And it Still Costs a Quarter!

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Written by Thom Ring

For a pre-computer and video-game kid, there was no place more magical than an arcade.

I still can remember the first I ever visited. It was in Ocean City, Maryland, where my aunt and uncle had a summer home. The arcade also had a Ferris wheel - indoors. Hey, I was five. I recall my favorite arcade game, too. You used a periscope to sink battleships with torpedos. Crescent and Rocky Point parks both had the game, and it was a rare treat to drop my quarter (Okay, Dad's quarter) in the slot when I visited either's Rhode Island-shore home for a day of fun and fantasy.

Well, they say you can't go home again, and both of the aforementioned parks have bitten the dust of progress. But you can play that game today, and even more astonishingly it'll still cost you all of a quarter.

Spring Lake is located in my hometown, Burrillville, RI. It's a popular destination on hot summer days for thousands of people who live far from the ocean in northern Rhode Island and central Mass. Spring Lake offers a broad blanket of sand stretching down to the fresh water of a lake that restricts these waters to canoes, kayaks and electric trolling motors. Some canoes are available for rentals. There are concessions for fried fare and ice cream. But what makes Spring Lake stand out in singularity sits at the back of the beach. Spring Lake has an arcade.

Actually, it's more than an arcade. Spring Lake's arcade is a museum of some of the most popular games in arcade lore, as well as some of the rarest. On the other hand, calling Spring Lake's arcade a museum isn't fair or accurate, either. Every game here that works is here to be played, including my favorite torpedo game. And further, each game still activates by dropping into its slot the same amount of coin it took to play it when it first was created. For many games that's a dime. There's even one or two that require only a penny.

There's a row of pinball machines. There are cranes for trying to retrieve loot. There's a bank of skeeball alleys. There's even one of those old photo booths that spits out a strip of black-and-white pictures taken within seconds of each other.

I first discovered Spring Lake before I moved to Burrillville when it was featured in the Providence Journal. Ultimately I wound up coming here every summer with my two daughters. We'd each take a turn in the booth and then pile in together, our four impromptu poses filling a strip of pictures. It's interesting to note that I still have the strips in a frame as well as a similar photo of me taken a half-century ago at that arcade in Ocean City. My wife gave me a strip taken a few years ago in one of those new-fangled color digital booths. It's pretty much faded to blank white paper.

Oh, if you go to Spring Lake to visit the arcade, make sure to take a close look at the basketball game there. It amazed me to see that Bill Clinton played the game in the 1940s!

Spring Lake can be found just of Spring Lake Road, with parking on Black Hut Road in Burrillville. It's open from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekend and welcomes folks for all over, although Burrillville residents get a discount.

paeanhera
Posted at 2010-10-10 14:18:52
Salem Willows still has some of those old amusement halls. Some still have their old wooden floors and kiddie rides 100 years old. Going back there is like a trip through time back to the 1960s for me. It's off the bus routes os it's a little out of the way for me.
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Thom
Posted at 2010-08-28 13:13:44
The old buildings, with the western-style facades and wooden walkways in front, were the best! I was sorry to see the "improvements" they made. There ARE pictures from the old days right in the new arcade. Maybe you'll see your aunt and uncle.
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little russell
Posted at 2010-08-20 21:48:16
Thanks for writing this Thom. I also have fond childhood memories of Spring Lake. My great aunt & uncle (Carrie & John) owned and ran the penny candy and icecream stand for years. It was located next to the arcade. We would come up from Connecticut to visit once a summer. Aunt Carrie was the best cook and we shared a truly enjoyable meal. Afterwards my folks would let both my sister and I fill our own small paper bags full of candy...and we got to do it ourselves! I'm sure my dad paid them, but they didn't care, but of course it was the principal of it. We would also have one of the hand sliced harlequin icecream sandwiches with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry icecream on my Aunt Carrie's homemade waffers. We would swim during the day and go next door to the arcade and play endless games. I remember the Steam Shovel!!! I also remember one of the old penny games. In the back of the arcade was a bumper pool table and my dad would play several games with the owner (or owner's son at the time). My dad spent all his childhood summers down at Spring Lake (he lived in Providence) and would help out Aunt Carrie & Uncle John at the stand. He has good memories of those days...the lake, his friends,Aunt Carrie & Uncle John of course. They were wonderful people. As I said, she was the best cook ever and he was such a gentle, interesting and jolly man. Thanks Thom for bringing me back. Any photos of the old candy & icecream stand?
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