Just one day into my summer vacation in June of 1980, my parents grounded me for the entire summer. The entire summer. To block out the harsh terms of their sentence as they delivered it, I focused on the voices coming from the television set. Channel 11’s Action News Team, Bill Jorgensen and Pat Harper, were nonchalantly bantering clearly unaware of the breaking news that was occurring in my living room on Fifth Street in Fort Lee.   In retrospect, leading your friends past your house while one of them (Wally, are you reading this?) is swinging a six-pack of Michelob Light in each hand and E…

Directly across the street from Fordham University is Arthur Avenue--the Little Italy of the Bronx. For generations, Fort Lee residents have frequented Arthur Avenue to get the best meats, fish and poultry sold just like in the old country--from people whose families have been plying the exact same goods and services from the same counters for over a century.  Little shops where freshly slaughtered animals hang in the window; bakeries whose baskets can barely stay filled with freshly baked bread and delicate Italian pastries; a fruit and vegetable market that can rival any farmers' market.  …

Seems April skies are in her eyes, A living doll that talks smiling as she walks. May she stay somehow sweet as she is now.  Little Miss America take a bow. -Gladys Shelley I have such fond memories of Palisades Amusement Park—Casper’s Ghostland, the Caterpillar ride, the Archie Hot Rod ride, the French fries with vinegar, the games-of-chance, but there are two moments that stand out most.  The first is Bozo the Clown bending down as I sat in my stroller, his soft white-gloved hand tickling my chin. I think I nearly lost consciousness when he told me with his trademark zany laugh that he …

What we thought would last forever lasted only for a season, or so it seems, as we gather together on Facebook to find a piece of who we used to be still beating somewhere in the pulse of collective memory. This networked world we did not come of age in, this world many of us are still trying to come to terms with, has powerfully re-connected neighborhood and neighbor through this one site, “I Grew Up In Fort Lee.” Where one single post can resurrect a thousand memories. Like the one about teenage hangouts. Hirams, Callahans, Bagel Nosh, Twin Gables, 9W Bowling Alley, Cherry Hill, Madonna’s …

The Feast of St. Rocco is to old Fort Lee what the San Gennaro Feast is to Little Italy--an annual event steeped in tradition that keeps the memory of the community that once thrived on those streets alive. A tradition that evokes, for our generation, a sense of comfort, knowing that even if only for a few days, we can indulge our senses in the flavors of the place we once called home.   If the centerpiece of the feast is the enormous statue of Saint Rocco covered in various denominations of dollars, then the highlight is the Sunday parade of men, women and children marching up and down the …

One of our favorite things to do on a weekend is to get in the car and go. Not far, just far enough to feel as if we’ve escaped the bridge traffic, but close enough that we’re not very far from home. Based on the number of enthusiastic responses to our City Island column, we thought we’d share some of our other favorite places to escape on a summer’s day: Seven Presidents Beach & Park So close to Fort Lee, Seven Presidents Beach was always a favorite beach to visit when we only had a day to spare. Near exit 105 off the Garden State Parkway, Seven Presidents Beach is only about an hour away. …

My eight-year old son, Jack, and his same-aged friend, Clare, came to me one day recently and declared that they were starting a business. Thrilled with this creative idea they brought before me for approval, I asked them to tell me more about their business. “We’re going to sell lemonade,” they said almost in unison. They arrived at this decision after watching all the workmen driving by and all the high school kids walking past our house on their way to the field.   “It’s so hot outside, just think of the fortune we can make,” spouted Jack. “Yeah, we’ll be rich!” expounded Clare. I …

Growing up in Fort Lee in the late 1960s and 1970s, I was weaned on stories about the mob that for some reason always led to stories about Frank Sinatra. It was as if the two were indelibly intertwined in the lessons I was receiving about my town from the stool at the bar of the V.F.W.    The mob stretched its shadow over Fort Lee in the days before its grassy woods and wide open spaces were layered over with asphalt and steel by companies they most likely controlled. The fact that Fort Lee was a really small town appealed to men who were rumored to sleep with one eye opened. And what other …

Long before New York Yankee greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig stood for a picture alongside the Fort Lee All Star team in 1931, baseball played an important role in the history of Fort Lee’s youth. The first game, organized by the newly formed Fort Lee Athletic Club, was played on April 23, 1911 against the Amsterdam Athletic Association on the field behind the Athletic Club (now the municipal parking lot). By the 1950’s, so many young boys wanted to play baseball that two leagues were formed. That legacy is still very evident today as both leagues continue to grow with the population. While on…

Unfortunately, last Friday’s sunset sail down the Hudson on the A.J. Meerwald with the Fort Lee Common Sense Society was a washout. Literally. Driving through the unrelenting sheets of pouring rain up the Palisade Interstate Parkway there was a sneaking suspicion that the cruise might be called off due to rain, but on we drove. However, the breathtaking bolt of lightning and jolting clap of thunder that escorted me around the final descending curve of the Palisades was convincing enough to ensure that the scheduled sail would indeed be cancelled. Common Sense Society members, Tom Meyers and …

We can reconcile the death of a parent with the gentle understanding that nature is following its predetermined course, but losing a brother or sister is never easily justified. There’s an implicit pact that you helped each other survive the worst moments of childhood and celebrated the best. The dissolution of that bond severs that part of you that you spent years using, drinking or in therapy trying to escape, but whose memories bring strange comfort in the lonely recesses of night. “I wish I would have written them down so I’d never forget,” said my cousin Carol, who, as the oldest of 40 …

While meeting my Fort Lee girlfriends at Joeyness the other morning, savoring every sip of their delicious coffee as we counted the hours until school ended, we tripped over each other’s words knowing we’d have no time until September to have another uninterrupted conversation. Our collective non-sequitors went from “Is Fairway Market cooking your dinner tonight?” to Fort Lee's Farmers' Market, to cookbooks, to book clubs, to children’s books that we can recite in our sleep, until we finally concluded there should be a catchy picture book dedicated to moms like us who have to grab alone …

This is the time of year when the summer sun shines its light upon our memory and casts shadows of those golden Fort Lee summers of our youth upon the screen of our monotonous present. When together, banded by friendship, we walked these streets, climbed the cliffs, fell in love. Those perfect summers when the toughest decision had nothing to do with which bill to pay first, but whether we were going to Hiram’s or Callahan’s. For me, it’s the summers of the 70s. For you, it may be the summer of the 60s, 50s, 40s or 30s. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that every summer of our youth called …

Underground at 96th and Park, waiting to hear the rattling of an approaching train, hovering close to the edge of the platform, stands a man flipping through his copy of a book on the theater. From behind a woman stares. Not just any woman, but one who has traveled from another continent to be here with him on this platform. Both unaware of the implications of this moment. Curious, she approaches him. Her curiosity sparks a conversation; a conversation that will eventually lead to marriage, a child, and Sem Frontieras Press, a collaborative writing and publishing business based in Fort Lee. …

The unique thing about Fort Lee is that it can take you anywhere you want to go. Talk about the crossroads of America! We’re strangulated by crossroads—Rt. 80, Rt. 46, Rt. 4, Palisades Interstate Parkway and (genuflect) the George Washington Bridge. And on any given Friday night, while we’re trying to navigate our way around town, we who live here know that all roads lead to Fort Lee. This is the time of year when it’s fun to get out of town and explore somewhere new; somewhere not far from home, but that seems a world away. And you know, New York City is comprised of more than just Manhattan…

Palisades Amusement Park, The Jersey Shore, swimming and crabbing in the Hudson River, running through backyard sprinklers, the Good Humor Man in his white uniform, rides around the block in Leo Ippolito’s garbage truck, catching lightning bugs in empty pickle jars, running around the neighborhood with your friends all night long while your parents sat clustered in the neighbor’s yard—all  these moments of summers past come rushing back, reminding me of all that was right with the world as I watch my children play in my own backyard afraid to take my eyes off of them for fear that they’ll be …

While out with girlfriends one night, talk turned to playdates. Specifically, how tiring it is to always be the ones who host the playdates. We thought, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a template you could just fill out and hand to the parent of every child who has spent more time in your house than your husband? Well, no coaxing needed; here it is: PLAYDATE TEMPLATE By (Insert Your Name Here) Dear (insert Mom’s name), It is an absolute pleasure having (insert child’s name) frequently come to our house to play; and although I thoroughly enjoy feeding (him/her) afternoon snacks, doing (his/…

The Palisades Interstate Park Commission hosted a Mother’s Day hike led by historical interpreter Eric Nelsen Sunday. The destination of the hike was to the Women’s Federation Monument, a miniature castle situated deep within the woods of the Palisades. Along the almost three-mile walk to the monument we stopped to visit what remains of the Ringling house, Gray Crag, that sat atop the cliffs almost 100 years ago. That would be Ringling as in Ringling Brothers Circus. For those of you who have read Water for Elephants, or have seen the recently released film, you know that Ringling Brothers …

People Monday were glued to the televisions, computers, Twitter feeding on any and every byte of news coming across the wires Monday. It was hard to unplug in order to sit down and file this column—fingers twitching to surf the news. The death of Osama bin Laden means something to every American, but to us here in the tri-state area whose lives were indelibly affected by what happened at the World Trade Center, his death provides a small measure of closure. In every one of those calculated tragedies that took place on Sept. 11, we either knew someone who was affected, or knew someone who knew…

They say you can’t go home again—that no matter how hard you try, you can never truly recapture those moments that memory refuses to let go of. Well, try telling that to all the former students of Holy Trinity Elementary School who came back home Saturday night to relive a little of their collective past in the hallowed halls of their alma mater. The evening began with a mass at Holy Trinity Church; the church where we were baptized, received our First Holy Communion, said our weekly Saturday confessions, were confirmed, married, and where some of us have been laid to rest. One of our own, …