Jordan's Furniture - Water Show
Reading, Massachusetts
Jordan's Furniture chain offers a unique pseudo-theme park experience at each of its Massachusetts stores. The Reading and Natick locations are elaborate; Natick's Mardi Gras multimedia show is not to be missed, but Reading has its share of out-of-place attractions. Liquid fireworks. The Green Monster. A trapeze school.
Are we ready to buy some furniture yet?
We visited the Reading Jordan's on a summer Friday night, and it certainly does seem to be at least a local phenomenon. The place was packed, the large main room home to most of the action.
The theme here was "Beantown," a nod to nearby Boston. Parts of the room were covered with jellybeans, though the effect gets lost in a chamber full of gargantuan eyepoppers. Visitors crossed the Lenny Zakim Bridge (or just walked around it if they were heading for the 500-seat IMAX Theater, or actually wanted to shop for furniture). Under a giant banana split sculpture, titled "The Beantown Dig," a line queued for ice cream. Above the escalators, the Green Monster, Boston's Fenway Park mascot, was crushing a New York Yankee in his mitt.
Liquid Fireworks are a variation on Waltzing Waters, a classic water, light 'n sound staple. Fountains of water shoot straight up, then shimmer back and forth like psychedelic lawn sprinklers, in sync with music. The presentation, on a wide stage, is continuous, for the edification of customers eating ice cream at tables.
This colorful distraction could prove to be the undoing of newbie trapeze artists in training. Next to the water show is the trapeze, a 30 ft.+ structure of towers, swings and safety nets.
You can sign up for lessons at the Trapeze School, the country's only such indoor institution of higher learning. The experts and their students quietly go about their lessons on the platform, while friends and bystanders hoot or shout encouragement from below.
Update: The trapeze school has been replaced by an indoor rope course.