Floating Through Fall River, Part I*

From Dave Brigham:

* No actual floating was undertaken in pursuit of this and other posts about Fall River.

This first post (of three) about Fall River, Mass., will include signs, a mural, tile entryways and ghost signs. Let's start off with a bang!

After parking at the Stop & Shop on Rodman Street (plenty of parking, public bathroom - keys to successful backsidin'), I headed southeast and within a few minutes, spotted that fantastic ghost sign. Look at that patina! Admire the lettering - especially the lowercase "i" in each word!

Mackenzie & Winslow was a lumber company and was also involved in the grain business, from what I've dug up online. The property fronts on a segment of the Alfred J. Lima Quequechan River Rail Trail, which makes it attractive for redevelopment.

A short distance away, on Lawrence Street, I spied a ghost sign on the side of the Tremblay Bus Company building.

Online, I found a listing for Thomas Storage in a 1908 New England Business Directory and Gazeteer. I'm not sure when the company was founded, or when it went out of business.

On the side of an old mill building at the corner of Rodman Street and Plymouth Avenue, I saw a ghost sign the likes of which I've never seen.

The New England Chess Academy is no longer active.

West-northwest of that location, where Rodman Street meets South Main Street, I saw a ghost that I couldn't identify.

In older Google Street View images, the sign has been painted over, so I'm happy to see that the sign is fighting its way back to relevance. The building rose in 1923 as the Adaskin Furniture Company. I'm assuming another similar store was there in more recent years.

I'm bouncing around here, as you can probably tell, as I'm organizing this post by type of element, as opposed to geography.

Back across from the aforementioned rail trail entrance is Rosaria's Diner, which has been in business for more than 20 years.

I dig the no-frills sign, with a plate of eggs, hash and bacon at the top, and a burger, fries and a soda at the bottom.

I walked a LOT during my afternoon in Fall River. About half an hour southeast from Rosaria's I found another plastic sign for an eatery.

What a bright and cheerful sign!

At the corner of Pleasant and Quequechan streets, I spied two cool signs for very different businesses.

I've never seen a fruit store, so that's cool. And I've never seen a sign advertising Diet Rite Cola. Double score!

Next door in this building was the Rock & Roll Saloon, which is unfortunately no longer in business.

I'm not sure when it shut down; every Google Street View image going back 15 years look exactly like my photo -- metal gates drawn down.

Just off North Main Street downtown, I saw a brightly colored building with a tasteful sign outside.

Located on Franklin Street, the Police Athletic League was established in 1962 to provide recreational program for the city's youth. In addition to doing that, the organization hosts wrestling and boxing events, offers pickleball programs and more, per its Facebook page.

The building is known historically as Fall River Masonic Hall.

One of Fall River's tourist draws is the Lizzie Borden House. For those who don't know that name, Wikipedia will tell you that Lizzie Borden "was an American woman who was tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and, despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the remainder of her life in Fall River. She died of pneumonia at the age of 66, just days before the death of her older sister, Emma."

I didn't stumble across the family's former home (I had no clue where it was, as I didn't look it up beforehand), but I did walk past the Borden Apartments building, which is close to the house.

Steps away, along 4th Street overlooking Interstate 195, is a great civic-pride mural.

There were a couple of auto-body shops that caught my eye. Jeronimo's Collision Center on 7th Street had just the right patina for me.

Parallel to that place, on 6th Street, is the even more picturesque Richard's Auto Body & Painting.

I walk with my head on a swivel in a place like Fall River, looking up for ghost signs and murals and named buildings, and down for old tile entryways. I found a nice batch.

The first two are located steps aways from each other on North Main Street; they may have been created by the same hand.

These tile works, which look like they've been fixed up in recent years, are located at entrances to 52-64 North Main Street, which is known as the Bennett Building. The building dates to 1900. I haven't found what the ABC Shop was. The space is currently occupied by Neighborhood Variety.

Along South Main Street is some tile work for Gorin's, part of a department store chain run out of Boston.

Gorin's sold sold clothing (children to adult), uniforms and linens, according to this Digital Commonwealth photo of a store in Watertown, Mass.. The building dates to 1917.

The Green Stores entryway was somewhere on the 1500 block of Pleasant Street. I haven't found anything about this retailer.

The final sign for this post is something that I've never seen before.

Located on a building at the corner of North Main and Bank streets, this "WARD 7" sign adorns the Durfee Block. I'm guessing the sign is pretty damn old. I don't know whether there are (or were) others like it around the city. As for the building, "This handsome late Victorian commercial building was built in 1887, at the time when the 1870 B.M.C. Durfee & Co., a private banking firm, was chartered as the B.M.C. Durfee Trust Co.," per MACRIS.

Make sure to check back for the second part of my Fall River series, which will cover old mill buildings and other industrial sites.