Framingham Views

The Junction, is what they called the place where Route 9 and Concord St. intersect, about where the Honey Farms, and Framingham Cooperative Bank are located. Here’s a postcard view of the trolley station that was located there. 

Ken’s began as a diner in Natick, moving to it’s location on Route 9, in 1941. It’s changed little over the years, so when I saw this postcard, I was excited because I never knew about the original sign, dating back to the early 1950’s, nor it’s different color which included lots of green.

I wonder if the Hanna family has lots of older photos of the place, like this one. I can imagine Ken getting his picture taken with celebrities. Or maybe not, preferring to let them enjoy a meal without being interrupted.

Every once in awhile, the newspaper does a story on the history of Ken’s, as it’s about the only thing left on the golden mile that’s original. Who would have thought that so many great places would be gone after so few years.  And does anyone else wish the bright lights and glamour would return?

Nothing epitomizes the vibrant downtown Framingham of the fifties than this postcard view looking north. So much like the downtown I remember as a kid, that I wanted to use it for the header on framinghammass.info at one point. I even put a title on it. No matter how many hairdressers and sandwich shops open up, I don’t know if it will ever get back to the way it was in this picture.

One of Framingham’s biggest news stories was the collapse of the Amsden Building on Concord St in July of 1906.

Here’s a photo of the building a few weeks before it collapsed. The construction workers posed on the top floor in this picture, and most of them died. 

Here’s the scene after, from a postcard.

Here are some old pictures I came across recently. First, a color slide of the Farmer’s Mechanics Bank on the corner of Franklin St downtown. 
It nearly looks the same today.

Next, completely unrelated, is this view of Union Avenue looking north, after a hurricane in 1955, flooded.  This picture was from the Framingham News, and  if you look carefully, you can see a Dairy Queen on the left underneath the Mobilgas sign.

Finally, again unrelated, the Odd Fellows Hall on Hollis St. in 1900, from an old postcard.

Here are a few pictures I took in the late 1970’s of the Cinema at Shoppers World. First, heading toward the entrance from the parking lot.

Standing in the lobby looking toward the game machines. This area was originally designed as an art gallery. Every month, Delia McDonald from Framingham would arrange for the display of paintings from a local artist.  She was given a dozen free passes to provide this service, and would change the display with the artist on a Saturday morning before we opened. We stopped displaying paintings once the games were in place.  And Delia probably retired.

In the section of lobby in the front of Cinema’s 5 and 6, there was wood paneled wall, for display of “art prints”.  These were part of the Concession inventory, although we didn’t sell many.  Here’s that section leading to the boxoffice.

The theatres on this side were considered small, Cinema V, first one to the right,  had 519 seats, and Cinema 6 had 625.

Here’s what Cinema V and VI looked like inside.