Today’s Salem News published a letter to the editor by a resident of Fall River. The author, of course, claims that Lizzie belongs in and to Fall River. Read about it here. And so it goes.
WBUR in Boston ran a story about Salem’s True Story of Lizzie Borden today. They provided a link to some great images on Flickr taken from inside the facility. Love the skulls! Love the grave monument. Looks fascinating to me!
WBUR’S images from inside the Salem exhibit.
Today’s Morning Edition on NPR did a story on the legal dispute between the Lizzie Borden B&B/Museum and Salem’s True Story of Lizzie Borden. The transcript follows the link to listen to the story.
An Axe To Grind
By Andrea SheaBOSTON, Mass. - August 12, 2008 - One hot August day in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally killed in their Fall River home. Their daughter Lizzie was tried and acquitted of the crime. But still, she’s gone down in popular history as the woman who “took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks.”
This week, a new museum about the murders is scheduled to open in Salem, home of the notorious witch trials. And, as WBUR’s Andrea Shea reports, that’s sparked a fight over who can claim Lizzie Borden’s infamy.
TEXT OF STORY:
FILM CLIP from the 1974 TV movie, “The Legend of Lizzie Borden:” “Do come in, someone has killed father.” (sound of children singing) “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done, gave her father 41.”
SHEA: That creepy cut is from an old TV movie about Lizzie Borden. It’s really popular on YouTube, but Leonard Pickle says he has a problem with the number of whacks in the infamous verse.
LEONARD PICKLE: The rhyme is completely incorrect because it was really a total of 38, 39 strikes, we think, so it certainly wasn’t 40 and 41.
[Sound of circular saw in Salem museum]
SHEA: Pickle, a Haunted House entrepreneur, owns the new “True Story of Lizzie Borden” Museum in Salem. As he works on the space Pickle describes its mission: to separate reality from myth in the Borden story. It was, he says, the O.J. Simpson trial of its day.
LEONARD PICKLE: It’s a murder mystery and people can’t stand not to know the answer to it and so they’ve constantly trying fill in the gaps to figure out exactly how she did it, why she did and if she did it or who else could’ve done it and we’ll never know for sure.
SHEA: Huge photographs, text and reproductions of the Borden’s crushed skulls are on display inside Pickle’s museum. Outside a busy walkway is littered with magic shops, witch kitsch and tourists.
PHIL SMITH: I’m Phil Smith from Boxborough, Mass. I’m just a little confused why something that relates to Fall River’s history is doing up in Salem (laughs).
LEE ANN WILBER: I hate to say it but if anyone is going to capitalize on the tragedy it should be Fall River, it really should.
SHEA: Lee Ann Wilber co-owns the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum about 80 miles southwest of Salem. Visitors pay to take tours and, if they’re brave enough, actually spend the night in the house where the Bordens met their brutal demise in 1892.
[Sound of Tour: "This is the sitting room; this is where Lizzie discovered Mr. Borden's body, the photo on the wall."]
SHEA: More than 10,000 “Lizzie” fans, from all over the world, travel to Fall River to see the house each year. Wilber says they buy Lizzie mugs, “I Survived the Night” t-shirts and axe-wielding bobble-heads. A fleet of massive, historic naval ships also draws tourists to the city. But still, she admits, it’s tough.
WILBER: Other than the battleship and Lizzie Fall River doesn’t have a whole lot going for it, another mill just closed down it’s becoming a depressed market, let Lizzie be the doorway to draw people in and then show them what else Fall River has to offer.
SHEA: Wilber worries the new Lizzie Borden Museum in Salem will cut into her business. Her partner Donald Woods has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to protect the B&B’s trademark. This raises questions about ownership of Lizzie Borden’s legacy.
ARTHUR MOTTA: Rather than ownership I would say really the issue is authenticity.
SHEA: That’s Arthur Motta of the local Convention and Visitors’ Bureau. The B&B is a member. Motta says the Fall River Historical Society holds evidence from Borden’s trial, including the famous “handle-less hatchet.” And, he says, the B&B is the crime scene.
ARTHUR MOTTA: And if anyone has a right to call it a museum it’s this location.
FILM CLIP of documentary in gift shop: “Miss Borden’s head went down upon the rail in front of her and the prisoner wept with joy.”
SHEA: A documentary plays inside the B&B’s gift shop where Motta sits, but he acknowledges what he calls “Terror Tourism.” Fall River, he says, has grappled with promoting its dark past over the years. Jack Levin, Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University, says selling killers and heinous crimes is nothing new.
JACK LEVIN: You want to be famous, you want to be immortalized, just kill someone and then you’ll go down in history and they might even build a museum in your honor, and communities might even compete for the that museum.
[Sound of drill in Salem museum]
SHEA: For Leonard Pickle, owner of the new Lizzie Borden Museum still under construction in Salem, the 32 year-old spinster is a fascinating character. After being tried and acquitted Borden was ostracized by Fall River society. But she never moved away, and is even buried in a cemetery there. Pickle says shear numbers drove him to choose “Witch City” for his museum.
LEONARD PICKLE: There are 600,000 tourists who come to Salem, Massachusetts looking for the dark side of history and it is after all Massachusetts history, and we feel like we can share Lizzie’s story with more people here than we ever could in Fall River.
[Creepy music from the movie, "The Legend of Lizzie Borden"]
SHEA: While Lizzie Borden has pretty much nothing to do with Salem, there is a tenuous connection. A statue of another pop culture icon stands a block away from the new museum. It’s a bronze Elizabeth Montgomery, star of the popular 60s/70s sit-com, “Bewitched.” As it turns out Montgomery also played the accused axe-murderess in the 1974 TV movie, “The Legend of Lizzie Borden.”
For WBUR, I’m Andrea Shea.
The second issue of The Literary Hatchet is accepting submissions for its October issue.
We accept poetry, prose, short stories, and humor pieces on the following themes: true crime, Victoriana, Lizzie Borden, Fall River, murder, mystery, Victorian history, death, and gothic interests.
Please submit your original, never before published, works to peartreepress (at) mac.com. Submissions should be sent on or before September 1, 2008 to be considered for publication.
The Literary Hatchet pays its authors and artist! For information regarding submissions, pay scale, and content, please visit the website of The Literary Hatchet.
To download a free copy of the first issue of The Literary Hatchet, please visit here.
Posted today on FOX 25 TV News site:
By noticing the file footage they used, you can tell the camera crew did not go to Fall River to do the story. They are using very old shots of Maplecroft when it was a B&B (for about a day) and the B&B still has the Leary Press attached to it. But then they use the new found (by myself and Len Rebello) photo of Lizzie Borden as her main ID. That was cool. Oh, and they get the facts wrong. . . . not the Salem exhibit, but the news people. Go figure.
A new article posted on August 9, 2008, in the Salem News, on the lawsuit filed against The True Story of Lizzie Borden in Salem, Massachusetts, by the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast/Museum.
Lizzie Borden B&B wants Salem attraction to ax the name
By Chris Cassidy
STAFF WRITERSALEM — It hasn’t even opened yet, but the new Lizzie Borden museum is already facing its first legal whack.
The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast in Fall River is suing the owner of Salem’s Borden attraction for trademark infringement.
Businessman Leonard Pickel is planning to open “The True Story of Lizzie Borden,” a museum dedicated to retelling the story of the Borden murders of 1892.
But the owners of the Fall River home where the murders took place — now a bed-and-breakfast — are taking some swings at the new venture.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, accuses Pickel of federal trademark infringement for using the term “Lizzie Borden Museum,” for which the Fall River bed-and-breakfast claims to hold the registered trademark.
The suit claims Pickel has been using “virtually identical names.” Pickel had originally called the business “The True Story of Lizzie Borden Gift Shop and Museum.”
Pickel’s museum also owns the Web site www.lizziebordenmuseum.com and lizziebordenmuseum@gmail.com.
Bed-and-breakfast owner Donald Woods declined to comment on the lawsuit. A message left for Woods’ attorney was not returned yesterday.
But Pickel denied any trademark infringement.
“We wouldn’t have even started this if we thought we were in violation,” he said.
Pickel said his business no longer uses the words “museum and gift shop” in its name and has shortened it to “The True Story of Lizzie Borden.”
He bought the rights to the Web site lizziebordenmuseum.com before the bed-and-breakfast was awarded the registered trademark to Lizzie Borden Museum, he said.
“There are Holocaust museums all over the world,” Pickel said. “There’s no reason there couldn’t be Lizzie Borden museums not just in Fall River. As far as I’m concerned, it’s restraint of trade to say the one in Fall River can be the only one.”
If anything, his Borden business would help Fall River tourism by directing curious visitors to the actual sites, he said.
“The sad part about the whole thing is we’re going to draw people to Fall River,” Pickel said. “… They’re afraid we’re stealing a piece of their pie. In reality, we’re growing the size of their pie.”
The lawsuit contends customers are likely to think Pickel’s museum is affiliated with the Fall River bed-and-breakfast because of the similar names.
It also claims visitors are already confused. Multiple times, tourists have questioned the bed-and-breakfast’s tour guides about the connection between the two museums, the lawsuit claims.
A negative reaction to the Salem museum could significantly harm the Fall River bed-and-breakfast’s business, according to the lawsuit.
Pickel’s Borden museum had been scheduled to open Aug. 4, the 116th anniversary of the Borden murders. However, construction delays thwarted the grand opening.
Now the lawsuit is adding other problems.
“I guess it really comes down to who owns Lizzie Borden,” Pickel said.
After reading the text of the Lizzie Borden B&B, LLC, v. Leonard Pickel motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, the case is about trademark infringement.
Reasons given:
You can read the full text of the lawsuit here: Lizzie Borden Lawsuit
It is for real. The Lizzie Borden B&B/Museum filed a lawsuit against The True Story of Lizzie Borden for trademark infringement. Read all about it here.
Businesses battling for the Borden name
Lizzie BordenBy Grant Welker
Herald News Staff ReporterFall River — The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast showed it’s serious about protecting its reputation as a museum to the Borden murders, suing The True Story of Lizzie Borden in Salem for trademark infringement.
In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday, the Fall River bed and breakfast seeks a ruling that would keep the Salem museum from using “Lizzie Borden museum” in its name. The bed and breakfast said it will “suffer irreparable harm” if the Salem museum is able to use the name.
The Salem museum plans to open next week and is billing itself as a “museum designed to separate the truth from the myth” in the murders. “The concept of a Museum devoted to separating fact from myth and telling the true story of Lizzie Borden is long overdue,” its Web site says.
Donald Woods, the bed and breakfast owner, declined to comment. Woods’ attorney, Jeremy Blackowicz, did not respond to a call seeking comment.
The Salem museum has created the Web site www.lizziebordenmuseum.com, which the bed and breakfast owner said is ‘confusingly similar’ to the Fall River museum’s www.lizzie-borden.com. Operators of the bed and breakfast said the site has held the copyright to “Lizzie Borden Museum” since 2002.
Visitors to the bed and breakfast on Second Street have asked tour guides about the connection between the Fall River and Salem museums, and people are likely to believe the two are affiliated, the Fall River museum said. The bed and breakfast has already suffered irreparable harm because of it, the lawsuit said.
Leonard Pickel, owner of the True Story museum, said the bed and breakfast sent him three notifications beginning June 17 demanding he end use of “Lizzie Borden Museum” and that he knew of the copyright to the phrase. But, according to Pickel, the trademark belongs to a company that owned the bed and breakfast before Woods bought it.
Still, Pickel said, he agreed to stop using the words “gift shop and museum” at the end of the name because he “wanted to be nice,” and to avoid a lawsuit. Pickel said he won’t stop using www.lizziebordenmuseum.com because he bought the Web name in 1996, before the trademark was awarded. Pickel pointed out another Web site, for the Lizzie Andrew Borden Virtual Museum and Library, and asked why the Fall River museum wasn’t suing that group.
But Pickel, who said in a July 31 Herald News story that he’s received letters from angry Fall River residents, said his museum will help draw attention to the Borden story and benefit Fall River.
“Because of where we are, with a number of tourists, we are going to drive an incredible amount of business to Fall River from people who had no idea that Lizzie Borden even occurred in Massachusetts,” he said. “It’s very sad that they’ve decided they own Lizzie Borden and no one else can play in their sandbox.”
Woods, the bed and breakfast owner, said in the July 31 story that The True Story of Lizzie Borden shouldn’t include the name “museum” because it doesn’t have artifacts.
It seems the Fall River Herald videotaped part of the tour that was presented today at the Lizzie Borden B&B. Here you can see an 8 and a half minute version.
Excellent opinion article appeared today in the Fall River Herald.
Dion: If anyone profits from murder, it should be Fall River
By Marc Munroe Dion
A bad joke.
How bad are things in Fall River?
Lizzie Borden moved away and she’s dead!
Alright, so Lizzie’s still here, the only place she ever was and the only place she’ll ever be. We’ve got the houses, we’ve got the history.
Yeah, and it looks like some guy in Salem has the brains.
I’ve been begging Fall River to make a buck off the Bordens for nearly 15 years.
Now, some guy in Salem, some guy with the initiative Fall River never had, is moving forward with a Lizzie Borden museum. The guy’s 80 miles from here and HE knows how to make a buck off Lizzie.
Which Fall River should have done maybe 50 years ago. In fact, Fall River should have a van, a rolling museum packed with real Lizzie artifacts. That van should hit every summerfest and music festival on the East Coast.
The Lizzie Borden house downtown and Maplecroft in the city’s North End are Lizzie Borden’s two residences. It is mystifying why both of them aren’t owned by some kind of city trust, so they can be linked and marketed.
All props to plans for downtown revitalization here in The Rive but, if all goes according to plan, our “restaurant row” will be a small scale imitation of Providence.
Anything we do with Lizzie, on the other hand, cannot be “imitation.” It happened here. Lizzie Borden was accused of hatcheting both parents to death right up there near the temporary bus station, not too far from a laundromat and within walking distance of a Catholic church and a Dunkin’ Donuts.
And yet, Fall River does nothing. No annual “Hatchet Fest,” no “Lizzie Borden Horror Movie Festival,” no bright red footprints painted on the sidewalks to outline “The Lizzie Trail,” not one, concerted effort to push the one, nationally known thing that happened in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Instead we push our waterfront. We live on the East Coast. EVERY town has a waterfront. We pitch the Battleship, but how many people schedule an entire vacation around a war memorial?
Restaurants? Newport is 15 minutes away. Providence is 15 minutes away. Fall River is supposed to compete with those towns for the restaurant crown? That’s like asking Durfee to play the Patriots.
Our waterfront? Yeah, it’s nice but, if you were planning to spend your vacation on a waterfront in this area, don’t you think you might consider Newport or the Vineyard first?
Why promote Lizzie?Does New York have Lizzie?
No. Providence? No. Boston? No. Newport? No.
New York has the Broadway stage, which the city promotes. Providence has a significant Italian-American culture, which the city promotes. Boston has Revolutionary War history, which the city promotes. Newport has mansions, which the city promotes.
Fall River has Lizzie, which the city ignores.
So here’s what we do.
Get a hold of some money, grant money, whatever. Don’t use that money to form a Lizzie Borden Tourism Committee.
Take that money to New York City and hire a big, crude, culturally irresponsible advertising agency.
Tell that agency to get Miley Cyrus to dress up as Lizzie Borden in a series of television commercials. Make sure the Lizzie in the commercial is wearing a short skirt. The real Lizzie Borden was as hot as winter in a Westport wood lot, but who cares?
Tell them to come up with a slogan, preferably something tasteless and disrespectful.
What’s that gonna cost? A few hundred grand? The city and various community-minded organizations have probably spent that much in the last 15 years on the Bounty, grant-financed tourism directors and other guaranteed-not-to-work stuff.
Lizzie Borden is what we’ve got.
Lizzie Borden is what we sell.
The True Story of Lizzie Borden, the new Lizzie Borden exhibit in Salem, MA, that is garnering all the headlines of late, will be open by the end of the week, according to proprietor Leonard Pickel. For further information, please visit the website of the venue.
When it does open Mondo will post the details and hours and offer readers a sneak peek at the insides! So check back here for the first and latest information from Salem!
The August 2008 issue of The Hatchet: Lizzie Borden’s Journal of Murder, Mystery & Victorian History has been placed ONLINE for your reading pleasure. 86 pages in length!
If your web browser does not load the new page, don’t forget to hit your browser’s refresh button to make it seek out the new uploaded version of the web site.
Subscribers can download your copy immediately or view a slideshow of the magazine at this address.
For non-subscribers, you can purchase a subscription for $20 through PayPal and gain access to the entire year’s issues, not just this one. So far that means you can download three issues, with one more to go!
OR, you can purchase single copies in print through our print on demand partner LuLu.com at this address.
Happy reading!
Stefani Koorey
Editor and Publisher
The Hatchet: Lizzie Borden’s Journal of Murder, Mystery & Victorian History
MondoLizzie conducted this interview with Leonard Pickel in July. Pickel is the owner and curator of the new True Story of Lizzie Borden, opening soon in Salem, MA.
Aren’t you glad the Fall River Herald is finally taking a stand on this important story? Since it is unsigned, one can assume it the the stance of the paper itself and its editor.
I’m not sure that publishing Lizzie’s Johnnycake and Meatloaf recipes, which happened this week in the Fall River Herald, is not an attempt to somehow profit from the crimes, albeit in a very small way. Nor is the haunted house moniker that the murder site has embraced helping serve the story of Lizzie Borden. Making money off of Lizzie Borden’s back has been going on since the very day of the murders in 1892, when newspaper reporters from the Fall River papers traipsed through the crime scene and published their sensationalized stories. Many of the facts from the very first published article got the story wrong. The reporters depended more on local gossip and innuendo than providing a factual reporting of the events. Selling newspapers was the bottom line. And any great big story was sure to increase readership. And it worked. Not only for Fall River papers, but the Boston Post and Globe and the New York Sun, who sent rather renowned journalists to New Bedford to cover the Borden trial first hand.
Just Friday, I got a call from a Boston television station wanting a quote on the controversy. I expressed my opinion and she then asked if I knew anyone who was totally against it. I had to think about it and suggested the owner of the B&B, who had expressed that sentiment on the evening news the night before. I was told no, not someone connected to the story, someone who wasn’t in the business of Lizzie. I said I didn’t. She didn’t want my quote. She was looking for the “story,” the controversy. And if I wasn’t rabidly against it, she was interested. So she was looking for a problem. Not truly presenting the facts. See . . . . times never change.
Likening this story to OJ’s only goes so far. Yes, they both had “dream team” lawyers, and both were hailed as the trial of the century. Yes, they both were acquitted, and yes, the victims in both cases were slaughtered brutally. But that’s about it. OJ was a celebrity before the crimes, and continues to find himself in legal/criminal matters to this day.
OJ wrote an odd book about if I did it then I did it this way and for this reason. Lizzie remained mute. OJ has a criminal drug record, Lizzie did not. OJ moved to Florida, Lizzie stayed in Fall River. Lizzie was not one to crave attention. OJ seems to thrive on it. OJ was civilly sued and found responsible for the deaths, while there was no further legal action against Lizzie.
There will always be something unseemly about making money from a double murder. That I get. However, those that sincerely own a piece of the history that is Lizzie have been doing so for years. Having some guy in Salem attempt to cut himself a piece of the pie isn’t any worse in that regard.
OUR VIEW: Stolen identity, 08-03-08
The Herald News
“Come one, come all to the SouthCoast’s newest tribute to terror — The Wicked Witch Museum: The true story of the Salem Witch Trials. Factory of Terror, Asylum of Horror, Wicked Witch Museum. Fall River — Massachusetts’ Home of Halloween.”Think some feathers might be ruffled among the locals if such an advertisement appeared in The Salem News?
Well, now Salem knows how Fall River feels.
The city of Salem has turned the darkest point in that region’s history into a cottage industry, basing a large part of its economy on tourists drawn to the area (though not the actual site) of the infamous persecution in 1692 of more than 100 innocent people — at least 20 of whom were executed — believed by superstitious leaders to be bewitched by evil demons. Residents can’t help but identify with the city’s history … it’s what most people know Salem for.
Now, one entrepreneur is importing the identity of another Massachusetts city, also well-known for a dark period in its past. Salem businessman Leonard Pickel is set to open on Monday “The True Story of Lizzie Borden,” a museum exploring the 1892 ax murders that took the lives of Fall River residents Andrew and Abby Borden. Pickel has gotten his share of hate-mail from angry Fall Riverites who feel he is trying to steal Fall River’s infamous Lizzie, who was accused but ultimately acquitted of the murders. Still, most believe Lizzie did indeed wield the ax. Tellingly, no one else was ever arrested.
While Pickel claims his intent is not to steal Lizzie away from Fall River but to honor her memory in a fact-based museum, he blithely adds, “We’re going to do more for Lizzie Borden than has been done in a hundred years.”If that means profiteering on a tragic moment in history the way Salem has with its witch trials, he’s right. But while Fall River may not have capitalized on the murders with a kitschy, disrespectful spectacle, it has certainly paid tribute to the Borden family and explored in depth “the true story.”
And it has done so in a tasteful manner, or as tasteful as possible given the subject matter. The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast — the actual site of the murders — certainly profits from guests drawn to the reputed haunted house. But the former Borden home presents Lizzie’s story as a history lesson without the tacky neon signs, fake mist and spooky soundtracks of so many of Salem’s witch “museums.” The local Historical Society houses actual memorabilia, including Abby Borden’s hairpiece and the bed covering stained by Borden blood that terrible day.The Borden story — and particularly Lizzie — is local lore and part of the city’s identity. Most people know Fall River as the former textile capital of the world and the home of the girl in the dark nursery rhyme. So it is understandable that Fall Riverites are somewhat protective of Lizzie the way St. Joseph, Mo., residents are of Jesse James and London residents may be of Jack the Ripper. While it may seem odd to identify with such notorious characters — would Los Angeles erect a monument to O.J. Simpson? — the passage of time tends to ease hard feelings and soften the assailants’ images. At the very least, they give the locales some notoriety and historical significance.
Hopefully, Pickel will be true to his word and his museum will be an accurate representation of an historic event. Who knows … there may even be some cross-promotion opportunities with the bed and breakfast, opening the Fall River attraction to a new audience. But if it’s just another tacky tourist trap, may Pickle be forever haunted by the ghost of Lizzie Borden.
