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 …

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From the Archives

Palisades Amusement Park Exhibit: A Book, a Pool and a Centennial

Upcoming Palisades Amusement Park exhibit at the Fort Lee Museum to celebrate the centennial of the world's largest outdoor saltwater pool and the publication of a new book, "Palisades Park."

Palisades has the rides... Palisades has the fun… Come On Over. Shows and dancing are free... so's the parking, so gee... Come On Over. Palisades from coast to coast, where a dime buys the most. Palisades Amusement Park. Swings all day and after dark. (bumm, baa, dumm, bumm, bummmm) Ride the coaster...Get cool...In the waves in the pool. You’ll have fun... so...Come On Over..(dumm de dum da dum... dum) So goes the song Come on Over that was heard over all the New York metropolitan area radio stations and seen on TV commericials in the 1960s. This song, lodged in the recesses of millions of baby boomers’ brains, is an introduction of sorts for all of you readers to come on over to the Fort Lee Museum from March 2 through Sept. 9 this year …

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Tom Meyers

2:38 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013

Tracy, Yes people in the past have identified themselves in images we have placed on display in the Fort Lee Museum re Palisades Amusement Park - that is always a lot of un - similar situations have happened with, for example, exhibits on Fort Lee's Riviers Nightclub. This has led many to donate or loan some of their own personal collections to the Fort Lee Museum.   more ›

Authors of 'The Charmer' Recount Story of Local Murderer

The authors of "The Charmer: The True Story of Robert Reldan" about a convicted local murderer were at the Fort Lee Museum Tuesday to talk about their book with members of the Fort Lee Historical Society.

Following the regularly scheduled meeting of the Fort Lee Historical Society (FLHS) at the Fort Lee Museum Tuesday, co-authors Richard Muti and Charles Buckley addressed FLHS members and friends from the community as the guest speakers of the evening. The subject was gruesome but enthralling, convicted murderer Robert Reldan. Each author read excerpts from their book The Charmer: The True Story of Robert Reldan. Reldan, now in his 80s, is serving time in Trenton for crimes committed when he was a young man in the 1970s. Muti and Buckley recounted tales from their book about the long legal process involved in finding Reldan guity of the murders of Susan Heynes and Susan Reeves. These stories were supplemented by the reminiscences of locals …

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Donna Brennan

9:26 pm on Thursday, October 11, 2012

Thank you.   more ›

From the Archives

Fort Lee's House of History

Where the present meets the past.

Fort Lee history is housed in a wonderful 1922 Palisade bluestone exterior building between Parker and Palisade Avenues and adjacent to historic Monument Park. Every season seems to bring new and different beauty to the unique architecture of this borough gem. The Fort Lee Historic Site Committee is currently at work with the Mayor & Council on getting a local landmark status for this structure. This is the first step in making sure future generations will enjoy the treasures of its exterior but also the treasure chest of history hidden and stored away in its alcoves and corridors.  This history rushes through this edifice as it truly is the building’s lifeblood. This history is preserved and archived by the Fort Lee Historical Society, a …

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From the Archives

Fort Lee in 3D

Fort Lee in 3D Stereographic Images.

This week’s look back into our archive might seem curious given the 3D reference. Sure, 3D movies date to the 1950s, and to such early examples as the classic 1953 Vincent Price horror film The House of Wax.  However, as is often the case, our trek to the past leads further back into a technology that was as cutting edge in the 19th century as is digital technology in the 21st century.  Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope in 1838. Two images, side by side, were placed on this device, and when viewed through the stereoscope the image appears in a 3D form. The popularity of the device grew rapidly, and by the mid-19th century, there were 250,000 stereoscopes produced and thousands of stereographic cards. Think of the mid-20th …

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From the Archives

Facebook Fort Lee: Images of Past Through Technology of Today

The Fort Lee Historical Society hopes to collect high-resolution images of Fort Lee’s past from Facebook users to create a Fall 2013 Fort Lee Museum exhibit.

The Fort Lee Museum houses the Fort Lee Historical Society and Fort Lee Film Commission archives, and from these archival photos, documents and artifacts we create about four exhibits a year in our museum on Palisade Avenue. But we are always in search of additions to the collections to create new exhibits and to preserve our collective past.  Thus, we have trolled the seas of eBay, visited countless antique stores, including our friend Jim Episale’s wonderful Unshredded Nostalgia in Barnegat, NJ, and searched through the attics and basements of homes in Fort Lee when invited to do so by their owners.  Among the many additions we have acquired over the past few years is a pre-Civil War hope chest of Eliza Ann Rutter, who lived in Fort Lee …

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Museum Exhibit Showcases Founding of Universal Studio in Fort Lee

“Universal Studio Centennial Exhibit: From Fort Lee to Universal City” is open to the public but will change to some extent over the next month or so. It’s a must see for film buffs and fans of “Law & Order: SVU”

A new exhibit currently on display at the Fort Lee Museum continues the Fort Lee Film Commission’s yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Universal Studio in Fort Lee. The exhibit, “Universal Studio Centennial Exhibit: From Fort Lee to Universal City,” is produced by the Film Commission and documents the birth of the film giant in the borough in 1912 with archival photos, studio artifacts and more. It includes items on loan from the studio and from the hit NBC Universal TV show, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” which has in the past shot extensively in Fort Lee. Executive director Tom Meyers of the Fort Lee Film Commission said most of the props used in episodes of “Law & Order: SVU” will eventually have to be…

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From the Archives

The University of Fort Lee: CFI

Fort Lee native James Viola speaks about his career in the Fort Lee film industry and the role of Consolidated Film Industries on Main Street.

Most people would never consider Fort Lee a University or college town. Truth be told, the closest college is on the cliffs of the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs (St. Peter’s).  Fort Lee’s schools include our public schools, from elementary to high school, with intermediate in between. We have private elementary schools. Once we could boast that we were home to the Academy of the Holy Angels, which sat where the present day Mediterranean Towers reside on Linwood Avenue.  But a college town? Well, think again! In conjunction with our Fort Lee Museum exhibit Universal Studio Centennial Salute: From Fort Lee to Universal City, both the Fort Lee Film Commission and the Fort Lee Historical Society are reaching out to the community to find …

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Tom Meyers

1:51 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012

Thanks Toni! And you are right - Jimmy's the best!   more ›

From the Archives

In Search of the Cyclone of Palisades Amusement Park

In search of the Palisades Amusement Park Cyclone roller coaster cars: a missing part of Fort Lee history found in Pennsylvania.

The summer sun has actually peeked through the clouds this week so we can hope, as we progress through the month of June, that we will see more and more summer-like weather, and we can only hope that we also receive cool breezes off the Palisades. Those breezes, if you listen closely enough, whisper in your ear of summers long ago atop the Fort Lee Palisades. Summer in our community, from 1898 through 1971, ran from April through September, as those were the opening and closing dates each season for Palisades Amusement Park. This clifftop park has been written about in past archive columns but this column serves Palisades Amusement Park straight up, if you please, with a twist. Mr. Palisades Amusement Park, author and documentary filmmaker…

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From the Archives

Saved From the Titanic in Fort Lee?

The sinking of the Titanic has Fort Lee roots through survivor and Eclair Studio actress Dorothy Gibson and her film, "Saved From the Titanic."

As we approach the April 15 centennial of one of the most famous passenger liner tragedies in world history, it is important to note that one of our "Reel Jersey Girls" from Fort Lee was not only saved from the Titanic, but she also was rushed to Fort Lee right off the docks in New York to shoot a film of the very same title for Éclair Studio. Less than a month after the tragedy, Éclair Studio had prints out to movie theaters; the movie poster they printed to advertise this first of all the films about the Titanic read: Extra, Tuesday, May 14, Saved From The Titanic, Éclair’s World Sensation, MISS DOROTHY GIBSON, a survivor of the sea’s greatest disaster, tells the story of the shipwreck, supported by an all-star cast, on the film marvel …

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