These bumper cars were once in the Palace Amusements in Asbury Park.
By WILLIAM CLARk
Randy Senna has a warehouse packed with artifacts of a time long passed.
The longtime Jersey Shore amusement proprietor owns relics of old games, attractions, and rides that he has collected since the late 1980s.
Some of the most famous items come from the Palace Amusements in Asbury Park.
A warehouse in Wildwood, where he now lives, is necessary when you consider that Senna has the deconstructed materials of bumper cars, gorilla statues and other large pieces of memorabilia that simply would not fit in a collector’s living room.
In 1988, Bill Foster, the former manager of the Palace reached out to Senna who was operating on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. Foster offered Senna the opportunity to buy some of the equipment. Senna drove a box truck himself and filled load after load with what was most likely heading for the scrap pile. When the box trucks weren’t enough, Senna rented tractor trailers and hired help to keep piling in whatever he could.
If it wasn’t bolted down, Senna was going to take it.
Senna said the bumper cars are special as they were some of the original designs. Specifically with a rubber ring around the outside the provided little cushion upon impact.
“If you had a head on bump, the riders could seriously get hurt,” he said. “Your head would go flying into the steering wheel and you’d get broken teeth.”
So Senna took the cars, the walls and the polished steel floor.
“Everything was taken (in the) hope to reassemble the ride with the same experience,” he said, sans the required dental work following.
Senna hopes that his collection can one day be a mecca of amusement history of New Jersey. In pursuit of this goal he has battled bureaucracy in Wildwood and the state of New Jersey. The changing culture of recreation has left the 63- year old lover of the old ways behind.
Senna’s dream is to set up a museum to the amusement industry of New Jersey, something that has been dear to his life since he was a child running the table of Fascination games in Seaside Heights.
“The Palace still exists because it exists in those that remember it,” he said. “As we get older there are fewer people that can remember. Who is going to remember it in 20 years? If there aren’t people that can teach others then they will never know.”
Senna laments the changing nature of the Jersey Shore as well. Amusements are no longer as desired as they were when he was a child. Open real estate is quickly scooped up by developers and turned into condos, bars or restaurants. Senna understands the economic forces at hand. It is tough to justify opening a business that charges the minimum for gaming. With the proliferation of gambling, gaming for fun’s sake is a tough sell.
Senna admits to being a hoarder. But unlike the negative profiles on shows, which he has been a part of in the past, he believes that his collection from the golden era of boardwalk amusements is waiting for its day that it will be dusted off and appreciated for the economic driver that it once was.
“Where’s the childhood? It’s gone! Places like the Palace sold fun,” he said.
With the changing nature of recreation, vacations and disposable income, Senna continues his quest to find space for his treasures. Could he sell the collection for a neat profit and unburden himself of the fees that come with storage? Almost certainly.
But that is not the objective. Unlike others who purchased parts of the Palace, restored them and sold them, Senna said he purchased the items as a labor of love.
“In saving the Palace. I was saving memories of my good times and history,” he said. “I was holding onto an era that was very special and dear to me. I was saving what was special for other people’s memories as well.”