Community Corner

Fort Lee Museum's Palisades Amusement Park Exhibit Subject of a New Novel

Palisades Amusement Park, currently on exhibit at the Fort Lee Museum, is the centerpiece of a new novel by Bergen County native, Alan Brennert

Highlighting the Fort Lee Museum's recently opened exhibit, Palisades Amusement Park: A Pool, A Book and a Centennial, is a reading of the newly released book, Palisades Amusement Park, by Alan Brennert, an emmy award winning screenwriter who spent many summer days as a young boy at the Park.  

The museum is commemorating the centennial of the pool which opened on June 8th, 1913. With its beaches, waves and waterfall it became an integral part of the Palisades Amusement Park experience. 

Brennert's story centers around a family of dreamers with eccentric ambitions who own a concession stand at Palisades Amusement Park and spans the park’s life from the Depression up to its closing in 1971. The story focuses on a young girl who grows up at the park watching champion high divers and dreams--as Brennert himself did--of becoming a champion diver. 

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Within the fictional framework of historical events, Brennert uses real people who worked at the Park in telling the story and making it come alive.

One character familiar to Fort Lee natives, is Palisade Amusement Park's legendary lifeguard--Bunty Hill. In the novel, Bunty trains the young girl to dive. In life, he trained competitive swimmers.

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Anyone who swam the Park's pool, or swam the Hudson River, will remember Bunty well. He taught generations of kids from Fort Lee, Edgewater, Cliffside Park--all towns along the Hudson--to swim the Pool and, later in life, the Hudson River.

In an earlier interview, Brennert said that he wanted to take his happiest memories of childhood when he lived in Edgewater and spent summer days at Palisades Amusement Park, and write a book that captured the essence of the Park within a broader historical perspective.

Tying in with the book, the Museum's exhibit features rare archival photos and artifacts from the pool, which was the world's largest outdoor saltwater swimming pool, as well as photos and artifacts of the real life park employees who are featured in Brennert's Palisades Amusement Park.   

Brennert will be giving a reading and a book signing of Palisades Amusement Park at the Fort Lee Museum on April 9 at 7 p.m.


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