Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Historic tour of Fort Lee

Last month, I participated in the historic tour of Fort Lee. As you might know, the movie making in USA started first in Fort Lee. Now it is a quiet residential area with many apartment high-rises, but Fort Lee in the eraly 1900s seems to have been a thriving business area with a big amusement center and movie shooting studios.

Prior to the guided tour, we visited Fort Lee musium to learn about the history of moving making, where the special exhibition was presented.

 Mr. Barry Shiff, a local artist and volunteer guide of the meseum took us into the tour of historic Fort Lee movie industry.

Mr Shiff's studio is named "Nostaligic Art" and his works are focused on the scenaries of old New Jersey. If you are insterested in his paintings, you can contact him at barryshiff@gmail.com.
 
In the museum, there were two pictures of the Amusument Park that had been operating until early 1970s  Here is one of them. This picture seems to have been taken shortly before the close, as there is already one high-rise in the picutre. Now, on this site stand four huge high-rises and there remains no trace of the bustling park, except the name of the street leading to it. The stree is called "Railroad Avenue."


Many People showed up in the tour sponsored by the Historic Society of Fort Lee. They took us to many places, where facilities associated with movie making used to stand in early1900s. Later, they all moved to Hollywood, looking for good whether and escaping the chase of royality collectors sent by the movie patent holder, Edison.




Here is the picture of the only remaining facility from those days. This facility was built in 1910 by Mark Dintenfass as the Champion studio. He was one of the film pioneers and joined the Universal Film in 1912 as an executive, thus becoming the first Universal Studio in USA. This old building is still being used today for something else and we could not see the inside of the building. However, the tour guide explained to us that the film making was done clandestinely in the basement, under the pressure of Edison patent.