‘The Sopranos’ needed to dump a body. Dutch Springs was the perfect place.
There are a lot of factors to consider when disposing of a body. In this case, the spot needed to be fairly close to New York City, with access to major highways. And it needed to look like a big drop.
That’s the formula that made Dutch Springs a hit, literally, on national TV, two decades ago this week.
In a 2002 episode of “The Sopranos,” Tony Soprano whacked — oh, wait. Hold on …
There. So. Tony whacked Ralphie Cifaretto. Then he and nephew Christopher Moltisanti disposed of Ralphie’s body by dismembering it, tossing it in a trunk before its final destination into an “abandoned quarry,” aka Dutch Springs, the Lehigh Valley scuba diving park.
The Express-Times reported the whole sordid scene, which lasted about a minute on TV, on Nov. 12, 2002, two days after the episode aired. The paper reported 80 cast and crew were out to the Lower Nazareth Township site for two days the previous April to film. It was picked based on the above criteria after a search through New Jersey, New York state and Long Island.
“When they saw what the facilities were like, they didn’t have to go anywhere else,” Stu Schooley, Dutch Springs’ owner at the time, told The Express.
Look in the episode’s credits and you’ll find a thank-you to the Lehigh Valley Film and Video Council for helping during the site preparation and taping. But don’t worry, no scuba divers are going to find Ralphie’s “body.”
“Oh, no, we have it. We wouldn’t leave it down there,” Mark Kamine, location manager for “The Sopranos,” told The Express.
MORE LEHIGH VALLEY HISTORICAL HEADLINES THIS WEEK
• 10 YEARS AGO | Nov. 6-12, 2012: Powerless after Sandy. Hundreds of people, mostly in Warren and Hunterdon counties, wait for power to be restored after Superstorm Sandy’s Oct. 29 landfall.
• 25 YEARS AGO | Nov. 6, 1997: Hotel B not for sale. Hotel Bethlehem rejects a bid by Moravian College to buy the Main Street landmark and turn it into student housing.
• 50 YEARS AGO | Nov. 11, 1972: Easton-P’burg in Allentown? Rumors abound that the annual Easton-Phillipsburg Thanksgiving Day football game may be moved to a neutral field in Allentown after Easton city officials say they don’t intend to waive a $3,500 amusement tax for the game. The story sparks days of headlines. The issue is eventually resolved and the game is played at Lafayette College, as usual.
• 100 YEARS AGO | Nov. 6, 1922: Newspaper’s anniversary. The Easton Express — a precursor to The Express-Times and lehighvalleylive.com — marks five years since its purchase and consolidation of the Easton Daily Express and Easton Argus newspapers. “We hadn’t much to offer,” the paper writes, “but what we had we backed with a pledge to give Easton and Phillipsburg and the surrounding section that which we firmly believed they wanted, a real newspaper in all that term implies.”
This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a periodic series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com, The Express-Times and their predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries.
