Sam Person

Sam Person shares family memories of Nat Faber's Fascination arcade and amusement business empire. Person worked in Coney Island as a manager at his father-in-law's Faber’s Fascination in 1953 and 1954 when he was in college studying to be a CPA. Fascination is a group game often described as combining the luck of bingo with the skill of Skee-Ball.  According to Billboard, the store's location on Surf Avenue opposite the subway terminal was the original Fascination, in existence since 1926. When the game was in its heyday, from the 1930s through the ‘60s, it was popular enough in Coney Island to keep three separate Fascination businesses flourishing. Sadly, all closed in the 1970s, though the bare-bulb sign for Faber’s Fascination survived, and fronted a gaming arcade until 2010.  This interview was recorded in 2011, not as an oral history, but as research for an article that interviewer Tricia Vita was writing titled "Fascinated by Fascination," which was published in Games Magazine in February 2012.

Sam Person passed away on November 11, 2017 at the age of 86.