Thursday morning brought an unremarkable closure to Wonderland Greyhound Park. A notice posted at the entrance—accompanied by instructions for redeeming winning tickets—announced the end with minimal ceremony. No press conference materialized. No archival photographs were displayed. For Chelsea residents employed there and for Revere, which had long counted the facility among its largest employers, the historic shutdown arrived with only a few written words. “Wonderland Park is closed and has ceased all operations. Thank you for 75 great years,” the sign read. A closure of this magnitude had seemed inevitable for a decade, yet the track’s ownership had repeatedly postponed it until now. “All I’ve been saying all day is that it’s a very emotional day,” Wondy CEO Dick Dalton remarked Thursday afternoon following a License Commission session at City Hall. “Beyond the history of the track, it’s just dealing face to face with people who have been co-workers of mine for 37 years. That’s a real challenge for me to deal with and will continue to be.”
Approximately 150 workers still employed learned of their unemployment when they reported for their shifts. They encountered the notice on the door like everyone else. “I have no idea what I’ll do now,” remarked Revere resident Paul DeFilippo that Thursday outside the facility. “I’ve been here for 33 years. It’s a good job. This was a great place to work. I guess I’ll collect unemployment and you can add me to the 10 percent unemployment rate we have going now.” Other employees shared similar reactions, according to Dalton. Uncertainty about their futures consumed them. “I talk to many of our workers – they’ve been there for 30 years or more and they’re in their 50s or late 50s; they’re saying, ‘What do I do now at my age?’ A lot of them are maybe 57 years old and they want to know who is going to hire them at their age. They’re very down.” The state Secretary of Labor dispatched a response team Monday and Tuesday, Dalton reported, providing the displaced workers with unemployment assistance, job leads, and training opportunities.
Dalton attributed Wonderland’s demise not to the dog racing prohibition or the failure of expanded gaming initiatives, but to Connecticut’s 1992 Foxwoods Casino opening. “When I look back and see it was only 1990 when we set a world record for annual pari-mutuel handles and we were having million dollar nights and everything was going unbelievably,” he explained. “Then Foxwoods opened and everything changed for us. That’s really when we started our fall. You can even graph it out and see it. It’s very clear.” Track employees held different opinions about responsibility for their predicament. Many had anticipated transfers to Suffolk Downs if expanded gaming had succeeded. Last week, however, workers declined to fault Wonderland management. “This is the fault of the three goons on Beacon Hill,” DeFilippo and several colleagues asserted. “We’re talking about [Gov. Deval] Patrick, [Sen. President Therese] Murray and [House Speaker Bob] DeLeo. They played a game of Russian Roulette with us. We are the people who got hurt on this. They’re going to go out to their fancy restaurants tonight and have not a thing to worry about. These three goons played with our lives and they have been doing so for 10 to 12 years.” When reporters pressed workers about whether they held Wonderland accountable, the response was decisive. “We’re blaming the politicians,” DeFilippo stated. “[Wonderland] is fortunate they kept this place open as long as they did. The money ran out. The politicians put us in this position and money can only last so long.”
