Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Rambo's Saloon, better known to locals as Gus Becker's, faces demolition.
The Fort Lee Historical Society met Tuesday to discuss petitioning the Mayor and Council and the Fort Lee Zoning Board of Adjustment to save Rambo's Saloon, a house dating back to the Civil War era, from demolition. Rambo's, better known to locals as Gus Becker's, is located on First Street in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee. Because of its prominent role as a site location in the early film industry that once dominated Fort Lee, the saloon is listed on the Bergen County Register of Historic Buildings. However, according to Tom Meyers, founder and Executive Director of the Fort Lee Film Commission and founder of The Fort Lee Historic Committee and member of The Fort Lee Historical Society, that designation offers no real protection …
Friday, January 4, 2013
January 1916 in Fort Lee, NJ, where Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand took up residence at the Triangle Movie Studio on Main Street and Linwood Avenue.
Early January is a time to look back as well as ahead - back to the previous year's successes and shortfalls and ahead to what we all hope will be a good year for all. This being an archives piece, I have the great good fortune of revving up the old Fort Lee way back machine and heading to a January distant in time but, as Einstein said, relatively not so distant in scope. The time, my friends, is January of 1916, some 97 years ago. Imagine Fort Lee without the George Washington Bridge, a small rural town with a vibrant Main Street, trolley tracks and movie studios. This was near the apex of Fort Lee’s days as the center of American film production. True, studios were consolidating in Hollywood by 1916, but Fort Lee still had the lead in…
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Main St & Linwood Ave, Fort Lee, NJ
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Friday, November 9, 2012
Making movies in Fort Lee in 1912.
Fort Lee for those of us who live here is sometimes just home, and it is hard to fathom the interest the outside world shows in our little borough perched atop the bluffs of the Palisades. This column has covered much of Fort Lee’s history, including our role as the birthplace of the American film industry, but this week we add an international flavor via the year 1912. This year, 2012, as noted in previous archive pieces, we celebrate some of the most important centennials in American and world cinema history, all of which occurred on the streets of Fort Lee. Madame Alice Guy Blache built and opened her Solax Studio on Lemoine Avenue (present days site of the A&P) here in Fort Lee in 1912. She produced, wrote and directed hundreds of …
Shawn Kelly
7:29 pm on Friday, March 15, 2013
Its a shame but I think the people who are against saving this building must not remember what the town used to look like. Perhaps they have no roots there? The last few decades I have watched piece by piece be leveled and carted away in a dumpster. A lot of them my own families houses. While I understand you can't save the world how about saving some of the towns history? This is critical. Other… more ›