BarbaricManchurian
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At old West End service station, one last fill-up
Company decides not to renew contract after 49 years
By Ryan Kost, Globe Correspondent | July 12, 2008
As time stole the old West End and replaced small shops and homes with condos and parking lots, the Mobil gas station just down the street from the Haymarket MBTA stop went relatively untouched.
But nothing in this area - or any other - lasts forever. After 49 years of business, the station's gas tanks have been filled one final time, and it won't be long until the last drip is sold and the station is closed.
"It's like our home," said Leo Pagano, 67, one of two brothers who own the station. "I mean, really, it is our home. After 40 years here, I know every crack in the walls."
Although the shop will not officially close until July 31, Pagano figured the pumps would run dry by yesterday evening. But then the credit card machine broke down and business slowed. "Whatever gas we had left, we can't even get rid of it."
Still, he said, it has been a good run, a legacy that started with his father and now includes his grandchildren.
In 1927, not too long after Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry, four gas stations were set up in the West End, including one on Portland Street, Pagano said. About 10 years later, Pagano's father walked past the building, saw it was up for lease, and made a call. That began the family's partnership with Mobil. "It was a handshake deal," Pagano said. "It was always a handshake."
Back then, Pagano remembers, his father would sell eight gallons of gas for a buck.
By 1959, that station had shut down and the Pagano family moved down the road to another - the one that is now about to close. Pagano kept a photograph from that year. It is a black-and-white snapshot of the building front, a looking-glass into a bygone era, one filled with retro cars and exploding signs selling "NEW CAR GASOLINE!"
More than four decades later, the 5,000-square-foot shop is too quaint for Mobil to keep, Pagano said. The company decided not to renew its contract. "Now, I guess, you need to have 20,000 or 30,000 [square feet] at least," Pagano said. He doesn't have a nacho-cheese pump or self-serve caffe latte machine, the sorts of things customers have come to expect. The best he can do is a gumball.
Pagano also manages the private parking lot next to the station, which charges a day rate of $20. He will stick to that for now.
Billy Wright, 57, who has worked at the gas station for the past 27 years, might end up doing the same. "I'll probably go to the lot and work over there until they decide to put a building up, which probably won't be long," he said as he ate lunch off the hood of a car in the station's two-car garage.
"An old man such as myself, who's going to hire me?" he asked, then grinned. "You know, I'll miss this joint."
Outside at the pump, one of Pagano's grandsons, Garrett Dolaher, 17, was filling up the few cars that passed through. Some people, it seems, still use cash. He's been working at the station, he said, for about three years now, and he grew up visiting the place.
"I think it's sad for the whole nostalgia thing," he said. "It's all the little memories I have here. It's more than nostalgia."
Dolaher never expected to take over the station, he said, but he figured that he would bring his children by and show them where his family had invested decades of their lives.
"By the time I have kids," Dolaher said, "it's probably just gonna be a condo or something."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...ld_west_end_service_station_one_last_fill_up/
____________________________________________________
Think that they'll make it anything better than a parking lot?
Company decides not to renew contract after 49 years
By Ryan Kost, Globe Correspondent | July 12, 2008
As time stole the old West End and replaced small shops and homes with condos and parking lots, the Mobil gas station just down the street from the Haymarket MBTA stop went relatively untouched.
But nothing in this area - or any other - lasts forever. After 49 years of business, the station's gas tanks have been filled one final time, and it won't be long until the last drip is sold and the station is closed.
"It's like our home," said Leo Pagano, 67, one of two brothers who own the station. "I mean, really, it is our home. After 40 years here, I know every crack in the walls."
Although the shop will not officially close until July 31, Pagano figured the pumps would run dry by yesterday evening. But then the credit card machine broke down and business slowed. "Whatever gas we had left, we can't even get rid of it."
Still, he said, it has been a good run, a legacy that started with his father and now includes his grandchildren.
In 1927, not too long after Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry, four gas stations were set up in the West End, including one on Portland Street, Pagano said. About 10 years later, Pagano's father walked past the building, saw it was up for lease, and made a call. That began the family's partnership with Mobil. "It was a handshake deal," Pagano said. "It was always a handshake."
Back then, Pagano remembers, his father would sell eight gallons of gas for a buck.
By 1959, that station had shut down and the Pagano family moved down the road to another - the one that is now about to close. Pagano kept a photograph from that year. It is a black-and-white snapshot of the building front, a looking-glass into a bygone era, one filled with retro cars and exploding signs selling "NEW CAR GASOLINE!"
More than four decades later, the 5,000-square-foot shop is too quaint for Mobil to keep, Pagano said. The company decided not to renew its contract. "Now, I guess, you need to have 20,000 or 30,000 [square feet] at least," Pagano said. He doesn't have a nacho-cheese pump or self-serve caffe latte machine, the sorts of things customers have come to expect. The best he can do is a gumball.
Pagano also manages the private parking lot next to the station, which charges a day rate of $20. He will stick to that for now.
Billy Wright, 57, who has worked at the gas station for the past 27 years, might end up doing the same. "I'll probably go to the lot and work over there until they decide to put a building up, which probably won't be long," he said as he ate lunch off the hood of a car in the station's two-car garage.
"An old man such as myself, who's going to hire me?" he asked, then grinned. "You know, I'll miss this joint."
Outside at the pump, one of Pagano's grandsons, Garrett Dolaher, 17, was filling up the few cars that passed through. Some people, it seems, still use cash. He's been working at the station, he said, for about three years now, and he grew up visiting the place.
"I think it's sad for the whole nostalgia thing," he said. "It's all the little memories I have here. It's more than nostalgia."
Dolaher never expected to take over the station, he said, but he figured that he would bring his children by and show them where his family had invested decades of their lives.
"By the time I have kids," Dolaher said, "it's probably just gonna be a condo or something."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...ld_west_end_service_station_one_last_fill_up/
____________________________________________________
Think that they'll make it anything better than a parking lot?
