with plywood and the hall was plunged into perpetual gloom."

While the down years no longer attracted the cognoscenti, the common folk found it just fine. The Paderewskis of the world may have gone on to greener pastures, but the people in the cheap seats had some "cultcha" of their own. The wrestling crowd had characters like Chief Jay Strongbow and the fight game had devastating punchers with colorful names like Tiger Flowers. And though the hall needed a good coat of lipstick, powder and paint, it wasn't always empty. In fact, according to long-time Telegram sports reporter Nick Manzello, Mechanics Hall at one time was considered one of the biggest fight-club venues in the country.

In 1950, Worcester's population had topped 200,000 and downtown was jumping. Up and down Main Street, from the Cott sign at Lincoln Square to Robert Hall, the "store for men," people were out populating the city streets with cosmopolitan flair — right along with the sideways swagger of the drunks stumbling out of The Belmar. 

An undated wrestling poster advertising 'Lady Wrestlers' at the Hall.

It was a black-and-white world back then, like watching everything on a TV with rabbit ears. Friday night was fight night, when working stiffs from Norton's and Heald's or Morgan Construction and American Steel & Wire turned up their collars, put a pack of White Owls in one pocket and a pint of Fleischmann's in the other and headed for Mechanics Hall. Some took the 26 Lincoln, others hopped on the 19 Cherry Valley bus, the chariots taking take them there and back.

Manzello remembers many a night at ringside, when clouds of smoke hung in the air above the fighters' heads so thick that you couldn't see the difference in the painting between George Washington and his ride.

"At one time Mechanics Hall sold out 117 straight Fridays," he recalls. "The people would gather about 4 or 5 o'clock down in front of Mechanics Hall. This is the 1940s, '50s and '60s. It was a great place for boxing. It was unbelievable. There wasn't a bad seat in the house. They put the ring in the center. They had the best hot dogs in the world, too."

Manzello says he saw all the greats there, fighters like Sugar Ray Robinson and Willie Pep, as well as the local guys — reeling off the names of Don Williams, Johnny Potenti, Al Freda and Harry Hintlein.

"At one time we had nine or 10 local guys fighting main bouts," Manzello says. "You could put them into a main bout and they would draw the people. These were good fighters. One of the great fights of all time was between Leo Sawicki, who was from the [Green] Island and Johnny Potenti from Grafton Hill. You couldn't get a ticket. Leo was great. He probably won 50-60 fights. Johnny won an eight-round decision. The place was packed."

Manzello says the reason he knows about those days is because, at 14, he started working the fights as an apron boy. "In those days they'd spit and you had to roll the apron over it. I got a buck and a half from Sam Silverman. He was a promoter who promoted all over the country, probably more than anybody else. It would be nothing for him to have five fights going on Fridays in New England.

"I can remember when I first started part time at the Telegram. I got a call from Silverman saying he was going to have fights at the hall and John Hoolihan, who was a devout Catholic, says to me, ‘He can't hold fights Friday.' I said, ‘Why not?' He says, ‘There's Good Friday.' I called Sam and told him. Sam says, ‘Let me tell you something, there's three reasons why I'm going to have the fights: It's a Friday night. I have a license and I'm not a Catholic.' So, Sam goes on with the fights and out of the blue that night comes four nuns walking down the street in silent protest. Would you believe? It was another sell-out."

Although he only fought there once, former boxer Paul Barry also has tight memories of Mechanics Hall.

"It only held like 1,200-1,300 people," he says. "They compared it to the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia. It was built on a similar style. If you were up in the balcony, you were looking right down on the fight. Anywhere you were in that hall you were right on top of the action.

Mechanics Hall, back when Barnard’s department store was its next door neighbor.

"There were a lot of great fights there," he says, "like Larry Carney with Joe Gomes. Joe Gomes was from Providence but he trained in Worcester at Cutroni's Gym on Bridge Street. It was on the third floor of the package store. It was torn down for the Worcester Center. I remember Yama Bahama, Tom McNeely and Wilbur "Skeeter" Mclure. He was a gold medal winner in the 1960 Olympics, same year as Cassius Clay [Muhammed Ali]. He fought up there three or four times.

"Those guys didn't fight easy guys. They were real tigers. Usually you had a main event and about four or five more fights. The guys I saw there weren't nationally ranked, but they left there to fight bigger fights down at Boston Garden and stuff."

Today Barry sells promotional products; for years he ran a gym on Exchange Street with Leo Sawicki and Chris Rucci. When the fights ended at Mechanics Hall in the late '60s, Barry bought the ring and the bell along with it.

Barry says back in the '80s, after the Hall was restored, he called the powers that be at Mechanics and asked if they'd be interested in resurrecting the fights. "Christ, it was like a sanctimonious thing," he says, laughing. "Then about five or six years ago they asked me about it. I told them we could put on a fundraiser, a black-tie thing. It could raise some money, but nothing ever came of it."

Wrestlers, or "rasslers," as the great Worcester Telegram cartoonist Al Banx used to tag them, also had an illustrious stay at the Hall. Author Erskine has a fabulous shot of one of the best in her book. In the cutline accompanying his publicity photo, she writes, "John Malmberg, billed as ‘Zira,' was the hometown favorite when he wrestled three world championships in Mechanics Hall. ‘Zira' grew up in Quinsigamond Village and worked at American Steel and Wire when he was not wrestling ‘The Angel,' ‘Count Zaranoff' or Gus Sonnenberg in the early '30s."

Unlike the WWF wrestlers of today who make six-figure salaries, many of the "rasslers," like Zira, were journeymen who plied their trade on weekends at places like Mechanics Hall.

Jack Whitaker is in his '70s. He remembers how his dad, Fred Whitaker, would work during the week as a cop in Boston, but come Saturday night he was a wrestler. "When you are married and have a family ... he and other wrestlers would hop in the car and drive to Lowell or Worcester or Brockton to any arena or good-sized gymnasium that would bring in some paying customers. He picked up some extra money that way."

Whitaker says a good night's purse was in the $15-$25 range. "The winner got a little more than the loser. That was good money, considering his regular take home pay was probably around $20 a week."

The ring in the old floor for skating and roller derby.

Whitaker says the game was fairly legitimate in the early days of wrestling. "They didn't have all the clowns that they have today," he says. "My father was a highly ranked New England light heavyweight champion. They had classes just like boxing. It wasn't until the '30s that they began to bring in the Strangle Lewises and people like that. That was the beginning of the end."

The Rev. James Bronwell of the First Congregational Church of Sutton was so impressed by a single match he witnessed at the Hall that he once fashioned a sermon about his experience. Titled "Big George and The Masher at Mechanics," recalls how, in high school, Bronwell used to wait out in front of Barnard's Department Store for the bus that would take him to Worcester Academy. In his sermon, he wrote: "As it happened, this was very close to Mechanics Hall, and while I was waiting, I often passed some time by reading the lurid posters describing upcoming professional wrestling programs that were then part of the Mechanics Hall's varied offerings.

"I was fascinated, and I wanted to see these inspiring athletic competitions but I was reluctant to go alone. I suggested to my father that he might want to avail himself of this unique opportunity to broaden his range of experience, but he was a college president, a very respectable type, and he didn't care to be seen at such an event. Then one bright shining day my somewhat disreputable (and therefore favorite) uncle came for a visit, and he was more than willing to go along. And so one Monday night Uncle Herb and I found ourselves sitting in the crowd at Mechanics Hall to witness mock combat at its finest."

The rest of Bronwell's sermon is a classic tale of good winning out over evil. In describing the fighters, he wrote: "Big George had long, dark, greasy hair, a scraggly beard, and he wore a thick, purple velour robe. The Masher was adorned in a maroon robe and a black mask that covered his entire face. The two strutted around the ring, working the crowd up into a frenzy of rage. They were 500 pounds of evil incarnate.

"Then the music changed. A noble tune, a stirring, uplifting strain filled the auditorium. The spotlight fell upon Jack the Lumberjack and Gentleman Jim as they made their way calmly down the aisle. The crowd roared its approval as the two angels of light stepped into the ring."

"I was only there that once and [I was] pretty young, but it was quite an adventure," Bronwell says of the Hall. "It was broken down. It just looked like a very disreputable place."

Bronwell also walked away from the event with a new-found sense of class distinctions. "I came from a part of Worcester that was pretty upper-class. My father was the president of WPI. We lived in the president's house. Arthur Bromwell. Yeah, and it was really hammered home that night. My dad would not take me to wrestling. He didn't feel he should be seen in that venue."

Zonkaraz performs on the balcony over the grand foyer as unsuspecting fans ascend the staircase in their 1970s finery.

In addition to boxing, wrestling and skating, Mechanics Hall also held regular dances, sock-hops and an occasional pop concert or two. Now in his late 60s and living in New Jersey, Tommy Price is the son of the late trumpeter Barney Price and brother of bassist Bunny Price. In the late 1950s and early '60s, Tom both attended Mechanics Hall and performed there. "I remember seeing more of the R&B acts like Fats Domino and Tiny Bradshaw," he says. "However, I also remember seeing Dizzy Gillespie.

"I played there once with Jackie Wilson. He was performing in Mechanics Hall and he didn't have a drummer. He came in with a piano and a bass player. I don't know how they found out about me but they called and said, ‘Can you bring your drum set down? Jackie Wilson ["Higher and Higher"] is playing tonight and he doesn't have a drummer.' That was a blast. At that time I was attending Berklee. I was like 19 or 20 years old. His name was just beginning to get big. He came out with this cape on and, of course, all the gals were screaming. It was a blast."

Basketball was also a huge draw at the Hall. George Photakis, owner of The Owl Shop, recalls seeing many a game of hoop at Mechanics and singled out one player in particular, Ziggy Strzelecki, a former Clark University stand-out, who is now in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

"He was a phenomenal basketball player," Photakis says. "I think he was all of 5'7". But boy, was he good. Ziggy used to play basketball in the morning, afternoon and at night. He loved it. He would start to shoot from the center court and went from one side of the court to the other taking shots and sank every damn one of them. He had a phenomenal eye. You think Cousy was fancy? This guy was unbelievable."

Originally from New York, Photakis came to the city in 1946, and opened his first shop on the corner of Main and Exchange streets, one block down the street from Mechanics Hall.

"It was half sporting goods and half tobacco," he says. "People would go to Mechanics Hall and come in and buy some cigars. Of course, in those days, you were allowed to smoke anywhere. The wrestlers used to come into my store to buy cigars. They were these big 350-pound guys. They'd walk around and wouldn't talk to each other. The next minute they'd be fighting each other. Then they'd go wrestle up in Mechanics Hall."

Before ascending in the ranks, former Worcester Police Chief Ed Gardella recalls doing detail work on skating night at the hall. "In the early '70s I remember that I happened to make a drug arrest in the men's room. I walked in and people were flying all over the place. It was a marijuana arrest. I remember some guy saying, ‘Hey you better go in the bathroom; there's drugs in there.' I did and there was."

Gardella says he remembers that "the floor was all beat up and the place was kind of smelly. It's just glorious what they have done to it. I remember going to the fights. I remember going with my uncle to see Don Williams, [Telegram columnist Dianne Williamson's dad] fight there."

In 1974, local musician and writer Bob Bliss performed a benefit concert for Summer's World at Mechanics Hall with his jazz rock band, Quiet Fire. Also on the bill were Albatross and Babe Pino. By the way, you can see a clip of the performance on YouTube.

"I remember it was very dark," Bliss recalls. "I wondered how many people were in the audience. It had no cachet at all. I was vaguely aware of the history of it and astounded by the acoustics. I remember that because the acoustics were unbelievable even with the condition the hall was in at the time. I remember playing a couple of notes on the clarinet to just sort of test the response in the room. It was unbelievable."

According to author Erskine, attitudes about preserving Worcester's old buildings like Mechanics Hall started to change in the early 1970s. "People became appalled by the wholesale destruction of block after block and its replacement by a standardized architecture which was making every city look alike all across the country."

Dick Wright, a former station manager of WTAG radio, recalls writing many a feature in the pages of the Worcester Telegram advocating for the Hall's restoration.

"It was an architectural gem," he says. "Nobody appreciated it for its acoustics or its ambience. The organ was neglected. It was part of the history of the city. It made no sense to tear down something as gracious and as long-lived in the history of the city. I mean, you look back at the famous people who spoke and performed there throughout the generations.

"I wrote several columns about it. It sounds self-serving but I started several drums beating to save the hall. Others picked it up and the big-time boys in town got behind it and raised the money. One of the big stem-winders to get it renovated was Dick Steele of the Telegram. It made no sense to keep knocking things down and replacing them with parking lots. It was the whole history of Main Street — knock down a building, leave a hole, pave it over."

Wright recalls a funny story told to him by Bob Gamere, a former sportscaster at WTAG, before he went on to a broadcasting career in Boston. "He was coming back from New York and was sitting on the bus beside a black girl. As they were coming into Worcester, they were looking out the window and she said, ‘What is all that?' Downtown was all fenced in. There were big fences all around this vacant land downtown. Bob said, ‘That's redevelopment.' She said, ‘Oh, you all had riots too?'"

In 1971 Mechanics Hall was hailed as the best 19th century hall of its kind in the United States by the chief architectural historian of the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service. In 1974 the building was finally determined to be a hazard to public safety and closed. Inspired by America's Bicentennial in 1976 and a grant from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the movement toward restoration had begun. The rest, as they say, is history. And thankfully, it's well-documented. o