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September 8, 2014Jimmy’s Place: Those Were The Days
Jimmy’s Place: Those Were The Days
Those Were The Hot Days
By Jack Coll
9-6-14
The temperatures this past week have been annoying at best, I mean com’on, I know it’s still summer but it’s also September, where’s the cool nights, the soft summer 70 degree temperature evening breeze, the mid-day, mid 70’s sun beating down on us at noon time? Feeling like I need a shower every couple of hours, and then it hit me, is what I need, is something I can’t have, I need Jimmy’s Place.
For nearly four decades Jimmy’s Place Swim Club once located on East Germantown Pike behind Urgent Care and next to East Plymouth Valley Park cooled off families throughout the summer, and more importantly cooled us off on days like we’ve had this past week.
Jimmy DeCerio and his wife Mary opened the swim club back in 1951, “It took every penny I had” Jimmy told me back in 1988, the year it closed. It was a sad September day when I interviewed him back then, thirty seven years of his life was in the swim club, he felt disappointed that he was letting down the families that he had become such good friends with over the years at the club. Chatting with Jim and Mary more than 25 years ago Mary told me that dozens of families from Norristown, Conshohocken, Bridgeport, Plymouth and Whitemarsh would spend their summer days at the pool and she went on to name the Gambone’s, Bello’s, Butera’s, Romano’s, Lombardi’s, Chipolini’s and a couple of dozen others.
Jimmy told me that when he bought the nine acre property from the Moore family he could barely afford it even though he was working two jobs. He had worked at the John Wood Manufacturing Company in Conshohocken since 1942, and had been a professional boxer where he fought more than 50 bouts that took him from Norristown to New York. Back in the day Jimmy could be seen fighting locally at the Conshohocken “A” Field when the borough hosted professional fights back in the 1950’s. Jimmy’s big break as a boxer came when he booked a fight with Gil Turner in Atlantic City, it was a feature match, and the winner would get a title shot with Kid Garland, for the World’s Welter-weight Title. It wasn’t Jimmy’s night, he retired from boxing shortly after with blurred vision.
While Jimmy stood at the back end of his property one evening in 1950, he was looking at the swimming pool that had come with the property located in a wooded area of the property. The pool had a mud bottom in it because a running creek ran in one end and out the other end of the pool serving as the filtering system. Most backyard pools back then didn’t come with a filtering system, pool owners depended on clear water running through their property back than creating a natural filtering system.
As Jimmy stood overlooking the pool area a vision came to him that said this is a beautiful setting for family outings, good clean out-door fun could be had here and the price would be right. (Just enough to help him pay the mortgage)
Shortly after thinking about this a sign went up out by Germantown Pike that said, “Jimmy’s Place, Family Swim Club.” As the years went by Jimmy up-graded the property, added more swimming pools, three in all, changing rooms, picnic areas and a playground area.
I remember saying to Jimmy, what a great idea, and asked him, “How much did you make that first year?” Jimmy laughed, “That first year we had the one pool with a mud bottom, but we signed 16 families at five bucks per family for the entire summer, I was a millionaire, I made $80.00.”
In later years the swim club turned into the place to be, like the time Jerry Blavat, the “Geater with the Heater” hosted a party that lasted into the wee hours of the morning, and then there was the time Russ Cardamone and his band played at the club until 11:00 P.M. and then Jules Lombardi took over until 7:00 A.M. I remember Jim and Mary sitting in the trailer laughing stating that the next morning Plymouth’s Chief of Police Vito Fusco called and said that the police station had received 20 complaints about the noise throughout the night, Fusco was pissed that he wasn’t invited.
The swim club added midnight swims for members that went to three and four in the morning, private picnics were held in a pavilion that was constructed in the early 1970’s, and hey, the fact that members were forced to use outhouses until facilities were added in 1964 never bothered them noted Jimmy.
Jimmy and Mary closed the club in 1987, when I talked to them in 1988 the swimming area was in ruins, weeds had overtaken the picnic areas and the cement was cracked in the pools, it was a sad sight, standing there thinking about the thousands of family memories that were created at Jimmy’s Place.
We could have used it this past week, I’m dying from the heat, but there is hope, Plymouth Swim Club, located on Gallagher Road has 13 acres, a number of pools, a picnic area, close to home, and I’m signing off, I’m headed to Plymouth Swim Club right now.
Hey Jimmy and Mary, thanks for the memories on this stinkin’ hot week, for 37 years you gave the residents of our communities the experience of a life-time, and we’ll never forget you guys for that.
