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Norumbega Park


Coordinates: 42°20′46″N 71°15′37″W / 42.34616°N 71.26022°W / 42.34616; -71.26022

Norumbega Park was a recreation area and amusement park located in "Auburndale-on-the-Charles" near Boston, Massachusetts. The associated Totem Pole Ballroom became a well-known dancing and entertainment venue for big bands touring during the 1940s.

The park offered canoeing and pedal boating on the Charles River, a theater, gardens, restaurants and food vendors, a penny arcade, picnic areas, a zoo and amusement rides. Norumbega Park closed on Labor Day 1963. The Totem Pole Ballroom closed a few months later, on February 8, 1964.

Norumbega Park opened in June 1897 and was built by the directors of the Commonwealth Avenue Street Railway in an attempt to increase patronage and revenues on the trolley line running between Boston and Auburndale. The park's name was taken from the Norumbega Tower, a stone tower that Eben Norton Horsford had built across the river in Weston to mark the supposed Norse settlement of Norumbega.


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