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Memories of Faber's Fascination

Have you ever played Fascination? It's a group game often described as combining the luck of bingo with the skill of Skee-Ball. A 2011 interview I recorded with Sam Person, son-in-law of Faber's Fascination founder Nat Faber, is now available for listening in the Coney Island History Project oral history archive. The interview was research for an article titled "Fascinated by Fascination" that I wrote for Games Magazine in 2012.

 

According to Billboard Magazine, 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. Sam Person passed away in 2017 at the age of 86.

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