REMEMBERING... "Upper Saddle River's Anona Park"

therecordarchivesCirca 1930: Bathers enjoying the sun, sand and some ice cream cones at Upper Saddle River’s Anona Park.🍦For a good part of the 20th century, residents and tourists who frequented Bergen County's sand-bottom pools enjoyed swimming, having a boxed lunch picnic, staying after dark to enjoy a family movie and listening to music and dancing on wooden-plank floors placed beneath a string of lights that swung in the summer breeze. 🎶 Some of the pools are gone, but several community-based sand-bottom pools still dot Bergen’s landscape. 🏖️👙

Kay Yeomans, historian for Upper Saddle River, has fond memories of Anona Lake, built by her husband's grandfather in 1929. anona was sold to a developer in 1968 and is now a part of a homeowner's association that has added tennis courts.

"REMEMBERING...ROSIE'S DINER"

     This picture of Rosie's Diner in Little Ferry was taken in the 1973. It originally opened in the 1940s as the Silver Dollar Diner and became the Farmland Diner in 1961. It was renamed Rosie's after Bounty paper towel commercials were filmed there in the 1970s. The diner has been relocated to Cedar Springs, Mich.

REMEMBERING..."FORT LEE'S SHOWCASE NIGHTCLUB"

     Frank Sinatra, “Old Blue-Eyes,” freshly shorn, stands next to Rocky Vitteta, the house barber. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are on stage. So is Milton Berle. Dozens of others smile — from the walls and display cases, beside souvenir brochures and matchbooks. Beaming out from among lines of chorus girls and musicians are faces as recognizable as Pearl Bailey’s and Lena Horne’s. Or the Andrews Sisters’. Other faces, though perhaps instantly recognizable in their own day, serve today — for most of us, at least — as reminders of the fleeting nature of fame. 

     The tale of the Riviera began in 1931, the same year the George Washington Bridge first forged its link between the bright lights of Manhattan and the tree-shaded suburbs of Bergen County. In that year the renowned nightclub entrepreneur Ben Marden bought a cliff-top hotel in Fort Lee called the Villa Richard. Marden refurbished the Richard as a world-class club.

     Painted yellow, the art-deco building was shaped like the rounded transom of a great yacht berthed high above the Hudson (the windows were even shaped like portholes). At night a huge red neon sign could be read from miles away: Ben Marden’s Riviera. On warm evenings, the roof could be retracted to allow for dancing by starlight. The stage revolved so that one act could replace another without pause in the entertainment. And then there was the talk of hidden gambling rooms…

     As construction began on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, it became clear that the Riviera’s days were numbered. Miller fought against the closing, but it was a fight he was destined to lose. The building was eventually torn down, and only a few nondescript traces remain in the woods atop the cliffs. Many of the contents of the club were auctioned off, and some of these have found their way back to the exhibit that the Fort Lee Historical Society gathered together to display at the Fort Lee Museum.

"Woolworth's, Shelved 20 Years Ago, Sparked a Revolution ..."

[from The Record, July 17, 2017]

      "Twenty years ago, today, F. W. Woolworth Co. officially went out of business. Opened in 1878 in Utica, N.Y., Woolworth's was a game-changer.
     It was "...an inexpensive department store that had everything." Woolworth's monopolized what was the referred to as five and dimes. Hackensack, Bergenfield, Closter, Pompton Lakes, Rutherford, Paterson, Teaneck and Ridgewood were among many towns in N.J. that hosted these sprawling inexpensive shopping meccas that catered to the thrifty, respectable lower middle class in the days before credit cards.
      "Unlike today's cheaply-outfitted dollar stores, Woolworth stores were clean, well-lighted places, where you could get a ham sandwich for 15 cents at the lunch counter, or buy a tiny turtle with a plastic palm tree in the pet department." (Jim Beckerman)
      Today, Woolworth's marketing model can be seen in the (very) few remaining K-Mart stores and, more prevalent, at Target's. 
      Consider this - "100 years ago, customers could indulge themselves to the extent of a nickel (75 cents in today's money) or dime, without feeling too guilty."  
      

"BEFORE K-MART, THERE WAS KRESGE'S..."

On March 20, 1897, Kresge began working for James G. McCrory (founder of J.G. McCrory's) at a five and ten cent store in Memphis, Tennessee. He continued there for two years. In 1899, he founded his company, with Charles J. Wilson, with an $8,000 investment in two five-and-ten-cent stores; one was in downtown Detroit, Michigan (for which he traded ownership in McCrory's).

In 1912, he incorporated the S.S. Kresge Company with 85 stores. The company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange on May 23, 1918. During World War I, Kresge experimented with raising the limit on prices in his stores to $1.

By 1924, Kresge was worth approximately $375,000,000 ($5,000,000,000 in 2009 dollars^[2]) and owned real estate of the approximate value of $100,000,000.

...and, then, Kresge's became K-Mart.

The first Kmart opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. Kresge died in 1966. In 1977, the S. S. Kresge Corporation changed its name to the Kmart Corporation. In 2005 Sears Holdings Corporation became the parent of Kmart and Sears, after Kmart bought Sears, and formed the new parent.

...and, now, under the "leadership" of a hedge-fund manager, without retail experience, both Sears and K-Mart (...barely running on fumes, now...) are on life support. Too bad... My memories of both chains, with the flagship Sears Roebuck store on Main St. in Hackensack, and the giant K-Mart on Rte. 17 in Paramus, will never fade, even if the stores themselves, do.

"ICE CREAM MEMORIES"

     Summers, growing up on Elm St., and our kick-ball "field" on Hasbrouck Blvd., would become magical when we'd hear the jingling of those bells, signaling the arrival of our favorite Ice Cream Man, arriving in his roofless, white truck, Good Humor, emblazoned on its side. In his starched white uniform and billed cap, with his money-changer hanging on his belt, he'd take our orders, and, seemingly without looking, swing open the square insulated doors, reach in, and pull out our favorite treat. for .25$ cents or less, we'd savor every bite of a chocolate covered vanilla cone or strawberry sundae.
     I can still hear those bells, jangling on a hot July day...

      
     ...then, there was the legendary T&W, in Ridgewood, NJ, right across from the Duck Pond, the dessert destination, after a quick burger at The Fireplace, or a family's stop-over on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

...but, thankfully, we still have our favorite soft ice cream haven, still going strong, Dairy Queen, the after-sports-victory destination, still thriving in Wyckoff and Montvale.

"LAST NIGHT I TOOK A WALK IN THE PARK...DOWN AT A PLACE CALLED PALISADES PARK..."

Palisades Amusement Park was a 30-acre amusement park located in Bergen County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. It was located atop the New Jersey Palisades lying partly in Cliffside Park and partly in Fort Lee. 

Closed: September 12, 1971

Opened: 1898

Operating season: Weekend before Easter to Sunday after Labor Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnLCvpgPD_s

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5IkHvTzTeg