Vanson Leathers is having an open house the last weekend of April. I usually find out about these things after the fact, but as I bought myself a new Jacket from them last year I must be on their mailing list and got a postcard for it. More info on the open house can be found here. My postcard also mentions “Bike contest with prizes, no entry fee – many categories” which I don’t seem to see on their website anywhere.
Anyways, I have always like Vanson, ever since I was turned on to them and got my first motorcycle jacket from them when I was 15 or so. Yes, that was before I could have a motorcycle license, but the logic at the time and encouragement from older motorcycling friends (Hi Skerry, if you are out there) was that if I wanted a leather jacket (as all good punks do), then I might as well by something that will be of use if I ever had a bike of my own.
Back then that was the Thayer Street days of Vanson in Boston’s South End. Long before it started to become gentrified… back when there was still an elevated Orange Line rail system serving it. Sometime in between they ended up moving to Taunton, into some soulless industrial park facility. Now though, they are in a giant old factory in Fall River whose atmosphere harkens back to the Thayer Street warehouse… less the Boston Rock ‘n’ Roll part.
Either way, they have always been a true motorcycle oriented place. I will try to make it to the open house, weather permitting.