6th Street and Forest Avenue in Lakewood Then and Now

Hotel Arthur Lakewood NJ 1930-1945

Last week America mourned the loss of a entertainer and legendary comedian. Jerry Lewis was born on March 16, 1926, the son of Jewish vaudeville entertainers. His birth name was Joseph Levitch, according to most sources. He grew up in Irvington, NJ but his career started in Lakewood. His first gig was at the hotel Arthur in Lakewood, NJ on sixth street and Forest Avenue. Lakewood and the Catskills were both resorts for hundreds of thousands of Jews who would leave the city for a vacation. Both had hotels and resorts dotting its landscape. After the turn of the century there were more than 100 hotels and 45 rooming houses in Lakewood many were Jewish but not all. The population, which ordinarily hovered around 4,000, could swell by 25,000 on a holiday weekend. Laurel‐in‐the‐Pines a 400‐room Lakewood Hotel, which catered to wealthy Jewish families was built by Nathan Strauss, the department‐store magnate, after he was denied admittance to the other two hotels. Lakewood had a small Orthodox community centered near the old shul on the other side of the tracks it would accommodate vacationers during the winter.
Sullivan County, NY also once boasted 538 hotels and over 50,000 bungalows, it was an illustrious, vacationing era.

The physical buildings are mostly gone by now but more so are the souls of thousands upon thousands of Jews who nebach were lost assimilated to the American culture and melting pot. 

B"H today 6th street and Forest is the heart of Lakewood and is replaced with the biggest makom Torah in America. Thousands of Jews are in Lakewood not for vacaton and entertainment but to live in and be part of a Makom Torah.  klal yisrael is growing  by leaps and bounds with large populations of Torch observant Yidden.
The lull and void of the neshamos lost is
irreplaceable but there is still work we can do to reach out to hashems lost children. 
 The assimilation slowly chipped away at the tight family bonds formed long ago in the shtetls of Eastern Europe; a great number of American Jews intermarried with other faiths. The younger generation, keen on being defined as American first before any other trait, saw little need to participate in Jewish activities as well. With the Yomim noraim coming up let's think about all the nidachim and lost children of Hashem.