 |
THE
MAY 2011
BRIMFIELD ANTIQUES FAIR
Brimfield
MA
Also
reporting on pre and post show excursions to,
Cambridge MA
and New
Haven CT to photograph the trophyrooms of Harvard and Yale
Universities As
well as the Basketball Hall of
Fame in
Springfield MA
A
ten day excursion feature
By Carlton
Hendricks
|
16
text pages - 16,521 words - 33
photo pages |
|
|
|
1000
BRIMFIELD PHOTOS
STORY
PAGE 1
|
......So what's my final
analysis of this landmark of the antiques world?....Would I go again? You bet I would....Would I fly across the country again to get there....well....maybe. Here's the real answer though...I've been to enough antiques shows to know not to judge a show by attending it once. I'd like to be able to attend about three
or four before judging it's merit. But I will say this....if I lived within driving distance I probably wouldn't ever miss it. At least the Spring show anyway....If I lived within a seven hour drive I'd always be there...maybe even a 15 hour drive...... |
 he
Brimfield Antiques Fair, held in Brimfield Massachusetts,
took place Tuesday May 10th thru Sunday May 15th 2011. I
came out from California and was at the fair four days
Tuesday thru Friday. My plane left San Francisco at 7:00AM
Sunday May 8th and I returned Saturday afternoon May 18th. The
plan was to land in Boston two days before Brimfield
started and do a little site seeing. The following day
Monday I toured the Basketball Hall of Fame in
Springfield MA. Then Brimfield started the next day
Tuesday. I left out of Brimfield Friday around noon. From
there I went to Harvard University and
toured the trophies in the Murr Center. Saturday was spent
resting and packing my Brimfield finds and I went to the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston that afternoon. Sunday I drove
to my my next hotel in Norwalk CT about a three and a half
hour drive. The following day Monday I went to Yale
University and toured the trophy room in the
Payne Whitney Gymnasium. The following day Tuesday I began
driving back toward Boston via a quick drive thru Newport
Rhode Island. Wednesday it was back home to San Francisco.
It
was a successful trip, I covered a lot of territory and got the
most I could out of the cost of getting there. I always try to
squeeze in as much I can and see as much I can on trips, it's
just a matter of how much pain I can take. I figure I can rest
when I get home. Ten days sounds like a lot of time but I was
always on a schedule to be some place or meet someone so it all
went by quick. I wish I had about three more free days to just
drive around Connecticut and look at stuff. Drive into some small
town, have lunch at a diner and just walk down main street
aimlessly browsing. Talk with people and just take in the local
color....Hopefully next time. So that's the Reader's Digest
version of my trip, now lets go to the full version.
THE
FULL STORY
To begin
with, this was my first time to Boston and New England and
I had always wanted to go...Over the past 23 years,
collecting sports antiques has taken me from the San
Francisco Bay Area where I live to Chicago numerous times,
Saint Louis, Cleveland numerous times, Cincinnati, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles
zillions of times, Portland, and Seattle....So for me,
finally making it to Boston was a really big deal. In my
mind Boston was where Harvard was, and both Harvard and
Yale was the birthplace of American football. Not to
mention the nucleus of American athletics in general. Once
considered of little or no value, 19th century Harvard and
Yale sports artifacts have slowly taken off over the
last 20 years. Before professional football came on the
scene in the late 1890's, the Harvard Yale football game
was essentially the equivalent of today's Superbowl. I
knew once I stepped onto those two campuses I would be
where it all started. Before leaving for Brimfield I
contacted both Harvard and Yale universities to arrange to photograph their trophy rooms.
HARVARD
SQUARE
The
first thing I did when I got off the plane in Boston was get my
rental car and head for Cambridge. It was a Sunday and
since my plane left at 7:00AM that morning I planned to go
to an evening church service in Cambridge  I
had seen on the internet. Burned out from lack of sleep
and food I got confused and went to the wrong church, The
Vineyard, where there was no evening service...I gave up
and decided to just go to Harvard Square and get something
to eat and look around. I was in awe....there's a feeling
of grandeur there...like you're at the White House or
something....the Campus is very impressive and the
surrounding neighborhood is Boston charming...As I walked around I could just imagine the
Kennedy's and other movers and shakers
playing touch football on the lawn
as undergrads .
I
scored for dinner....I found a great little hole in the wall
hamburger joint called Flat Patties...they do a lot from scratch,
They make their own chili, fresh cut fries ect. I got the fish
sandwich and it was great. They  had
a little overhang
loft area to sit at. I had my dinner and took a little
breather since leaving S.F. early that day. Then it was
off around the rest of Harvard Square, and the
University...The famous Harvard
Coop was my next stop...The Harvard Cooperative I suppose
it stands for. Probably the biggest college clothing store
on the planet. I took a few quick shots and left for more
site seeing. When I came back latter to get a Harvard hat
I learned the part of the store I saw initially was only
the tip of the iceberg...there was another larger room
with three times more Harvard clothes...every kind of
sweatshirt, ball cap, and key chain you can imagine.
Spendthrift that I am I balked at the $55.00 Harvard hoody
sweatshirt I wanted. Later I found basically the same
thing at a magazine shop nearby for $24.00. One funny
thing I noticed, I walked all around the area with my
shiny new Harvard cap and never saw another person wearing
one...I think they're just for the tourists! Below are
photos of the Harvard Square area. I took most the shots
with my phone camera since I was auto-sending them to my bud
John Gennantonio, so they're not great quality.
It was a nice first visit to Harvard but it was
just a warm up as I was planning on coming back in about a
week, after Brimfield to see and photograph the Harvard
trophy room.
THE
BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME
I
stayed in the town of Bedford that night, about twenty minutes
from Boston. The next day I drove Route 90 west to Springfield MA
and went to the Basketball Hall of Fame. The Naismith Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame is a
huge complex about the size of a small shopping center
three stories tall all capped by an impressive domed roof. The
first floor which you enter at has a basketball court and
a gift shop, and the second and third floors are where the
exhibits are. After you pay the $16.99 entry fee you take
a glass elevator overlooking the basketball court up to
the second floor where your self guided tour begins. From there
you're on your own to freely walk thru the numerous rooms
of exhibits. Then when you're on your way out, or I
suppose anytime you want, they let you play some hoops on
the court.
Flanking the entrance are a Cold
Stone Ice Cream store and two restaurants. An Italian one on the
left and one called Max's Tavern on the right.....Max's was pretty
busy with a lot of local Business people. I gave it a shot and was
surprised how good it was. I had the roast beef sandwich and it
was excellent.
By the time I
finished lunch and got into the Hall I only had two
hours to see it....which is doable, but three would be better. I
jammed thru shooting everything in site. How was it? The exhibits
are very nicely assembled, very professional, and it was
vast. It seemed like everyone in basketball history was
represented somewhere...No doubt it's the greatest celebration of
basketball on the planet...the equivalent of Disneyland for the
serious basketball fan.
Naturally I was
mostly interested in the
antique/pre 1900 artifacts. There were some good pieces...early
uniforms and balls...a few nice figural trophies...but as far as
antique items it couldn't hold a candle to Gary Cypress' museum in
Los Angeles. One special item that caught my attention was two
typed pages of the first thirteen basketball rules decreed by
James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. The exhibit stated
Naismith posted them on the wall of the YMCA gymnasium before the
first game was played December 21st 1891. Now that's an historical
artifact! Below is a link to 4 pages of photos I took at the Hall,
189 photos total.
The
Hall was very kind to allow me to post the shots I took. Unfortunately
however, they would not allow me to post any photos of Michael
Jordan or his exhibits because of brand restrictions....and there
were some great ones of him in his prime!
continue
to page 2
|
