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Not as old, but more sad
I was lighting the Menorah this year with matches from Eastern Standard.
Similar
The candles I put in my windows for the holidays are in their original boxes with price tags from Bradlees.
yup
I have a laundry basket where it still has the Bradlees price tags on it. Amazing its held up this long (20 years!)
I have some other things with Ames and Filene's tags on them. And plenty of CDs (discount) that still have the Tower Records sticker on them.
I was cleaning out papers a few weeks ago and found these boston related gems
Shaw's Rewards Card (the 1st time they had a card)
My original stop & shop card (with the 1990s logo on it)
a Riverside 'picture' key chain thingy
Matchbooks from "The Modern" "Club Karma" and "Deli Haus"
A menu from the Woburn Bickfords (before it went "family dining")
Trick cards from the RamRod (card to write number on)
Cab Vouchers from Boston Cab
Several Club Rise guest passes
BayBank
In college I opened my first real bank account at BayBank. Without ever moving the account, I've now had accounts at about 4 banks; still have the original account number.
Found a DV8 matchbook...
...among the other bits of crap from the past hiding out in my house. Now where are those parachute pants?
Similar
The candles I put in my windows for the holidays are in their original boxes with price tags from Bradlees.
4 Matcbooks
At least still around the house from there. One at the fire place. The other near the candles.
It's funny, I've been to the
It's funny, I've been to the Boston Garden I and Boston Garden II but still call it the Fleetcenter because that's what it was for my most formative years of watching sports and events in person.
When I hear Boston Garden I still think of the old Gahden. It would be like opening a new park in Somerville and calling it Fenway.
Conversely, I moved here in
Conversely, I moved here in 2001, long after they were renamed, but I still refer to The Bank of Bank BancPavilion as "HarborLights" and the terrible concert amphitheatre in the woods as "Great Woods" because they are easier to remember than whatever their corporate brand sponsor is this week.
Funny about that, for a while
Funny about that, for a while I got Great Woods abd Tweeter Center confused , I thought both existed at once lol. Mainly because I wasn't really into music and had only been to a few events out in Mansfield. So for me it was just someplace people occasionally talked about or I would hear an ad on the radio.
Historical perspective
And here I sit, in my dotage, thinking, "It was only called the Fleet Center for such a short while..."
I Have A Pic
Which I took on 495 in the summer of 2002 of a sign saying "CMGi Field" next exit.
It's funny how time affects
It's funny how time affects everyone differently. For me that short ten or so years was about 14 to 25, the time of my life I spent the most time going to huge events. I also vaguely remember the first few years the new name didn't exactly roll off the tongue with Boston TDBank North Garden , after it shorted the name and people veered towards Boston Garden again it seemed to make sense.
Who?
Are we talking about The Shawmut Center or the Worcester Centrum?
Worcester Centrum?
You mean the Worcester Centrum Center?
You mean the Worcester
You mean the Worcester Centrum **Centre** ?
when I was a child
I'd see local commercials (from Boston) on my cable system. There'd always be some ad for some monster truck thing at the "Worcester Centrum"
For years I kept thinking "is Worcester so big it has its own vitamins" ?
It takes a special kind of
It takes a special kind of fortitude to live in Worcester. Why shouldn't we have had the convenience of getting all of that in one multi?
Worcester Centrum.
Worcester Centrum.
Right up the street from the Galleria Mall.
ummm.... Worcester Common Fashion Outlets.
ummm... damnit!
Greendale Mall
Just got flattened....to be an Amazon Distribution Center.
Speaking of Shawmut, what
Speaking of Shawmut, what happened to all those bronze busts that used to decorate every branch?
I think a couple of them are
I think a couple of them are still out there. Weren't they round reliefs? They were the porthole-style hinged cover for the after-hours drop slots, weren't they, or am I thinking of some other defunct bank?
They were like this, but full
They were like this, but full size.
I had forgotten about those.
I had forgotten about those.
This is what I was thinking of. Might have been a different legacy bank.
This is on the Santandar >>>> Sovereign >>> ____ on Columbia Road in Upham's Corner.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3168442,-71.0653322,3a,15y,154h,81.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srPfysOq2HFaRxctsKHA4kQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0
When Fleet bought Shawmut
many of the Shawmut branches subsequently got spun out to Sovereign Bank, which later became Santander.
There might have been one
There might have been one additional step.
For a short but annoying period of a couple of years when Sovereign came into this market, they were Sovereign Bank New England. Completely distinct from Sovereign Bank PA or NJ or whatever it was I happened to have a small account, and therefore completely useless.
Sovereign had pretty much ruined the small local bank I had grown up with, and I have watched cheerfully from a distance as much as possible as Santandar finished the job.
Last time I cleaned out my
Last time I cleaned out my junk drawer, I threw out a bunch of flint knives and animal hides. I need to clean that drawer more often.
found that next to my Bay Bank card
Sometimes when leaving the house, I say "I have my wallet, my phone, my Bay Bank card."
I still get confused trying to re-trace how they went from there to Bank of America.
I think there was an
I think there was an intermediate "Bank of Boston" period.
IIRC, it went something like this
BayBank + Bank of Boston = BankBoston
BankBoston + Fleet = FleetBoston
FleetBoston + Bank of America = Bank of America
I think
there was a BayBank of Boston for a short time as the first iteration?
There were many BayBanks, then there was just one
When I first got here, there were BayBank Middlesex, BayBank Harvard Trust, BayBank Boston, and a bunch of others. For most but not all purposes, they looked to customers like a single bank with many locations. At some point, they outright merged most or all of these.
Looks like 1991 for most, 1995 for BayBank Boston
According to this BayBank history.
I got my BayBank Card
I got my BayBank Card
the whole history
... can be found here.
Music Hall
I still call the "Boch Center" (formerly the Wang Center, formerly Citi Wang center) the Music Hall. I saw many great concerts there in the early 70s. In more recent years I saw Neil Young there (who was also one of those concerts I saw in the very early 70s) and he said "it's good to be back here at the Music Hall. I think they call it the Kellogg's Corn Flake Center now". :-)
BayBank
I still have a BayBank towel and a Bank of New England frisbee…