Tony Lambiase’s fascination with Marilyn Monroe memorabilia began in 1990 with a gift.
“It started when my sister-in-law bought me a cigarette lighter with Marilyn Monroe’s picture on it,” said downtown Jersey City resident Lambiase, former head of the city’s zoning department.
Lambiase continued to acquire items over the years with the legendary blond bombshell’s likeness, such as a framed sheet of Marilyn Monroe stamps and a life-sized statue of Marilyn in her iconic pose from the 1955 movie, “The Seven Year Itch” standing over the ventilation grate with her dress billowing in the breeze.
After accumulating 20 pieces of Monroe-related items, Lambiase donated his unique collection to the Jersey City Public Library last month. The objects are currently in storage in the back area of the New Jersey Room, which is located on the third floor of the library’s main branch on Jersey Avenue. The life-sized Marilyn is kept in the conference room on the same floor.
The library, with Lambiase’s blessing, plans to sell the items to raise money for the library system, which is facing cuts in municipal funding. City officials recently informed the library’s executive director, Priscilla Gardner, that her budget request of $8 million will probably not be granted for the upcoming fiscal year.
‘It started when my sister-in-law bought me a cigarette lighter with Marilyn Monroe’s picture on it.’ – Tony Lambiase
________
Everything about JC – and then some
Bob Schmidt can offer evidence, with a 1930s design plan, that the city’s fathers had an idea for an “airport on stilts” spanning the city’s Journal Square, Heights, and Downtown sections. He can also show off a 1922 program from the now-defunct State Theatre (now the site of an apartment building in Journal Square) featuring silent movie star Louise Lorraine.
Schmidt, 69, who has lived most of his life in the city’s Heights section, is a retired Jersey City fireman who has “lost count” of the vast collection he and his wife Penny have accumulated of any and all things Jersey City.
Known by the colorful moniker “Oxygen Bob” (due to his health condition stemming from a 1980 injury), Schmidt said his Jersey City memorabilia horde is a continuation of a lifetime spent collecting, starting when he was a young boy.
“Started out with stamps … I think all kids should collect,” Schmidt said. Schmidt also said he has over 50,000 vinyl records dating back to the late 1940s.
But in the past 10 to 15 years, his focus has been on collecting items pertaining to Jersey City.
They include the oldest item in his possession – a 1789 document addressed to Daniel Van Reypen, a member of one of Jersey City’s earliest settler families.
Even though Schmidt admits that his collecting has “kind of gotten out of hand” since much of the collectibles take up his house, he has no plans to give up.
“My relatives think I am as nutty as a fruitcake,” Schmidt said. “But who cares what they think?”
Postcards from JC
Claire Warlikowski keeps her postcards under plastic sheets in binders. But these postcards are not from family and friends.
The postcards are of various sections of Jersey City, from the turn of the century to the present.
Warlikowski, a retired art teacher from the Jersey City school system who lives on the city’s West Side, started collecting in 1992 while helping a Dickinson High School colleague to get Dickinson declared a historic site by the state.
She began her collection by finding postcards at antique shows locally, as well as out of town. She also credits local historians and postcard collectors Cynthia Harris and Leon Yost with further fostering her love and knowledge of postcard collecting.
“I have always loved history, and I love the architecture of the times,” Warlikowski said.
Warlikowski estimates she has “hundreds” of postcards, which she finds every three to four months when she goes to a show, or acquires through references from other aficionados.
Warlikowski also sees postcard collecting as a way of connecting with her childhood. She demonstrated by showing off a 1950s postcard of Our Lady of Czestochowa on Sussex Street in downtown Jersey City – her family’s church at the time.
She also has advice for people who want to become collectors, whether it is of postcards or anything else.
“I think they should stick to one area or subject matter, and make sure it is a narrow one so that you are able to achieve your goals.”
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.