Tag: Rainbow Lake

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Design Plans Unveiled for Overton Park Playground

The Overton Park Conservancy has released an artist’s rendering by DaKoda Davis of plans for the Rainbow Lake playground at Overton Park. Renovations to the playground will begin soon, and the playground is expected to reopen in spring 2013. The playground is being designed by Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects.

New equipment will include something called an “Up & Down & All Around” (an ADA-accessible climbing structure with multi-level ramps), a hollowed-out oak tree for kids to play inside, a National Ornamental Metal Museum-designed sculpture that allows kids to make music with pebbles, a spiderweb-like climbing structure made from cargo nets, and a mound with tunnels, slides, and a sand pit. They playground will also get new fencing and new walkways. The conservancy is taking up donations for the new equipment on its website.

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Overton Park’s Little Log Cabin

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A couple of weeks ago, I enthralled my half-dozen readers (yes, I’m talking about you) with photos and a few words about the odd Japanese Garden that once stood in Overton Park. Surely you remember what I said? If not, scroll down and read it again. Better yet, gather your children around you as you do so; reading the inspiring story aloud to them may deter them from a life of crime. It certainly can’t hurt.

Anyway, I was rummaging through my old postcards archived in the Lauderdale Library, searching for other images of that garden, when I came across these two cards, and thought I’d share them with you. Why? Because they actually pay me to do this. Hard to believe, but it’s true.

After they — and I don’t know who, exactly, “they” were, since I wasn’t around at the time — but as I was saying, after “they” demolished the Japanese Garden after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “they” were left with a little empty island in the middle of the lake, so “they” put a rather bleak little fountain there. And here’s an image of it, below. Oh, I could stare at it for hours!

But at some point, “they” erected a cute little log cabin on the island, as you can see in the top image. I have no idea how large (or small) this structure was; somebody should have stood beside it when they snapped the photograph, to provide a sense of scale. What were you thinking, cameraman? And I also don’t know what purpose it served, or where it came from, or what happened to it, so please don’t ask me about any of that.

What I DO know is that this is not the present-day Rainbow Lake in Overton Park. This lake, as I’ve said before, was filled in when they constructed the Memphis Academy of Arts complex.

And that concludes today’s history lesson on Overton Park.

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Roller Skating on WKNO’s “Southern Routes”!

Mr. Lauderdale with his bicycle skates

  • Mr. Lauderdale with his “bicycle” skates

On the April edition of WKNO’s fine program, Southern Routes, I journey back to the glory days of Skateland, Skatehaven, Rainbow Lake, and many of the other roller-skating palaces that were hugely popular with Memphians in the early to mid-1900s.

Not to give too much away, but back in those days, there was a whole lot more to roller-skating than just strapping on some skates and rolling around a wooden track. Rinks put on pageants, plays, races — even full-scale weddings. And skating wasn’t just for ma, pa, teens, and the little kiddies. They made special skates for dogs, monkeys, and even BEARS.

The show will even feature rare photos of me (such as the one here), taken in my younger days, when I was a veritable Flash at rinks around the Mid-South. Why, it took servants almost a day just to polish all the trophies I earned. Or were those bowling trophies? I can’t remember, since the Lauderdales were pretty much good at everything.

Tune into Southern Routes or you’ll be very sorry (and so will I). The show will air Thursday, April 8th at 8 p.m., and then it will repeat on Saturday, April 10 at 2:30 p.m., and again on Sunday, April 11 at 12 noon. It also airs on WKNO-2 Saturday, April 10 at 9 p.m., so I really don’t want to hear any pitiful excuses about, “Uh, I missed it.”

And I’ll be quite candid with you. Either watch the show, and admire the hard work done by my WKNO pals Kip Cole and Bonnie Kourvelas, or face the dire prospect of being cut out of my will. It’s that simple.

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“ALL OUT WHEN BELL RINGS” — Fairgrounds Pool

The Fairgrounds Pool

  • The Fairgrounds Pool

With all this talk about what to do with the site of the Mid-South Fairgrounds, we tend to forget that it was, at one time, THE place in Memphis to go swimming.

Sometime in the 1930s — I could look up the exact date, but I’m pretty comfy in my chair here, and the book is all the way across the room — city leaders built Memphis’ largest swimming pool. It was a huge, oval thing, surrounded by sand beaches. Maywood and Clearpool did the same thing. With sand, I mean.

On the west side was a low building (shown here) that housed showers, changing rooms, and showers. And across the front was a big sign, as you can plainly see, warning all swimmers “ALL OUT WHEN BELL RINGS.” In other words, get out of the pool when the lifeguard rings a bell — either to signify that somebody might be drowning, or your swimming day was coming to a close. I don’t recall what those tile-roofed buildings in the background were used for. I can only do so much, you know, and these days that’s really not much at all.

Notice the old-fashioned lightpoles around the pool. I wonder: was this place open at night?

And yes, as I sit here shivering in the drafty Lauderdale Mansion, I realize it’s not exactly the season for outdoor swimming, but I thought I’d share the old photo with you anyway. This place was known as the civic pool, and just like Rainbow Lake, Clearpool, and Maywood (and in more recent years, Adventure River), there’s not a trace of it. Despite our unbearable summers, Memphis, it seems, just can’t support a big outdoor swimming complex. It doesn’t make sense, does it?

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Skateland on Summer

6b06/1247863150-skateland.jpg Memphis had other roller-skating rinks before this one — Rainbow Lake and East End come to mind — but none of them had the visual impact of Skateland. And I’m talking about the original building, when it was located on the north side of Summer Avenue.

Drivers on Summer could hardly miss the clean lines of the massive building just east of Mendenhall, with a facade of rough stone that framed a wall of glass panels. “SKATELAND” was spelled out in red neon along the roof, and three winged shoes — complete with spinning neon wheels — provided a crowning touch. Anyone still not clear about what went on there could also read, in giant red neon letters, “Roller Skate for Health.”

Inside, sweeping trusses of laminated wood supported a high wooden dome that arched over one of the largest rinks in town. A neon signboard mounted on the back wall gave skaters their instructions: “All Skate,” “Trios,” “Reverse,” “Grand March,” and when the session came to an end, “Skates Off.”

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Rainbow Lake and the Rainbow Rollerdrome

2096/1242522160-rainbowlakedecal.png I recently purchased this colorful old decal on eBay, for a Memphis establishment called Rainbow Rollerdrome. Maybe that was the actual name of the roller-skating rink, but the entire complex on Lamar will forever be known as Rainbow Lake, which also included a huge outdoor swimming pool, fancy restaurant, picnic grounds, and more.

Rainbow Lake was opened way back in 1936 by Leo Pieraccini, when that stretch of Lamar (at Dunn) was on the outskirts of town. In the early years, it was mainly a place to swim; the skating rink wasn’t added until 1942. Memphis kids had a great time at Rainbow Lake over the years, but brother, the place was plagued by trouble. In 1947, it made all the newspapers when more than two dozen sailors from the Naval Air Station at Millington staged a bottle-throwing, drunk-punching, free-for-all with a group of civilians. It finally took a Naval Court of Inquiry to sort out all the mess and clear most of the charges.

In 1957, a rock-and-roll dance party held in Rainbow’s famous Terrace Room — and hosted by two of the most famous disk jockeys in Memphis history, Wink Martindale and Dewey Phillips — got out of hand when many of the kids (some of them just 15 years old), got rip-roaring drunk. Rainbow lost its beer license after that.