Summer party brings guests back to the Jazz Age
A huge dress-up party happens twice a summer on an island in New York Harbor celebrating the music and style of the 1920s and '30s, CBS News' Michelle Miller reports.
It's a place where swing is still king and parasols and hand fans are high fashion.
Two weekends a year, thousands flock by ferry to Governors Island, a 172-acre island just a half-mile off lower Manhattan, dressed head to toe in 90-degree temperatures for a chance to spend a day in the Jazz Age.
Maestro of the Jazz Age Lawn Party Michael Arenella said he doesn't make people come.
"That is the secret is, I don't make them," Arenella said. "They want to be a part of it. We just set the tone. We create the backdrop, we create the soundtrack. It's always been a part of me. Even when I was a small child, I never really felt quite at home in the current time."
Arenella feels like he was born out of time.
"Life is cyclical, and I feel like we all step in and out of it at different points," Arenella said.
Back in 2005, Arenella was just a musician, playing the party when it kicked off. But organizers saw he was a natural and invited him to host. He's been inviting people ever since, leading his band, the Dreamland Orchestra. After 10 years he still takes every detail of this event seriously.
"It's grown exponentially, year after year," Arenella said. "It started at about 50 people, and now we have 5,000 per day over four days in a summer, so we get about 20,000 people here per summer."
Some have been coming from the beginning.
"It was so much smaller, and not as many people went all out," one guest said. "So many people are all out committed to the theme, it's so impressive."
Sometimes it feels like they are really in a different time.
"Every once in a while you can see someone who's not really fully committed to the event, and they break it for you," another guest said. "But otherwise, every once in a while you can catch a pocket and you can feel like 'I'm there.'"
Arenella thinks people yearn to be taken back to simpler times.
"I think that's something we can learn from the past is that when young people went out to party they would dance to a live band and they would dance often with strangers, and that's how you met a date," Arenella said. "You would meet on the dance floor."
For those that need a hand, Roddy Caravella has been teaching people the Charleston for all 10 years.
Dancers Victor Veglak and Eve Prime are part of Roddy's troupe, The Canarsie Wobblers. They credit Arenella with creating and growing the event.
"I think it speaks to his talent and his imagination and his determination," Prime said. "That 10 years on we're doing this and it gets bigger and bigger every year and he hasn't lost his love for it and it's just- he's up there having a fabulous time and it's just wonderful. We couldn't be happier for him."
"When I first read about him years ago, I was like, 'Wow this guy is like magic, this guy is living my dream.' And now here we are. It's just amazing," Veglak said.
Arenella believes it's something in the air. He hopes to take the party international in the years to come.