Best, worst and weirdest assembly halls...

by Jamelle 46 Replies latest jw friends

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  MissBehave

  I think the worst convention was as a child at Candlestick Park in SF. It was freezing in the morning and boiling in the afternoon.

  We went to visit family in CA one year and went the the DA at Candlestick....I remember ladies wearing fur coats because it was cold yet they were sitting under umbrellas so they wouldn't get sunburned. Also, I remember some of the men's rooms being converted to women's restrooms and they had these trough like urinals. I was just a little girl and it really grossed me out.
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  OpenFireGlass

  The Capitol Center/US Air Arena, in Lansdown Maryland....

  What was weird, was going there after I left to see The Grateful Dead....

  ,Mike
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  stillAwitness

  My favorite assembly hall has to be the newly purchased convention hall in West Palm Beach. Of course when I was attending it was still being renovated and I don't think the WT had purchased the building yet. But its fun to walk the grounds and chat with the brothers who act all goody goody but always slip them your number on the last day. I've always thought it was fun to go out to eat during the noon break and all the witneses slow down traffic when there crossing the streets. But I HATE the woman's bathrooms! The lines are long, they stink so bad and there's never ever any enough toilet paper!
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  Virgochik

  Hey, Jamelle, small world! I remember Cicero race track too! I moved out of state before they started going to Romeoville, but my parents still go there. And that beautiful old theatre... are you thinking of the Assembly Hall at 79th and South Ashland Ave? It was a haven of lovely chandeliers and murals and all plush inside, with a grand staircase going up to the restrooms,but it was really dangerous for the "friends" coming up from Indiana or the south suburbs! Ashland Ave. was tenements and slums, ya know, those 3 story brownstones with the scary alleys and the rickety porches out back. There was a fenced parking lot for the Witnesses across the street, but you had to make it back and forth! Do you know if they sold it, and replaced it with the Jehovahdome in Romeoville?
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  Emma

  We had a District assembly at the Olympia (can't remember it's proper name, the Red Wings played there) and they couldn't get the boiler turned off. It was a sweltering summer and yet the radiators were blasting!
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  MissBehave

  Jehovahdome
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  Jamelle

  Virgochik - yes it is a small world, isn't it? I betcha' that you are thinking of just the place I am. It was definitely in a bad location. I remember the whole parking across the street thing.

  One of my strongest memories from that hall was almost being snatched right out of the foyer by a passerby. It was between sessions and several other little children and I were standing in the foyer, looking through the glass doors out onto the street at the people going by.

  We were far from any other adults - in the corner at the far left hand side - and no one was paying attention to us. A man in a trench coat walked past - looked at us - looked behind us and started opening the door. The next thing I remember was being 30 feet away and looking back at that corner. The man was gone. All of us little ones had scattered right quick!

  I remember trying to tell one of the "ushers" about this incident. He acted like he didn't believe us and basically told us to "move along".

  I'm almost positive that the location was sold and replaced with the Romeoville hall instead. Safer, but oh so boring.
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  mark hughes

  Twickenham rugby football ground, just outside London, was good as it was under the flight path of Heathrow airport so they used to fly really low. I can remember when I was young trying to see the tail flag of each plane to see where it had come from/going to and getting a cuff round the ear regularly for not paying attention to the speaker. When Concorde went over the speaker always stopped as you couldn't hear a word he was saying! In my last year I was an attendant so I could spend the whole day wondering up and down the concourse without having to look up one damn scripture! That was the best year.
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  Nowman

  I was surprised to see many have been to Sprotsman Park, Hawthorne, and Romeoville...By the way, it was Hawthorne that had the AC and revolving seats, we could never get those seats though even if we arrived there at the crack of dawn. My parents and myself were in a drama back in 1988, at Hawthorne, right there on the track, I played a "worldly girl" named "Dolly Winters". I always had fun during the breaks obviously, go and look for the boys, Hawthorne was nice because of the AC in the Hot Chicago summers...Sportman Park was crap....Never went to Romeoville because I had left the org before that...But, how about Janesville, WI for Circuit Assemblies, my family and friends would make a weekend of it...I was so jealous because my parents refused to stay at a hotel with a pool, all my friends would stay at a place with a pool, so I would go back to the hotel with my parents...boring!!! I was an only child...

  How funny to think about this....
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  Jamelle

  You know I think I may have been to Hawthorne race track too - maybe when I was really, really little. I have this vague memory of stone steps and stone floor between the seats - and of a huge glass wall that was between the seats and the track.

  The stage was set back across the track in the green area.

  I was confused by this memory because I remember the Cicero track very well - went there shortly before I left the dubs - and those memories didn't jive with this other one I have.

  Go figure!