Episode 230: Steve Epstein

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·46m 54s·analyzed·Nov 7, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Steve Epstein reflects on Broadway Arcade's legacy and pioneering role in competitive pinball.

Summary

Steve Epstein, operator of the legendary Broadway Arcade in Manhattan (1963–1997), discusses his family's decades-long commitment to the pinball industry. The episode covers the arcade's evolution from pre-pinball redemption gaming through the pinball renaissance of the 1970s–80s, his partnership with Roger Sharp in creating the PAPA ranking system and World Championships, and the cultural and social impact of the arcade as a diverse, inclusive community hub.

Key Claims

Broadway Arcade, located at 52nd Street and Broadway, was approximately 12,000 square feet total (6,000 upstairs and 6,000 downstairs) when it opened in the early 1960s.
high confidence · Steve explicitly states: '6,000 square feet upstairs, 6,000 square feet downstairs' in describing the original arcade.
Steve's father took over management of the arcade in 1963 and had previously worked managing an arcade in Newark, New Jersey in the 1950s.
high confidence · Steve states: 'Your father took it over in 63' and 'my dad had previously worked in the 50s at managing a arcade in Newark, New Jersey.'
Pinball was illegal in New York City from the 1940s until the mid-1970s due to Mayor LaGuardia's ban.
high confidence · Jeff references 'Mayor LaGuardia' and the '40s until the mid-70s,' and Steve confirms: 'before obviously pinball was not legal.'
Roger Sharp helped overturn the pinball ban by demonstrating that pinball was a game of skill rather than chance.
high confidence · Jeff states: 'Roger, obviously an excellent player. and he got the law turned around from LaGuardia when he showed that it was a game of skill,' and Steve confirms its significance.
Steve and Roger Sharp created the PAPA (Professional and Amateur Pinball Association) ranking system, modeled after bowling's Peterson point system.
high confidence · Steve explains: 'we both had a background in bowling' and 'we actually patterned it very much after our bowling experience, and it fit seamlessly into the point system that Roger developed called the PEBGA.'
Broadway Arcade hosted six World Championships until the arcade closed in 1997.
high confidence · Jeff asks: 'You had six that you hosted' and Steve responds 'until the arcade closed in 97.'
In 1987, a NovoTel hotel was built on top of the original Broadway Arcade building, forcing them to relocate to a 1,500-square-foot space.
high confidence · Steve describes: 'from 84 to 87, they built this hotel right on top of us as we were still trying to operate' and 'we had to abandon the 6,000-square-foot space to move next door to a 1,500-square space.'

Notable Quotes

“It was called the pinball capital of the world.”
Steve Epstein @ ~3:30 — Encapsulates Broadway Arcade's legendary status in the pinball community.
“My dad's philosophy was basically give the public a variety of different opportunities... he always stressed the idea that you want to have multiple types of entertainment to, I guess, capture as many people as you could at different varied interests.”
Steve Epstein @ ~6:00 — Foundational business philosophy that influenced the arcade's success and diversity.
“It was actually Hercules and Howard Smith that got Broadway Arcade on the map.”
Steve Epstein @ ~15:30 — Identifies the critical moment when media attention (Howard Smith's Village Voice column) and a landmark machine (Hercules) launched the arcade's fame.
“Roger definitely is key to everything and anything about Broadway Arcade's true success as far as becoming a pinball capital.”
Steve Epstein @ ~21:00 — Acknowledges Roger Sharp's foundational role in the arcade's competitive pinball legacy.
“I strongly believe that everybody wants two things. They want to have fun, and they want to be good at something, whatever it may be.”
Steve Epstein @ ~52:00 — Core philosophy about pinball's appeal and its value in building self-esteem and social connection.
“There was no strata system in Broadway Arcade. The poorest, the poor, the wealthiest, the wealthiest all would come in, play side by side with no problem with each other.”
Steve Epstein @ ~55:00 — Emphasizes Broadway Arcade's role as a socially leveling, inclusive community space.
“The reason the industry actually went bad... There's a whole cycle that developed. But, you know, we can get into that later. That's another talk maybe for another time.”
Steve Epstein @ ~48:00 — Hints at a broader critique about the pinball industry's shift toward quarterly shareholder reporting and away from test-based product development.

Entities

Broadway Arcadelocation Steve EpsteinpersonRoger SharppersonLou ReedpersonAlbert SimonpersonMayor LaGuardiaperson

Signals

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business_signal: Pinball industry shift from test-based product development cycles (6-month development with playtesting feedback) to quarterly shareholder reporting cycles, contributing to ongoing software updates and incomplete games at release.
high · Steve notes: 'companies hadn't gone public. There wasn't those every 90-day numbers they had to produce' and links this to 'the reason the industry actually went bad.'
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community_signal: Broadway Arcade's role as inclusive social space transcending class, age, and demographic boundaries; emphasis on self-esteem building through competitive play.
high · Steve emphasizes: 'There was no strata system in Broadway Arcade... all would come in, play side by side' and discusses diversity of clientele and social benefits.
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event_signal: PAPA leagues at Broadway Arcade included Sweetheart League (couples), youth leagues (partnered with Big Brothers/Big Sisters), and Saturday-morning singles leagues designed to test competitive ranking system.
high · Steve describes creating multiple league formats: 'Sweetheart League was a couples or married couples or dating couples league. I did youth leagues. I promoted through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters.'
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competitive_signal: PAPA system origins: created by Steve Epstein and Roger Sharp in late 1970s, based on bowling's Peterson point system, used paper-and-pencil scoring with hand-added machines before computerization.
high · Steve and Roger 'patterned it very much after our bowling experience' and 'we did that with paper and pencil and little hand-adding machines.'
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.135

0:00

It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter, at Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. One of my favorite things about Pinnberg is how you get to see, really, everybody from all over the world. And when you happen to come across a man who has dedicated most of his life, probably more than any person you know, to pinball, that's a real thrill. And he's our guest today. Steve Epstein joins us. Hi, Steve. How are you? I'm doing great, Jeff. Thanks for having me. Well, it's going to be a great history lesson for so many people today to hear about the legendary Broadway arcade, something your father took over. I guess that would have been in 1963, and then you took over the reins. And that's a place I certainly miss. I wish I could go back in time to that magical place in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when you were there. But let's reminisce, shall we? Absolutely. It was called the pinball capital of the world. And when we talk about arcades, think of this, 6,000 square feet upstairs, 6,000 square feet downstairs. and for such a long period of time, too. Your father took it over in 63. What was his passion for arcades? Well, I was very fortunate. My dad came involved in the amusement industry when he got out of the Army. I guess it was 48. And it turns out that one of his cousins, a second cousin, was Albert Simon. And I don't know if you're familiar, but Albert Simon at that time was one of the biggest distributor and operator of arcades in the eastern area of the country. And that was basically our silent partner. And my dad had previously worked in the 50s at managing a arcade in Newark, New Jersey. And that was all pinball. I remember six years old, seven years old, we're going back to my age of 70. So we're talking about 1953, 54. I would go in on a Sunday with my brother, and we would be handed the keys to the machines, and the two little guys would be running around, and that's where I got introduced to pinball, standing on basically a milk carton and playing pinball. And my dad, his philosophy was basically give the public a variety of different opportunities. So other than pinball, when we got into the Broadway arcade, before obviously pinball was not legal, So there was a multitude of different types of entertainment. But he always stressed the idea that you want to have multiple types of entertainment to, I guess, capture as many people as you could at different varied interests. So he had a passion for the industry, and he passed that on to me. Yeah, because there weren't pinball machines, thanks to Mayor LaGuardia, for a long period of time. What, the 40s until the mid-70s? So I guess the Broadway arcade was filled with redemption games, which a lot of people associate to today, but that's something you had way back then. Yes, absolutely. We had 20 skee-ball machines, all of them. We had about 20 different types of pokerinos and bingorinos, all that were hand-dispensed tickets.

5:47

It's funny you mention that, because we did a lot of T-shirts over the years for pinball at the Broadway Arcades for sure. And what a location too, Broadway and 52nd. You couldn't be at a better place just north of Times Square. So I know there were a lot of people from Broadway and megastars would show up there all the time. Did the volume increase once pinball came in there in the mid-'70s? Oh, absolutely. Well, I guess you'd have to say it was the perfect storm for us. 52nd Street and Broadway, when we first started in the early 60s, was really kind of the outlier. It was not really what you would want as far as a place that had foot traffic. It was really above, you know, really where the intense traffic was. But in the late 60s, early 70s, they started building these 70-story, 60-story office towers a block away on 6th Avenue and 5th Avenue, all around us in Midtown. So now you have these buildings going up, and all of a sudden in 75, 76, pinball got reinstated, and the video became part of our repertoire of entertainment. So we were really at the forefront of offering this type of entertainment to a very new audience that was just coming into that area. So as I always say, we were very lucky. We had the perfect scenario as far as creating a business that was not only successful, but was very well loved and appreciated by a multitude of people. But even though you were just north of Times Square, and as you say, maybe not the most desirable place, that's the great thing about New York. I think of all the legendary clubs, and they might not have been in prime locations, but you went out of your way to go find CBGBs in the East Village. The old Cotton Club was legendary. Studio 54 on West 54th, Palladium, and Copacabana. I mean, all these legendary places. Because you got the reputation, people wanted to be there, and I imagine that was the same with Broadway Arcade. Yes. Well, it worked out very well for us. I mean, we were situated, again, in the perfect spot. There was the media. There were a lot of media outlets, CBS, ABC, and NBC were all up in that area. And fortunately for us, we did have some of those writers and personalities as customers. So whenever there was a story related to something new about a video or a pinball machine, we were very well situated. first I had a personal relationship with most of these people to come in and talk about it and get a story. So, yes, it kind of built on itself. And I guess the biggest break we ever had was through The Village Voice, an old state New York, you know, hippie, you know, underground magazine. Oh, it's huge. Yeah, The Village Voice. If it wasn't for that, people wouldn't have known about Woodstock. I know about The Village Voice for sure. Yeah, well, there was a writer named Howard Smith that did a column called The Scene. And Howard was a fellow Jerseyman as myself, and I got to be very friendly with him. And he'd come up and play, and he was really the first guy, the first person to really feature something that we had at the store. And that was Hercules, the very first incredibly large pinball machine. And that was the first real story with pictures that I can really recall that kind of set us along our way. So it was actually Hercules and Howard Smith that got Broadway Arcade on the map. And everyone started to show up. In fact, you had lots of celebrities. It would be not uncommon to see Paul Simon playing, Paul Newman, Ed Sullivan used to play in the day. And, in fact, even Lou Reed held a wedding reception at Broadway Arcade. Yeah, that's another great pinball connection. And, yes, Lou and I had formed a friendship, I think, in 77, 78. And, yeah, when he got married, we offered him the arcade for his wedding reception. He happily agreed. And, yeah, it was a very interesting evening, to say the least. Well, in the 70s, you certainly came across somebody that became one of your greatest friends in Roger Sharp, too. And Roger, obviously an excellent player. and he got the law turned around from LaGuardia when he showed that it was a game of skill. And that really changed things, I imagine, for Broadway Arcade and for you personally. Oh, immensely, immensely. I formed a now still a lifelong friendship with Roger. Quite a fortunate happenstance for me because through him I got a much better understanding of pinball, a much better feeling for the uniqueness of pinball and what it can bring to a personal experience. And it really opened my eyes to a world that I really wasn't exposed to. So Roger definitely is key to everything and anything about Broadway Arcade's true success as far as becoming a pinball capital. So as pinball machines started to come back and you were allowed to have them at Broadway Arcade, I guess one of the big changes too was the add a ball as opposed to free games Yeah, what happened for us in the way the law was changed and we were since we were visible with a license We needed to follow the law and edible was the only way we could operate the pinball But again that happened to be a very lucky happenstance because as my dad would tell me you know You not giving away another game which was at that time a 25 value actually a dime value but we eventually got up to 25 cents in the late 70s. He said, you're only giving them time. You're not giving them another value. So the time concept, which was an easy way to, one, extend your game, but also to get a higher score. So all those things led to what developed into the competitive world of Papa with Roger and I, you know, playing game after game after game for two or three years. And, you know, the higher scores became what was more desirable than getting a free game because we attached T-shirts to the high scores and, again, other different marketing ability by getting higher scores. And that really, you know, I was always told you need to have that knocker. You need to have that feeling that you won something. But in reality, we replaced that all with the competitive pinball idea, and it worked seamlessly for us and created what we have today, which is phenomenal. Yes, you and Roger putting together, Papa, as we know it, the ranking system. It didn't exist until you guys came up with this. And it was just, I assume, there were a lot of competitors in New York that just wanted to see, okay, where do I really rank? I know how I'm doing on this machine at this time in this four-player game or whatever the case may be, but what about comparing it to everyone else? And the Papa system was created and also World Championships. You had six that you hosted. Yeah, until the arcade closed in 97. Yeah, we were doing these World Championships that, again, was a development out of the idea that Roger and I conceived of as far as how we want to approach bringing players and making them interested in competing. And we both had a background in bowling. Actually, that was my lettered sport in high school. And he also was a high-end bowler. And we both realized that the system, the scoring system, which they called the Peterson point system, would lend itself very well to pinball because we could assign values with different point values. So a score had a certain value, And then you could adjust that accordingly to the different types of level of competition, whether you had a league with nine people in it or you had a league with doubles with 12 people in it, six teams. And so we actually patterned it very much after our bowling experience, and it fit seamlessly into the point system that Roger developed called the PEBGA, which is the point proficiency average per game, which is like a ERA or a batting average. and our hope was that we could handicap through that system to players. And as it has evolved, that has worked very well throughout the world, actually. It's so easy to do now with match play software, with never-drain software, but go back to when you and Roger and even Lionel Martinez were logging 10,000 sets of games over a five-year period just to kind of get some basis. Yes, that's what we did. and Roger keeping all the scores, and he actually to this day has those in his home somewhere, which I can appreciate, but don't think I want around money. It was, how's the best way to say it? It became a very workable system, and of course, we all did that with paper and pencil. All the pop-up tournaments were done with paper and pencil and little hand-adding machines. It was an unbelievable amount of work, and it's so great to see this all, like you said, in Pinberg, With 1,000 players all putting in scores and within 10 minutes, you knew where you were going next. Obviously, the computers helped a lot. I was very fortunate in the early days to have a couple of my players that were in the leagues that were computer programmers. And they'd come up with a rudimentary system for me to use to keep the scores and everything else. So I did have that a little bit, but not like you have today. It is amazing to think of how it once was. and really that you guys had the passion to make this grow and expand before there was the Internet, before the computers, and it just happened to be in the biggest city in the world. You had the best venue. And this venue, too, let's put things into perspective. The square footage was probably pretty pricey back then. Yeah, when we eventually had to renegotiate our lease, which was, When we had been there, we were really coming to the end of a 20-year lease that my dad had picked up and was coming due in probably 87. And at that time, a hotel came in, bought the air rights to the building that we were in, which was actually built early in the Depression, ran out of money, was topped off, but had a foundation for a 45-story building. And it was topped off at six floors. And this NovoTel company came in and they bought the air rights. And actually from 84 to 87, they built this hotel right on top of us as we were still trying to operate and be in business. And unfortunately, when that building got done, we had a difficult negotiation with our new landlord. and we had to abandon the 6,000-square-foot space to move next door to a 1,500-square space to keep operating. That was the settlement that we made to keep on going. But, again, we didn't have a real legal footing because the way the laws were in New York for zoning, we couldn't even move our license 10 feet to where we were now set up. So it was sort of a hush-hush deal done by the powers that be so the hotel could open up and we could abandon the arcade because they needed that space for the part of the lobby of the new hotel. So that kind of got us to this point where the second Broadway arcade was built or started back in 87, which was a 1,500 square foot, 67-piece location. In 67 pieces, we still maintain 20 pinball machines, paying $150 a square foot. Okay, there it is, $150 a square foot, and your pinball machines are taking up a lot more real estate than a stand-up video game machine. And you mentioned this is 87, so you still had the passion for pinball, even though that cost you more in the square footage. No, absolutely. But again, now we go back to my dad's whole concept of alternate different types of entertainment. And, yeah, so it could have been easy to put in all video games and just done that. But it just didn't make sense to me. I really felt that, you know, having that balance and creating different. Because you really do have two different clientele. There's a video player and there's a pinball player. They usually don't. They mix, but they don't play that intently on, you know, a video player may play a game of pinball once or twice. And the same with a pinball player with a video game. but they're not going to put all their money into just one. They'll keep it more into one focus. And, again, we attracted because it's New York City. That's the key. You have a volume of people, 10 million people within a half hour of where you are. It's a lot of people. So it's the perfect place for exactly what we did. For getting the square footage, were you making more money off the pinball machines or the video games at that time? This is once you moved in 87. Yeah, well, no, the video obviously became much more of an income getter, only because, again, you know, it was a much quicker quarter until people got like a Pac-Man. You know, when Pac-Man first came out, you burned through it. By the second, third month, you could spend an hour playing a Pac-Man, where pinball up front, you could play a little longer than a video game, but you're never going to play. more than 15, even the best players might play more than 15, 20 minutes on a game. So it balanced itself out eventually. But again, video, because it was newer and it was attracting more people, that was really the way you're going to make your money. One thing that was great about Broadway Arcade was that it was a great place to test machines, and a lot of the companies really looked at some of the scores and some of the ways games were played based on your customers. Yeah, that's an interesting way we became a test location. Just a little inside story with my good friend Roger. At the time, Roger was writing reviews for the trade magazines, and he had to travel. Well, let's see where he was. He lived in New York. He had to travel to Connecticut or Pennsylvania to find new games that were coming out on tests in different areas. So he convinced me that I should try to buy all new equipment and maybe we could become a test market. Well, I didn't realize why he was doing that, but it made sense to me that he did it because he didn't want to have to travel all over the place. So now he was able to establish all these games coming in and have to go anywhere. He just had to come to the arcade and he could review all the games he wanted. And, of course, we were very well accepted by the manufacturers because we had quite a bit of good players. Myself, you know, understood what made a good machine, I think, through Roger's tutelage. I understood what a balance a game had to be, why, you know, shots were shots, why people would be interested in pursuing playing pinball. And so we were able to give the designers, because back in the day, they had more time to produce a game. You know, the companies hadn't gone public. There wasn't those every 90-day numbers they had to produce. So they could spend six months developing a pinball machine by testing, getting feedback, changing certain things on a play field, you know, that they could do before they finished product. Unfortunately, that stopped years ago when the whole cycle of having to, you know, produce numbers for their stockholders, and that's a whole other story to me. The reason the industry actually went bad. if you want to put it that way.

22:00

Okay. Okay, maybe not. It's interesting that companies don't do that today. The pinball companies, at least I don't believe, I'm not aware of it, are putting machines out to be tested because that's just not how machines are revealed today. Is that a lost art? Couldn't companies benefit from that today, or is it just a different world as far as marketing games? I really can answer that question but it evident to me by the course of all these software updates that keep on coming out The years after the game is put out just proves that you know they not finished products when they come out of the shops as far as the length and the depth of the game That's a different era, because when we were doing it, we really had the very rudimentary type of computers. The games weren't as sophisticated when they first started being produced solid state. There wasn't that much programming. They weren't that deep. It was more of lights and different sounds and features. But now there's so many different rule sets that this becomes sort of an abyss of trying to keep something that's not going to be totally open-ended, but something that's going to keep people interested for a long period of time. and that's why I feel there's a lot of these games that are out for a year or two, and then they finally get the final updates on the programming. So you just explained it right there. You know what? They don't need to put machines in an arcade to test because their test market are the consumers themselves. You can see them being streamed. You can see what the forums are saying about the games, and that's how the updates are made. Yeah, absolutely. But, again, the design themselves. I mean, I remember a few features that we were able to have input with on certain games. And, you know, I'm very proud of what we accomplished there as far as our input with the different designers. And through Roger and going out to the shows, I was very fortunate to get to know most of the designers as friends and have a very good rapport and interaction with them. So, you know, it was mutual respect, which was great. And, you know, it would have never happened if Roger hadn't sort of taken me by the short hairs and pushed me to really get into what pinball was all about. So, Steve, with you and Roger creating the PAPA system, the scoring system, logging all those scores, an amazing thing started to happen at Broadway Arcade. Leagues began, and leagues as we know today. There was the Sweetheart League, in fact, and you had your Wall of Champions. How did the original leagues work? Well, to do the first test, the first beta, I selected nine. Roger and I figured we'd start with nine players, and that would be a singles league. And put them in groups of three, and they'd play three different games, and they would get points for winning first, second, and third. And at that point, that's how they would finish the day, and then the points would be accumulated, and that's how you'd rank. So to do that, I selected, again, some of the players that I knew, and I made the first league day on a Saturday morning at 9 o'clock. So these were young men who probably were out partying on Friday night, and my idea was if they showed up for a league on Saturday morning to play, I had something really special. And that's what took place, actually. I specifically chose a Saturday morning because it would be the toughest day for these guys to get up and come out and play. And then it worked out. And from there, we developed different types of leagues. We wanted to show that you could use different types. Like I said, the Sweetheart League was a couples or married couples or dating couples league. I did youth leagues. I promoted through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters. I offered up a chance for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters to come in and play in their own little organized league. And I had been a big brother actually in college, so I understood the need to have something to do with that particular age group. And it worked out really well. And so we showed how young kids, 10, 11, 12 years old, can compete equally with an adult in a very legitimate competition and actually have value to what they were doing. And, you know, all those things add up to what pinball can give a person as far as rewards and self-esteem. and just the, because that's what brought me to pinball, was when I was seven years old and I'm playing, I had some sort of natural hand ability and I did very well at it. And I'd have adults come over and look at what I was doing and they'd all compliment me and wonder how I was doing it. And, you know, when you're that age, that's a very impressionable thing. And to get that kind of feedback and that kind of validation goes a long way. And that really was really the base for whatever took place after that. I strongly believe that everybody wants two things. They want to have fun, and they want to be good at something, whatever it may be. So if it can happen to be both, in this case in pinball, that's a great benefit to your childhood and your well-being. And I think of kids today, again, being a parent, and I hear all kinds of parents talk about, oh, I'm a kid, all they're doing is video games, video games, the Fortnite, and this, that. And, you know, the summer has now passed, and oh, did you get out? Did you see your friends, you know, before you went back to school? no, but I talk to them online all the time. That's their way of socializing, and they're spending lots of hours doing this kind of thing. And I think about when I was a kid. Yes, it was different. I didn't sit in front of a computer because it wasn't a computer or even an Atari 2600 or whatever the home system was. I didn't sit in front of it for hours and hours. But what I did do every waking moment if I could, if I wasn't playing baseball or some sort of sport or riding your bike, darn right, if I had some quarters in my pocket, I was going to an arcade. So, you know, it was just fun. And I think there are some benefits to that kind of social aspect. And you talked about you as a 7-year-old having the hand-eye coordination, and that really helped your self-esteem. What are some of the other things you saw when you saw people have so much fun at Broadway Arcade? To me, the one thing I truly am most proud of is because of the diversity of New York City and different levels of people that you will find between, you know, different stratas. There was no strata system in Burley Arcade. The poorest, the poor, the wealthiest, the wealthiest all would come in, play side by side with no problem with each other, have a great time, walk out, go and go to the different worlds. So that part of it was very positive for me to create an environment that allowed all different people from all different walks of life to come in, enjoy something and then be able to get out and go about their lives. So I always felt that was very positive. I always felt that the socialization aspect of it was very positive. It was the type of thing that friends get together and you get friendlier. You meet people. Like I said, I've met an incredible amount of people over my lifetime through pinball that are still very special to me and special will always be. And the common denominator is pinball. I mean, there's so many stories I can tell about people I met and their experiences with pinball and different things, how it all kind of melded into this perfect world. And I know nothing is perfect, but to me, pinball is nearly as perfect as anything can be. You know, and it's just so unique and wonderful. Steve, you've known the secret for years. You've seen this, and that's the thing that I'm amazed about whenever I go to tournaments and big events is that everyone came from different walks of life. And it doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter your age, sex, anything. Anybody can love pinball. Anybody can be great at pinball, and that's the real, real cool thing. And you've known that for years now, so you saw that even back then. That's something. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, I guess I was the right person at the right time to be at Broadway Arcade. I mean, I'm just that I'm open. I love people. I love to talk to people, you know, and just I'm sort of a social guy. So it worked out. It just definitely worked out. And to this day, I, you know, I mean, talking about Broly Arcade, I almost have a tear in my eye. I mean, this was just a very special, special place. And I have to thank whomever out there in heaven that's looking down on me to have let me experience it for so many years. I can't imagine if there's just one. There has to be several. But maybe your favorite or some of your favorite all-time moments at Broadway Arcade. Boy, I guess one of the ultimate experiences involves Roger, Lou Reed, and myself. And I was playing Sea Witch against Roger, and Lou happened to be over our shoulder. And I probably had the best ball I've ever had in my entire life. I mean, it must have lasted 20 minutes. And just to have that two people that were there watching me play, that sticks out in my mind as one of the all-time nights of my life. But again, there's so many different games and so many different experiences over the years. Going to a trade show and hanging out with Steve Ritchie and playing Black Knight for the first time. or, you know, going and playing Adam's Family, you know, with Pat Lawler. You know, it was just these type of things that, you know, being able to go to the designers' rooms at Williams and Bally and Stern and Gottlieb and have some input with the designers, you know, with Roger, obviously. I mean, I wasn't going on my own, but, you know, we formed a very good team, Roger and I. Everyone would look around and say, you know, who's attached at the hip, you know? It was just unique. So those type of experiences and then having the input and being able to help. I mean, we had an issue. We had one of the first prototypes of Adam's family come in. And believe it or not, when Ting used to pick up the ball and bring it down into the lower part of the game, there was a little issue with if your game wasn't perfectly pitched, the ball would not actually go through the channel and go and be back in play. And we found that out real quick, and I think we helped out a little bit on that one. But, you know, that was one of those type of things, that being involved with one of the greatest Tumor Machines ever made might not have been there because of that little problem. It may not have worked well. So, again, you know, those type of experiences really just make me feel great. And I always look back at them, and I have that for myself. So it's been a great trip. Yeah, great memories indeed. And I know somebody that was really close to you. Maybe you can describe to people who the late John Hammond was and how important he was to Broadway Arcade. Well, yeah, John, I got to meet John Hammond, who was a wonderful man, a wonderful man. He actually was a record producer at CBS, and he specialized actually in jazz in the beginning. His lineage was his grandfather was Commodore Vanderbilt, believe it or not. He grew up, as he told me, in what is now the Russian embassy in New York City and enjoyed whatever that world was. But as a young man, he dedicated his life to music and to jazz. And he was really responsible for so many things that happened in the world of jazz. But he also spanned the contemporary world He basically signed Bruce Springsteen to his first contract I know I wrote something about that because it actually pinball that John loved And Bruce Springsteen turns out to be as people know, a very avid pinball player. And that love of that pinball actually became a basis for their trust that allowed John to sign Bruce Springsteen. So those things, Who'll never know? So meeting John opened up an incredible world to me. Just having the validation of somebody of that world who'd come in to the arcade. All he wanted to do was hang around, learn lunchtime. His favorite game was actually the original Valley Playboy. That was something that he really... He'd go there for an hour, hour and a half every day. He was already in his late 60s, early 70s. And just having that experience was very unique, very unique. I imagine another unique experience. I'm glad to see it back in New York City, the guys from Never Beef bringing back big pinball events to New York City because that's something you did with the original Papa series at the Park Central Hotel, I believe, wasn't it? Yes, it was the ballroom at the Park Central Hotel. And we were able to bring in, because of, again, my relationship that had formed with different distributors and operators in the area, I was able to get these gentlemen to bring games off their route. I mean, I could not physically bring in 100 pinball machines. I didn't have the 100 pinball machines, and I couldn't take them out of the Broadway Arcade because that was my living. So we got different operators to bring in a certain, set up a certain number. We started with eight games, Roger and I developed a line of pinball, and we would develop it through what was current in the operating world. that would be your qualifying bank. And we'd have four of those banks, each identical, all set up so that no game played similarly. So if we had a game that had a similar shot in the line, we would move them, they'd never be next to each other, so no one could get comfortable playing, you know, getting into a rhythm. We always felt we needed to keep things at the highest level possible. And then the manufacturers brought in all the newest equipment that were going to be debuted at the show. at the tournament. So those would be the finals games. And they would be, we'd have Williams bring in, Valley bring in one East, and Premier or Gottlieb, Stern. At one point when Gottlieb came out, when Premier and then Gottlieb started or Capcom started, we'd have extra games like that. And that's really filled up the ballroom and accommodated the hundreds of people that came to play. And, again, it was very unique, you know, Even getting scorekeepers, my children, I have two wonderful daughters. One was in high school at the time, and the other one was in grade school. And we bring their friends in to keep score. So I'd have 40 kids up in the hotel rooms in the hotel, which was the Park Central, that were keeping score, everything by hand. It was incredible. If you think about the logistics of it today, I don't know if I'd have the strength to do it. But I have to say my wife, Sandra, Joseph Camerata, for now for amusement, and Frank Sininsky, their wives, all helped. I mean, it was just an amazing group that came together to put this thing on. And, you know, just the work involved and having the techs come from the manufacturers which supply techs, Tom Cahill comes to mind, was just phenomenal. Tom, another great pinball guy. I don't know if you're familiar with Tom Cahill from Williams, but one of the most wonderful people you ever want to meet. And he was the head tech there. He'd come in and work on some of the games again, and Jim Sherwood from Western would be there. I mean, I couldn't even rate Tansy. I mean, there's so many different names that happened that just, you know, just the coming together, it was a real happening, especially because it was new. I mean, and then people just responded so well to it. Steve, you still have the passion today about pinball, and I love talking to you about this and hearing these great memories too. And that passion obviously carried over too in your Broadway arcade days in the early 90s when you put out The Flipside. So again, pre-internet, pre-forums and all that other stuff. Here's Steve producing a 20 to 40-page magazine, and it is amazing all the content in the old articles. And you can find those actually on papa.org, and I recommend doing them. But, I mean, the different reviews, the different writers. I was reading one about, you know, fishtails and Lethal Weapon 3 coming out and all. It's really amazing articles and good stuff in there that I imagine that took a lot of your time to put together the flip side. Oh, it did. I mean, again, Roger was very helpful. And actually, one of Roger's, Roger's secretary at Williams helped us do the editing and putting the magazine together. So it was a team effort, for sure. No, this was, oh, God, you know, I'm caught badly because I can't remember. Oh, that's okay. name. I want to definitely acknowledge because she did a lot of the work, but we also used a lot of the players to write reviews and then had the designers give us stories. I mean, it was just a nice community of people and it was great to be able to do it for the time we were able to accomplish it. Unfortunately, a lot of those magazines went to the river, to the flood in Pittsburgh when Papa went to Kevin and his location. But at least they're still there, and thank Kevin for keeping it alive by posting it and putting it in the archives of Papa from Pittsburgh. Yeah, a lot of the Flipside actual physical magazines, but I know Kevin has at least one of every one, and some of those are on PDF forms on papa.org. And speaking of Papa, I know Roger Sharp's been on this show before, and obviously, You've talked about it, too. He was a little regretful that it finally got sold to Kevin. I mean, it was something he might have wanted to do something different with. But your reasons for selling Papa? Well, the reason was, and I don't know if anyone's ever seen the movie Special and Lit, which I was lucky enough to be involved with, but I was in a pretty bad mental state. I mean, not mental where I was going out doing bad things, but it was a very depressing situation going from being sort of the top of the world to being anonymous again, and no direction. And I didn't want Papa to stop, and I didn't have the ability to do it without having the Broadway arcade. So then an option came that Kevin Martin, who was a designer and programmer who had made a wonderful fortune with his pair hosting a web company, was a, well, seemed to be the right fit. I had met Kevin at the tournament. He had come to almost all the poppers, you know, so I had a good feeling that he would be a good shepherd of it, and I didn't want it to end. So at that point, I just wanted to be put in the hands. I didn't want to have to deal with it anymore. If I had more of a mental acuity or less sort of a dull ache in my head, I might have licensed it and worked with Kevin, but I didn't see that at the time. And, you know, that was an unfortunate, but not so unfortunate because, you know, with Roger's kids and we resurrected the IFPA, which was a competing tournament group that the industry had set up, which didn't go very well. And that's another story for another day on why all that didn't work out. So we took over the IFPA name and the companies that had started it were more than happy to give us the name. and Josh and Zach and all their helpers have really moved that to another level as well. It definitely had to be a difficult time emotionally for you in 1997 when Broadway Arcade closed. And, I mean, you talked about having to move one door over in the 80s. And, I mean, really, pinball in 97. Tough times, right? Because, you know, Williams was getting it. Well, soon after. I mean, the last game I think we operated was Attack from Mars from Williams. That was, I remember, the last game I bought. Right before Medieval Madness came out, we closed. And, yeah, I mean, it was, like I said, it was tough. It was very tough. Financially, it was not tough because, you know, a lot of quarters came over the transom back in the day. But it wasn't about the money. It was really about an identity. was really about, you know, I put a lot into what I did, and I guess I felt that was who I was. As it turns out, that's not the case. But seeing myself on film when it first came out, I guess especially in 2010, I just saw this really got me motivated and got me back and sort of broke me out of whatever the funk was and, you know, got me to this point today. So, you know, I'm happy the way things worked out. I wish I could have. I wish it would still be working. Broderick Arcade was there. Trust me, I would have died and been buried in a pinball machine. Broderick Arcade worked out that way. Let's not hope that happens. And you know what? Think of the history. Think of what you, not what isn't there now. Think of what you brought for so many generations, how many people you got into pinball, how many people walked through there. I don't think there's an arcade anywhere in the world that can say more people walk through your arcade, Steve, than anywhere else. And that might have been their first time ever seeing pinball. That might have got them hooked. That might have been the fix they need. That might have got them out of trouble where they could have been on the streets doing other horrible things. But, you know, you brought everyone together, and that's a pretty amazing thing. And there's no – I hope there are zero regrets because there shouldn't be. No, no regrets. I have absolutely none whatsoever. I've been very blessed. I've been blessed with a wonderful wife and wonderful kids, and I've got seven grandkids. I've had what you would have to consider a magical life, and I appreciate it. And I really appreciate you saying what you just did. It makes me feel really, really, really, really humble. And, yes, I'm very proud of what we accomplished. And to this day, being at Pinberg, which unfortunately was my first one and not my last, I was thrilled. I was so thrilled to meet so many people that had just started playing three, four years ago and started competing. You know, I mean, I was growing for a group of people that had been hardcore players, but now the future is so bright. I mean, with so many young kids and so much out there and tournaments every day and just the awareness of it, it really is quite rewarding. And I'm so happy to have met you again at Tinberg and,