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When Boston went to the races
By adamg on Sat, 05/05/2012 - 10:38am
The BPL has been posting horse photos by Leslie Jones, including this scene at Suffolk Downs in 1935.
Posted under this Creative Commons license.
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Comments
Some of the people in this photo
are still the only ones keeping that shithole open.
You know who else is keeping that (expletive) open?
Some people who are good friends of mine who are passionate about the game, and plenty of young folks around here who love to drink and gamble on a Saturday afternoon.
Don't be so quick to eulogize Suffolk Downs. The racing may be at the lowest levels of the sport, but we're still Boston - a city with a significant population of people who are young and/or passionate about gambling.
Allston
Closer to home was the Charles River Speedway for horse and chariot racing:
http://www.bpl.org/online/sportstemples/temple.php...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gal...
Someone needs to seize Harvard's unused Allston land by eminent domain and build another racetrack there. Only this time for FIA GT, Touring Car, and maybe even someday Formula One races. It's pretty sad that a metropolitan area like this has no racing. And no, New Hampshire doesn't count both for distance and the fact that it's an oval which is just not interesting.
We already have a race track there
It's called the Masspike.
To the chariot races!
From the BPL Speedway collection.
oh dear god, no. i can think
oh dear god, no. i can think of nothing worse.
Some of us still do
That said, live racing today would be much better than watching it on television.
If Field et. al. don't use the casino money to make racing better here, I might just stop showing up.
Go Union Rags!
Before sunscreen and deodorant
By the day's end, that crowd was probably a hot mess.
Hats
Almost everyone in that photo is wearing one. May make the sunscreen less necessary.
How did people live back
How did people live back then?