Mostly innocent fun

Norumbega Park opened in June 1897. It was built at the behest of the directors of the Commonwealth Avenue Street Railway to try to increase patronage and revenues on the trolley line between Boston and the Auburndale section of Newton. The park's name was taken from the Norumbega Tower, a stone structure that Eben Norton Horsford had built in Weston to mark the purported Norse settlement called Norumbega. The amusement park was closed in 1963 and the ballroom in 1964. The park was a great place for Baby Boomer kids. I went there in 1962 when I was a student in Newton.

— Robert Whitcomb