On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Once in a while, I will feature guest writers for my column. This week I am happy to present my friend, Anthony Accardi and his recollections of Winter Hill.

I grew up almost next door to a car dealership that was called Belotti Oldsmobile. Belotti Oldsmobile formerly stood on the location where Walgreens and Ristorante Brunello now stands on Broadway in Winter Hill. I grew up on Heath Street in Somerville and the back of their lot abutted my street. The front of the building had a small showroom that only held maybe five or six cars. To the left of the showroom was the front of the lot where they mostly kept the used cars. To the right of the showroom was the driveway to enter and exit the service area and to the right of that was the portion of the building that housed the parts department.

During the middle of each summer, we would walk up my street and peek through the rusted chain link fence and get a first look at the new model year cars. The new Toronados, Ninety-Eights, Delta 88s, Cutlass etc. Around the beginning of September, they would put wax (or sometimes brown paper) on the showroom windows so that nobody could see the new model year cars. Back then, the car companies made the introduction of the new model year cars somewhat of a big event and even had a date set when they would go on sale to the public.

Belotti’s became somewhat of a hangout. Sometimes we went in there and of course many times the old salespeople would kick us out. Instead of going home or finding something else to do, we would sneak into the service area and take a drink from their water bubbler, you know the kind with the real glass bottle on the dispenser. We would then sneak back into the showroom and sit in the new cars and pretend we were grown up and play with every gadget in the car. We would then grab all the new car brochures and take them back to my front steps and gaze at all the new Oldsmobiles.

Around the perimeter of the building were many trees and of course as we got older and more mischievous, these trees became our ticket onto the roof of Belottis. We would go up there and admire the fantastic views of lower Broadway and Boston. We would bang on the skylights until someone came out and yelled at us to get off the roof. We would then scurry quickly down the tree and out onto Heath Street. Other times we would just go up there and shoot the breeze. Talk about things we wanted to do when we grew up or as teenagers, talk about how we were changing and starting to think differently – if you know what I mean.

Sometime in the mid to late 1980’s Belottis was sold and became Graham Oldsmobile. To stir business up, they began selling Peuguots and Ferraris. Yes Ferraris, in Somerville. Needless to say this did not last long and soon after that it was sold once again and became Bradley Oldsmobile. Many could see the end was near. Bradley Oldsmobile soon went out of business and the property remained vacant for a few years. The owner of the property then lured Walgreens and at first Taco Bell to build there. The Walgreens portion materialized, but the Taco Bell ended up being a Boston Market, then Bickfords and now Ristorante Brunello. I remember when they were tearing down Belotti’s and saying to myself, you should be taking pictures of this and knowing then I would regret it and surely enough I was right.

Now Belotti’s is just a memory. Whenever I drive by Walgreens my memory goes into reverse and I go back in time when I was just a little kid with nothing to worry about except for the date each summer ended. As I look at the property, remnants of Belotti’s still remain.

The large 30 foot sign in front of Walgreens once donned the massive Oldsmobile rocket logo. At the foot of the sign is a small three foot wall with a green iron railing that runs the length of the wall. That wall at one time separated the entrance and exit driveways to Belotti’s service department, back then the railing was painted red. It has to make you wonder. About 10 years after Belotti’s was torn down, General Motors announced the end of Oldsmobile. Looking back, I guess you can think that the demise of Belotti’s was probably a sign of things to come.

If you have stories and memories about Somerville, and would like to be a guest columnist, contact me at Jimmydel@rcn.com