Fort Lee’s Famed Riviera

“On the heels of Prohibition, Ben Marden opened the Riviera Night Club in Fort Lee,” said Eric Nelson, Historical Interpreter for the Palisades Interstate Park, to a theater filled with people who came in from the cold to bathe in the warmth of gilded memory.

Given that information, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Bergen County Detectives raided the Riviera and, according to news reports at the time, found 150 bottles of whiskey and several cases of wine. Perhaps it should also come as no surprise that Albert Anastasia, Fort Lee resident and alleged head of Murder, Inc. was an investor in the Riviera. And just to connect all of the unsavory dots, in 1939 there were a series of hearings on racketeering in which Ben Marden figured prominently, and the finding of the burnt remains of a man’s body wired to a tree in the woods of the Palisades in June of that same year. It was reported that his attire had been soaked in gasoline, yet despite the fact that the man was bound with wire to a tree it was speculated by some that it was a suicide. This reads like a great piece of pulp fiction or a first draft of The Godfather, but it’s true and it happened right here in our very own front yard.

People in Fort Lee either remember the Riviera, or have heard the many re-told stories of its glamorous nights. “Nightlife on the Edge: Fort Lee’s Riviera,” an illustrated program presented by the Palisade Interstate Park and The Fort Lee Film Commission and Fort Lee Historical Society, combined rare photographs and film reels with the real memories of people who vividly remember being at the Riviera and whose first-person recollections gave voice to a Fort Lee that is long gone, but not soon forgotten.

What most people are not aware of is that the Riviera had two locations. The first location was the former Villa Richard property on Hudson Terrace, near Myrtle Avenue. (The elaborate bluestone wall and gated entrance still stand like bankrupt royalty dividing Hudson Terrace from the Bridge toll lanes on the Palisade Interstate Parkway.) This Riviera burned to the ground on Thanksgiving night, 1936. It was reported at the time that thousands of people from both sides of the river watched as it burned.

Determined to rise from the ashes, Ben Marden wasted no time announcing that he was spending $250,000 to re-build the Riviera on a new site closer to the George Washington Bridge in order to capitalize on the proximity to the Bridge and the view. The new Riviera opened in June of 1937. Seven months. Imagine that. The new Riviera was a state-of-the-art architectural wonder. Painted bright yellow, and curved in design, it had a retractable roof with glass windows that slid down to the floor bringing the outdoors inside, and a rotating stage. It was so extraordinary that it was featured in Architectural Digest in 1941.

In the early years of World War Two the Riviera closed, but was bought by Bill Miller and re-opened in 1945. Legend has it that Bill wanted to clean up the reputation of the Riviera and disbanded the casino. Financially, the first year was touch-and-go so Miller decided to re-open the casino. Bill Miller’s Riviera was the glamour period of the Riviera. Legions of stars performed there. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Martha Rae, Sammy Davis, Jr., Pearl Bailey, and so many more. (Fun fact: Bill Miller’s daughter is Judith Miller, the famed New York Times investigative reporter who opted to go to jail rather than testify and reveal her sources.)  

Tom Meyers, Executive Director of the Fort Lee Film Commission, related a story about Martha Rae who regularly performed at the Riviera. When she had become gravely ill the waiters from the Riviera donated blood for her recovery. Until the day she died, Martha wore a waiters’ union lapel pin to honor what they did for her.

Fort Lee Resident, Rocky Vitetta, talked about his experience as house Barber for the Riviera. He cut the hair of many famous men including Frank Sinatra and Mickey Mantle.

According to Vitetta, “I didn’t make any money, but I made a lot of friends.”

Fort Lee resident and Christ the Teacher school secretary, Irene Orifice, recounted stories about her father who was Matre’d at the Riviera. One story involved her father securing good looking young men who were also good dancers to occupy the wives of the men who preferred gambling in the legendary high stakes hidden casino to dancing beneath the stars.

Then there was the night when Pearl Bailey performed. When everyone had left the club for the night her father heard screams coming from Bailey’s dressing room. He walked in to find a man beating her. He confronted the man and went to chase him, but Pearl asked not to be left alone. The next day when Irene, who was five or six-years old at the time, saw her father’s black eye she told a Fort Lee policeman that when they found the man who did this to her father she wanted them to bring him to her.      

Irene’s grandfather was a bartender at Frank’s Cozy Bar where Frank Sinatra, Sr. went almost daily. She recounted the story of Frank Sr. sitting at the bar with three men wearing sailor caps—Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Joey Bishop. Given her father’s central role at the Riviera, stars were often in her house, but being so young she never really paid all that much attention to their fame.

Fort Lee resident and Coytesville native, Tom Austin, talked about his father who was the head of security at the Riviera. The Riviera was only open from May to October when all the action went south to Miami Beach, but Tom’s father still had to show up to work guarding the Riviera during the off-season. Tom recounted stories of having the run of the place with just him and his father in the building. He distinctly remembers seeing the Riviera’s best kept secret--the casino:

“You walked past the restrooms down a non-descript hallway where there was a janitor’s closet. Inside the closet were big floor fans which was normal since there was no air conditioning in those days. When you plugged one of the fans into the socket, the wall opened and there was the casino.”

Tom had on display a painting he did of the Riviera. It is currently on display at the Fort Lee Museum. Tom is also credited with writing the song “Short Shorts” and many other top 40 hits, but he says he’s best known as being “the lucky kid who got into the Riviera.”

With the building of the Palisade Interstate Parkway, Bill Miller lost the fight to save the Riviera. The Riviera closed in 1953 and was demolished in 1954. The Riviera wasn’t needed because the new Palisade Interstate Parkway was going through it; it closed because the Palisade Interstate Park Commission took interest in preserving all of the land that it had acquired in its natural state. What good would it be to have an unspoiled riverfront if the top of the Palisades was lined with buildings? Using the power of eminent domain they acquired not only the Riviera, but all of the mansions that made up Millionaire’s Row on top of the Palisades.

Eric Nelson will be leading a tour of what remains of the Riviera on Sunday at 1 p.m. Meet at the Fort Lee Historic Park on Hudson Terrace. About Town will be there, we hope you will be too.