In Brooklyn, where I was born, they had Coney Island. But in Englewood, where I lived from before I was a year old, we didn’t need Coney Island, because we had Palisades Amusement Park. When I got to be about 10 years old, I would walk down the hill from my house and take the bus to Cliffside Park that would stop right in front of the amusement park. I must have done that hundreds of times in my childhood. The roller coaster was my favorite. That and the Wild Mouse. I would go on them over and over and over. It didn’t matter that I was nauseated for, like, 30 days. I was under the spell.
And I was intrigued by the fun-house mirrors. When I looked into those mirrors, I actually thought I looked that way, so I was riddled with low self-esteem. That was a harbinger of things to come in terms of my career.
I grew up only about three miles from the George Washington Bridge. When I got old enough to drive, I would park nearby and walk out to the middle of the bridge and stand there, legs spread, so I could straddle New York and New Jersey. I got a real kick out of that, so sometimes I would bring dates and say, “Listen, we can be in New York and New Jersey at the same time!” To me, it was intriguing, though I don’t remember one woman saying anything other than, “Um, can we go get a milkshake?”
Speaking of which, another great aspect of New Jersey is the diners. The greatest memory for me is the desserts they had in the glass-enclosed carousel that was spinning. I would be drooling. Boston cream pie was it for me. But who knew from Boston? To me it was Jersey cream pie.
My father was a famous caterer based in Teaneck, Ambassador Caterers. He did country clubs and all the rest. When I was a boy he had this big Cadillac Fleetwood, and when he would drive through the tollbooths on the Parkway I would beg him to let me throw the money into the basket. I would be in the back seat, waiting. It was a big event for me.
When we were driving home I would look across the river and see the New York skyline, and as a small boy it freaked me out. When I saw the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, I was smitten with them, but it was scary, too, because it was all so big, there was so much going on. So I felt really safe being from New Jersey. I never felt inferior looking across the river; it was more like, as a kid, Jersey is plenty for me.
One time I was doing a gig at Carnegie Hall, and I rented a car and drove out to my old street in Englewood and found the house I grew up in, which looked a hell of a lot smaller, like a house on a Monopoly board. There was a little boy on a tricycle out front. I said something like, “Hi, little boy, I used to live here,” but it came out sounding sleazy. He dropped the bike and ran into the house, screaming. The parents came out, and they recognized me. They went, “Richard Lewis?” I said, “Yeah. I used to live here. Would you mind if…can I come in?” They said, “Sure.” They were very sweet.
When I got down to the basement I saw this closet door that my father had decorated for my brother and me in the early ’50s. He covered the door with baseball cards from the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Giants and shellacked over them. You know, Willie, Duke, and Mick. It was the most amazing door you can imagine. And there it was. I thought, I’ve got to have this.
I went over to the guy and said, “Listen, I’m quite a baseball fan. You know what? You probably want another door.” It was really despicable, to this day I feel guilty. I said, “I can take it off the hinges right now and give you, like, what do you want for it? Three, four, five hundred dollars? I’ll give you five hundred dollars.” It was like finding a Van Gogh at a garage sale.
The guy looked at me and said, “No way!” He went from being a fan to being, like, “Get out of my house,” in seconds flat. I rushed back to New York in the car. There was no way I was getting that door. But it was one of the greatest doors this side of a cathedral in Florence, Italy.
As told to Eric Levin.