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Health & Fitness

Fort Lee Arts & Music Fest: History Relived

Fort Lee Arts & Music Fest June 5

The annual Fort Lee Arts & Music Festival arrives on Main Street this Sunday, June 5 from 11 AM – 6 PM.  This is our ninth consecutive Arts & Music Fest on Main Street.  During this festival Main Street becomes a pedestrian mall from Lemoine to Center Avenues and into the Municipal Lot.  This event literally stops traffic on Main Street for a day in a very good way.

This year we have over 135 vendors and artists and crafters.  In addition we have free face painting and bounce rides / rock climbing wall for children and the annual Bergen County Harley Davidson Bike Show.  There will be a food court set up in the Post Office Parking Lot where you can enjoy all types of foods and beverages.  Joining us this year for the firs time is Johnny Meatballs who has appeared recently on VH1.  Other vendors include many service  / community organizations and crafters from around the tri-state area.  Also this year we debut a Go Green section headed by the Fort Lee Environmental Committee.

The area of Main Street from Center to the Municipal lot on the north side will be devoted to a juried art show operated by the Fort Lee Artists Guild.  There will be wonderful pieces of art available for sale throughout the day including specific pieces that depict Fort Lee’s history as one award category is a Fort Lee History Award.

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Two stages of free musical entertainment will be going strong all day long.  Stage 1 (Main and Lemoine) will feature local bands such as Slyblue Jazz, The Pedal Pushers and Double Tap.  Stage 2 (Main Street and Center Avenue) will feature Iris Orning Jazz Trio, Carlos Colina and Eliot Piniero Sumba Swing Band.  The feature group will be THE PARTY DOLLS who will perform on Stage 1 from 4:30 – 6PM.

This tradition of Arts & Music in Fort Lee predates this annual festival.  From 1898 through 1971 Palisades Amusement Park’s stage atop the cliffs of the Palisades offered the best of musical entertainment this nation offered.  From the swing bands of the 30’s and 40’s to the Rock & Roll of the 50’s through early 70’s, the stage at Palisades Amusement Park rocked and rolled all summer long.  Also, for a more upscale venue, one could go to The Riviera Night Club on the top of the Palisades north of the George Washington Bridge.  The first Riviera was located in the old Villa Richard Restaurant atop the Palisades in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee.  Operated from 1931 by Ben Marden, the very successful club   was destroyed by a Thanksgiving night fire in 1936.  By May of 1937 Ben Marden built a new art deco Riviera just south of that spot and it included a revolving stage and a retractable roof for dancing under the stars.  Here the like of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. Pearl Bailey,  just t name a few, sang the great songs of the day.  The Riviera remained popular until it was closed at the end of 1953 for the construction of the Palisades Interstate Parkway.

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Well that covers the musical end of Fort Lee but what about the art?  Well if all we had was the Ortlip family our bases would be covered in this regard.  The Ortlip family created their own art colony atop the Palisades for most of the 20th century.  The Ortlips were later joined by other cliff top artists such as the lat Irv Docktor.  Early 20th century artists such as Pop Hart made Fort Lee their home due to the magnificent venues offered by the Palisades.


As we celebrate this history of art & music in Fort Lee this Sunday let us also look to the future and many of us saw the future at the recent Circle of the Arts program at Fort Lee High School.  Our local students with their great artistic and musical talent will keep Fort Lee the place to be in the 21st century.

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