ACT II – The Long Cool Summer of '65
Revisited
Episode 1 – The KYW TV Crew Comes to
Town
With the AM radio blaring and the warm
summer wind rushing in the windows the white KYW-TV Chevy van crossed the
Walt Whitman suspension bridge to New Jersey and headed southeast to
the Jersey Shore with producer-director David Brenner driving and his
secretary-Girl Friday sitting next to him.
Rookie reporter Tom Snyder, just out of
college and on one of his first assignments as a TV reporter, sat in
the rear seat next to the window while the cameraman-technician Gary Shenfeld fiddled around with equipment in the back.
“Shall we take the Expressway or the
Pike?” Brenner asked retorically, as he often threw out options to
the crew making it seem democratic, then make a rash decision on his
own - “We'll take the Pike,” he said swerving into another lane
when they got to the fork in the road. “The Expressway's a toll
road and that will cut into our beer money.”
David Brenner
“Director's prerogative,” Brenner
smirked, as the secretary singed quietly, “I shall take the road
less traveled, and that will make all the difference.”
“Hey Tech,” Brenner called out to Shenfeld, the cameraman-technician in the back. “You should get a load of the
streetscapes of the Black Horse Pike, since it won't be here for
long since the Expressway is going to put all these businesses out of
business,” he said, using a hand to point to some old roadside
stands, diners and service stations.
The cameraman had cut a hole in the
roof of the fan that he could open and standing on a box could extend
his head, torso and a camera out and film without getting out of the
van. It was good for situations you had to get out of quickly, the
kind that investigative reporters often found themselves in.
Gary Shenfeld the cameraman took his baseball hat off
and stuck his head out and looked around as the van moved along at a
good 70 mile per hour clip, and caught a glimpse of some of the ice
cream stands, Stewart's Root Beer, used car lots and an Esso Flying
Horse gas station.
“Okay, okay,” he said disappearing
into the van and then emerging with his camera up to his eye and
began filming the disappearing streetscape.
With the cameraman filming as they
cruised down the Pike Brenner laid out the scheme.
“Here's the battle plan,” he said.
“We're going to go into Ocean City filming, get the downtown and
main street and then we're going to get the boardwalk and beach and
film the scenes as they are just to have it in the can so we can
concentrate on finding the real story and having a good time doing
it. This is our first assignment where we can actually enjoy
ourselves and get paid too.”
Brenner then started into his James
Cagney impersonations as the cameraman came down from the hatch and
as he put his camera down said, “You missed your calling Brenner,
you should be a comedian,” and they all laughed as Brenner leaned
over and changed the dial on the fading AM radio to get a local
station with better reception.
“It's the Budweiser Beachcomber
Show,” the announcer said in a dull, dry voice.
“Schmaltz” the secretary said.
“Rock and roll, next station down the dial.
“But first this special report from
our news desk.”
“This is Michael Schurman reporting
to you from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, where record crowds are
jamming the beaches and boardwalks all along the Jersey Shore from
Manesquan to Cape May. The retail merchants, bars and restaurants are
all doing a boom town business but the overflow crowds are causing
shortages of gas, bread, milk and toilet paper in some areas, though
more supplies they say, are on the way.”
“Beer!,” Brenner said loudly, “beer
they got. No milk or toilet paper but by God they got plenty of
beer.”
“And now back to the Budweiser Beach
comer show,” as strands of Frank Sinatra singing “Summer Wind”
crackled over the radio.
“What's schmaltz?” Tom Snyder asked
from the back seat.
“Fucking Schmaltz!” Brenner said as
he turned the dial on the radio. “Let's rock and roll!”
Brenner stopped the dial on the Animals
version of “House of the Rising Sun.”
“Schmaltz,” the secretary said,
turning to Snyder in the back seat, “is Doris Day, Dean Martin
“That's Amore,” Sammy Davis “The Candy Man,” - “That's
schmaltz, get it?”
Brenner yells, “Let's rock and roll!”
slaps his hands off the wheel, “Hot Dog! - Ocean City here we
come!”
Coming into Somers Point from Route
Nine they pass Sullivan's Bar on the left, a local neighborhood
taproom and turn left onto MacArthur Boulevard, as the cameraman
sticks his head out the roof and Shenfeld begins filming, as the secretary,
familiar with the area, starts pointing out landmarks –
Mediterranean Diner on the left, with its backroom bar, the open all
night bowling alley, DiOrio’s Circle Cafe and the Point Diner on
right and the Jolly Roger and the historic Somers Mansion on the left
as they turn right around the circle, coming in at six if the circle
was a clock, past Your Father's Mustache, the Crab Trap and Circle
Liquor and at what would be twelve on the clock - the causeway to
Ocean City on the right, where there is usually some hitch hikers
trying to catch a ride to the beach. Continuing past the Texaco gas
station, making a hard right at 9 o'clock, and then another hard
right down Goll Avenue, you pass the Under 21 Club on the right,
where Orsatti's Casino was, and you have Steel's and Tony Marts on
the left and Bay Shores across the street directly on the bay.
As Shenfeld the cameraman is taking all this in
as he pans his camera a full 360 degrees, Brenner makes a left onto
Bay Avenue, past the open front doors of Steel's and Tony Marts and
past the Marotta residence on the left, a Frank Loyd Wright style,
squared off split level. The van slows down and comes to a complete
stop in the middle of the street so they can get a good, zoomed in
shot of this huge paper m ache purple dragon head on the roof above
the door of the Purple Dragon coffee house, the hippies headquarters
at the Point.
Panning around, as the secretary
described what he was filming, she noted that there was Dolphin Dock,
where Rob was writing the morning's fishing report with chalk on a
blackboard out front:
“Fluke in the bay by Rainbow Channel,
softshell crabs on the bridge pilings, mid-sized strippers off the
jettys and the inlet, schools of blues running offshore, Tuna at the
Thirty Mile Wreck – Go Phillies! Don't tank again,” he wrote
still hurting from the Phillies crash in the last two weeks of the
1964 seasons going from eight games up losing ten straight and
missing the playoffs to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Then there's the Clam Bar at Smith's
Pier – Mrs. Smith, God Bless here, still lives upstairs, and
there's the breakfast joint out back that only operates from six in
the morning until noon, when the open air Clam Bar kicks in.
Across the street there's four
identical two story cottages, one of which was inhabited by one of
the Tony Marts Go-Go girls and her hippie mother, a single mom who
tie died T-shirts and made jewelry, and let two of the Hawks - Rick
Danko and Richard Manuel move in the spare room for the summer.
Further on down Bay Avenue was Mayer's
Marina on the right, Johnny Mayers' boat yard, and a little pizza
shack across the street. Then there's the historic, world famous
Anchorage Tavern on the north corner of Delaware Avenue and the Point
Pub in the old, clapboard marina just down the street next to the
municipal beach. The beach is now named after William Morrow, who was
on the Somers Point Police Department that summer of 1963.
Going up to Shore Road, they turned
back towards the circle and passed Charlie's, Gregory's and Mac's on
the left, while Daniels was a few blocks up Shore Road the other way.
Then it was back to the circle and over the causeway to Ocean City.
The cameraman stopped filming as they road across the flat, bay waters teeming with all kinds of boats – motorboats, fishing boats and different size sailboats colored the horizon,
After driving slowly down Ninth Street
while they continued filming both sides of the street lined with
college kids in bathing suits, Brenner approached the Boardwalk and
noticed that one walk was wide enough to drive up and pulling off the
road and onto the sidewalk, softly brushing some frightened
pedestrians aside, he ignored Tom Snyder’s plea, “What the hell
are you doing, driving up on the boardwalk? Don't you need a permit
to do this?”
“Better not ask and say you're sorry
than to ask and be turned down,”:said Brenner as Shenfeld continued filming the 9th Street boardwalk scene from his
perch on the van roof – the Strand theater, Shrivers Candy,
Monroe's book store, Shriver's Pavilion – the hippies playing
guitars and singing – and then the beach – packed wall to wall
with college kids, blankets, towels, beach chairs and umbrellas –
the cameraman taking it all in panning and zooming in on some
particularly good looking girl in a bikini or hippie girl dancing
with a tambourine like a gypsy.
Inhaling though his nose, Brenner said,
“I wish we could copy this salt air, candy and pizza smell and can
it.”
Turning right Brenner slowly made his
way up the boardwalk hugging the fence by the beach past Mack &
Manco Pizza – 25 cents a slice - $2 for a whole Trenton Tomato Pie,
Joe Dels' grill –”great cheesesteaks” the secretary picked up
her narration – Irene's gift shop, Preps's Pizza, the arcades,
t-shit joints, Kohr Brothers custard stands, the Flanders pools and
the hotel, where Mister Kirkman lives in the two story Penthouse.
On the other corner is Copper Kettle
Fudge, now, since Harry Anglemeyer's murder, is being run by his
family. Upstairs above the fudge shop was Harry's apartment, and
across the boardwalk is the 11th Street Pavilion where the
old folks retreated after the hippies took over Shriver's Pavilion at
9th Street.
The only other landmark worth
mentioning is the Old Salt Shop, where Iron Mike the heavy metal deep
sea diving suit was sitting in the back of the shop that was filled
with nautical art, whale bones, scrimshaw jewelry and knives and
similar unique and unusual gifts. Sam McDowell, the Old Salt, was a
former lifeguard rowing champion, who still took a surf boat out past
the breakers every morning before the lifeguards checked in.
Looking ahead, “Utt ohhhh,” Brenner
said as he slowly drive down the boardwalk – a police car was
parked on the boardwalk ahead of them, apparently waiting for them to
get to 14th street, where the College Grill, Bob's Grill
and the fishing pier were located, which was also the surfing beach
at the time.
The lone cop that got out of the car
was none too friendly. A short, Italian guy with a temper, he ordered
the cameraman to stop filming and Brenner to turn the car off and get
out.
Turning Brenner around onto the hood of
his cruiser, the cop pulled his hands behind his back and locked on
some handcuffs, and put Brenner in the back of his patrol car,
telling Tom Snyder to drive the van and follow him to the police
station on the first floor of the old red brick school house behind
the Greek joint at 9th and Central, Grand Central in Ocean
City that summer.
The cop through Brenner in a jail cell
and locked it before summoning the mayor, and telling him a KYW TV
truck was riding down the boardwalk and its driver was under arrest.
The mayor came right over from his travel agency office around the
corner on 8th street, and ordered D. Allen Stretch, the
public safety commissioner, to release the KYW guy immediately.
When he emerged from the jail cell
Brenner saw his secretary on a pay phone against the wall, calling
her father, a friend and neighbor of the mayor, while the cameraman
began filming Brenner walking out of the jail as the mayor came in.
“What the hell is going on here?”
he wanted to know. “You can't just come into my town and run
slipshod over everybody! We have rules and regulations and laws that
must be obeyed. If you would have asked I would have arranged for you
to have a permit to safely drive on the boardwalk with a police
escort, you didn't have to just barge your way in.”
“I'm sorry Mr. Mayor,” Brenner
spoke up. “We're here to do a story, just doing our jobs, and don't
want to cause any trouble for you.”
“Well you already caused trouble, and
if you're going to do a good, honest story about America's Greatest
Family Resort and how we combine Christian values with a fine time,
then that's okay, but if you're just here to exaggerate the beach
blanket bingo bull, the Sin Cities and the hippie stuff, well you
might as well just go back to Philly because we don't need any more
of that negative publicity.”
“I understand,” Brenner said,
handing the mayor a business card, “and my boss doesn't want that
story either. There's his number, give him a call and he will tell
you that. And we'll conduct ourselves like professionals from now
on.”
The secretary's father then walked in
and shaking the mayor's hand, said, “this here's my daughter and
she works for Mr. Brenner and KYWTV, and they're here to do a good
story about Ocean City, or I won't let them stay at my house.”
“Well then,” the mayor said, “as
long as they behave themselves and don't break any more laws they can
have the run of the island.”
Shenfeld, who had his camera
unobtrusively running perched on a table, turned it off, having
gotten on celluloid the truce deal between the mayor and the KYW TV
crew, a truce that would be tested more than once in the days ahead.
Next: Act II – Episode 2 -
Tom Snyder as KYW TV Reporter 1965
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