Sunday, January 31, 2010

Union Park Now: Remnants of the Dance Hall Part 1

After the flood of 1919, the Mammoth Theatre was torn down and replaced. Instead of cutting the hollow in half, a new building was constructed along the south side. Due to the decline of interest in theatre entertainment, its function was as a Dance Hall. When Union Park closed, the building was torn down. The Dance Hall floor was reused in Dubuque's new ballroom called Melody Mill. Eventually Melody Mill was torn down as well (in 1964); however, the dance floor was again saved. It is still used today at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds Ballroom.

Pictured above are the stairs as they appear today. Note the chunks of sidewalk which made up The Promenade. Years of exposure to water and the elements have caused the cement to crack and the pieces have been gradually pushed along the creek's path.

For more information about Melody Mill (including photos), visit Encyclopedia Dubuque

2 comments:

Mike said...

The Way Through The Woods
by Rudyard Kipling

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.

Nana A.Herron said...

Thanks Mike! What a great poem & so appropriate too. I'm glad you thought of it and took the time to include it.