make Franklin proud.
She was a pretty, fair-skinned baby with plump cheeks and a wisp of blonde hair that would soon darken to chestnut brown. Adele sometimes brought her to the home of Roscoe Schwarz and his family, whose house on Palisade Avenue adjoined the amusement park, to play with the Schwarzes’ youngest daughters. But to Adele’s dismay, as soon as Antoinette was old enough to walk she brushed past Hazel and Dorothy’s dolls and made a beeline toward eleven-year-old Laurent’s set of toy trucks.
As Antoinette began pushing one of the tin vehicles back and forth, she provided her own sound effects: “Vrooom! Vrooom!”
Laurent smiled in bemusement. “That’s pretty good vrooming,” he said, “for a girl. ’Specially a little one like you.”
Getting down on his knees, he began pushing another truck toward hers, veering away at the last moment, rolling the truck end over end while making crashing sounds befitting a two-car collision. Antoinette laughed delightedly and began preparing for another exciting traffic accident.
It was Adele’s first clue that perhaps everything might not be proceeding according to plan.
3
Palisades, New Jersey, 1935
I N M AY OF 1935, Nicholas Schenck—eager to rid himself of a failing amusement park—granted a lease with option to buy to Jack and Irving Rosenthal, whose careers in amusement began when Irving was all of ten years old and Jack, twelve. At Coney Island, the brothers overheard a pail-and-shovel concessionaire grumbling that he would sell his entire stock for fifty bucks. The brothers promptly wheedled the money from their Uncle Louis and bought their first concession. When a tourist boat would arrive, Irving, at one end of the pier, distributed pails and shovels to every kid who walked off the ferry. At the other end Jack informed the parents, “Your child just bought a pail and shovel, five cents, please.” By then the kids were spot-welded to their new toys and the parents grudgingly forked over the nickel. It probably didn’t hurt that the two smiling little extortionists were barely out of knee pants themselves. That summer they earned more than fifteen hundred dollars.
They went on to operate rides and concessions at Savin Rock Park in Connecticut, and turned around the fading Golden City Park Arena in Brooklyn. Their earnings paid for their education—Irving studied dentistry and Jack became a concert violinist with the Cincinnati Symphony—but as Irving put it, “I always liked the sound of a merry-go-round better than a dentist’s drill,” and soon they were back, building the Cyclone coaster at Coney.
Now, at Palisades, they hired amusement veterans Al and Joseph McKee. Al would serve as general superintendent and brother Joe, an expert in roller-coaster design, would supervise the operation of the park’s rides. They also hired PR man Bert Nevins, who arranged a cross-promotion with Hearn’s Department Store in Manhattan, where thousands of free tickets for children to Palisades were distributed.
Some of the Rosenthals’ business decisions were met with skepticism. One was the installation of their niece, Anna Halpin—a tiny but formidable brunette—as manager of park operations. Some longtime employees complained that at thirty years old she was too young to be running a park this size—or maybe just too female. Several ride operators griped that she often came by and watched them like a hawk as they worked.
But the Rosenthals’ other decision was one that would have more public consequences.
* * *
Eddie and Adele had moved to an apartment house on Bergen Boulevard, an end unit on the ground floor with a small terrace in the shade of a tall oak tree, where the children could play in the afternoon. But in autumn, when the wind gusted through the tree, it shook acorns out of the branches at least once every thirty seconds, strafing Antoinette and her one-year-younger brother, Jack—named for the grandfather he
She was a pretty, fair-skinned baby with plump cheeks and a wisp of blonde hair that would soon darken to chestnut brown. Adele sometimes brought her to the home of Roscoe Schwarz and his family, whose house on Palisade Avenue adjoined the amusement park, to play with the Schwarzes’ youngest daughters. But to Adele’s dismay, as soon as Antoinette was old enough to walk she brushed past Hazel and Dorothy’s dolls and made a beeline toward eleven-year-old Laurent’s set of toy trucks.
As Antoinette began pushing one of the tin vehicles back and forth, she provided her own sound effects: “Vrooom! Vrooom!”
Laurent smiled in bemusement. “That’s pretty good vrooming,” he said, “for a girl. ’Specially a little one like you.”
Getting down on his knees, he began pushing another truck toward hers, veering away at the last moment, rolling the truck end over end while making crashing sounds befitting a two-car collision. Antoinette laughed delightedly and began preparing for another exciting traffic accident.
It was Adele’s first clue that perhaps everything might not be proceeding according to plan.
3
Palisades, New Jersey, 1935
I N M AY OF 1935, Nicholas Schenck—eager to rid himself of a failing amusement park—granted a lease with option to buy to Jack and Irving Rosenthal, whose careers in amusement began when Irving was all of ten years old and Jack, twelve. At Coney Island, the brothers overheard a pail-and-shovel concessionaire grumbling that he would sell his entire stock for fifty bucks. The brothers promptly wheedled the money from their Uncle Louis and bought their first concession. When a tourist boat would arrive, Irving, at one end of the pier, distributed pails and shovels to every kid who walked off the ferry. At the other end Jack informed the parents, “Your child just bought a pail and shovel, five cents, please.” By then the kids were spot-welded to their new toys and the parents grudgingly forked over the nickel. It probably didn’t hurt that the two smiling little extortionists were barely out of knee pants themselves. That summer they earned more than fifteen hundred dollars.
They went on to operate rides and concessions at Savin Rock Park in Connecticut, and turned around the fading Golden City Park Arena in Brooklyn. Their earnings paid for their education—Irving studied dentistry and Jack became a concert violinist with the Cincinnati Symphony—but as Irving put it, “I always liked the sound of a merry-go-round better than a dentist’s drill,” and soon they were back, building the Cyclone coaster at Coney.
Now, at Palisades, they hired amusement veterans Al and Joseph McKee. Al would serve as general superintendent and brother Joe, an expert in roller-coaster design, would supervise the operation of the park’s rides. They also hired PR man Bert Nevins, who arranged a cross-promotion with Hearn’s Department Store in Manhattan, where thousands of free tickets for children to Palisades were distributed.
Some of the Rosenthals’ business decisions were met with skepticism. One was the installation of their niece, Anna Halpin—a tiny but formidable brunette—as manager of park operations. Some longtime employees complained that at thirty years old she was too young to be running a park this size—or maybe just too female. Several ride operators griped that she often came by and watched them like a hawk as they worked.
But the Rosenthals’ other decision was one that would have more public consequences.
* * *
Eddie and Adele had moved to an apartment house on Bergen Boulevard, an end unit on the ground floor with a small terrace in the shade of a tall oak tree, where the children could play in the afternoon. But in autumn, when the wind gusted through the tree, it shook acorns out of the branches at least once every thirty seconds, strafing Antoinette and her one-year-younger brother, Jack—named for the grandfather he
Similar Books
