Season's greetings, Christmas in July revelers. Have you ever been to 'North Pole, NY,' the Christmas-centered theme park that is open in summer? Thanks to a new film, you can make the trip to Santa's Workshop in no time.
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You may have heard of Christmas in July. But at the North Pole, it's Christmas in August, September, October and November, too.
North Pole, New York, that is.
This is the name of a real place -- a hamlet in Wilmington, New York, which is located in the Adirondack Mountains. But it's also one of the first theme parks to open in the United States.
The Christmas-themed attraction, where the centerpiece is Santa's Workshop and Ol' St. Nick himself, debuted in 1949. Now, the park, with all its real reindeer and nearly 70 years of yuletide cheer, is the subject of a documentary from a director who spent her childhood Christmases in Morris County.
The film, titled "North Pole, NY," will have its New Jersey premiere on Friday night in Red Bank as part of the Indie Street Film Festival.
Director Ali Cotterill grew up in Madison, frequenting regional theme parks like the Land of Make Believe in Hope and Rye Playland in Westchester County, N.Y.
Her original intent in filming a documentary had nothing to do with Christmas.
"I wanted to make a movie about the history of theme parks in this area," says Cotterill, 38.
She had never been to North Pole, N.Y. or the theme park, but she saw the attraction mentioned on the Roadside America website. So Cotterill went to the Adirondacks for a weekend visit. She left absolutely charmed by the place and decided to make her first feature-length film about the park, its vintage appeal and efforts that have been made to save it from the fate of other regional attractions.
"To me, it's really important to keep the local local when you have these kind of quirky places or mom and pop diners," Cotterill says.
The 'gnomes' at Santa's Workshop at North Pole, New York. The theme park enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s, at one point drawing 14,000 people on a single day, but the upstate New York community still relies on the business it draws. (Courtesy Ali Cotterill)
"The movie is about this one place, but it's about a bigger thing -- the importance of history," she says. "There aren't that many places that stay for generation after generation."
Though none were dedicated to Christmas, similar theme parks in the Adirondacks had shuttered their doors long ago or had been acquired by larger companies. Somehow, the North Pole stayed alive.
"They're like the unicorn that has survived," Cotterill says.
Nostalgia may have been enough to sustain such a film, but the director found something more. Namely, that the park sits at the very heart of Wilmington, both economically and in terms of local heritage.
Open 90 days a year -- including the summer, weekends in the fall and the whole run-up to Christmas -- North Pole, New York, situated on Whiteface Mountain about 25 minutes from Lake Placid, not only has Santa's Workshop, but also real reindeer (they roam the larger grounds semi-wild during the rest of the year). The park also features stage shows and Christmassy rides. A small children's roller coaster runs on sunny and snowy days.
Cotterill, who lives in Brooklyn and works as a film and video editor, filmed at the park for about 45 days over a three-year period, from 2012 to 2015. "North Pole, NY" premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in May. Several people featured in the film will be at the Red Bank screening on Friday for a Q&A session. Afterward, Cotterill and the cast will head to a Christmas in July party at the Red Bank Elks Lodge (40 W. Front St).
It's not that Cotterill had a special affinity for Christmas. Her wife, Christa Orth, who works for a fundraising and design firm, is both the film's producer and the one who gets jazzed about the holiday. (They financed the film with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.)
Lake Placid businessman Julian Reiss first came up with the idea for North Pole, NY in 1945 when he was driving back to the Adirondacks from New York City. (He had tuberculosis at the time, and doctors told him he needed exposure to "fresh, pine-scented air.") His daughter wanted him to tell her a story. Reiss drew from the surrounding houses, which were decorated for Christmas, to come up with the tale of a baby bear lost in the woods who found Santa's summer home.
Reiss hired artist Arto Monaco to create the designs for the park, from the intricacies of the reindeer faces to the tilted chimneys on the buildings. (In 1954, Monaco opened his own park, the Land of Makebelieve, not to be confused with the Land of Make Believe, which opened in Hope the same year.)
Ali Cotterill, director of 'North Pole, NY.' (Ali Cotterill)
After regularly drawing hundreds of visitors, during Labor Day weekend in 1951, 14,000 customers showed up on a single day. North Pole's Santa Claus was even invited to the White House for a Christmas celebration. And Reiss started a program called Operation Toy Lift, which delivered presents to children at an orphanage. The first year, he dressed up as Santa and piloted a plane to deliver the presents.
In a time when a family trip on the open road was part and parcel of the American dream, the park became a leader in the region, bringing hotels and attractions to the area.
Today, visitors frolic amongst elves, pet the park's reindeer and tell Santa what they want for Christmas, even in July. The "North Pole" is marked with a simple sign on a pole, surrounded by whimsical log cabins.
Julie "Jingles" Robards, a historian and performer, has the distinct honor of sorting Santa's mail from children across the globe.
"There are some that ... I just have to write back," she says.
Cotterill says her aim was to approach the film from a children's point of view.
Having grown up between the analog and digital ages, she wanted to preserve and celebrate the essence of the pre-internet age, back when children, consumed by boredom, would be forced to plumb the depths of their own imaginations.
Staff like Everly Greensleeves, a dedicated elf, are interviewed in the film, but there's a reason the director never talks to the man behind Santa Claus -- she wanted to preserve a little of the park's sense of unspoiled fantasy.
A vintage Santa Claus scene from North Pole, New York. (Courtesy Ali Cotterill)
Children react with wonder to Tannenbaum The Talking Christmas Tree, which is not a looped audio recording, but staffed with an actual person. Cotterill doesn't go behind the scenes, instead focusing on the tree from the outside.
"Do you get cold??" one young girl asks the evergreen.
"There's just a little window of time when you believe and everything is magic and that's what Santa's Workshop is," Robards says. "... So its survival is very important."
Since it's open much of the year, the park is also open on Christmas, right? No. But there's a good reason for that. The very first year, in 1949, Santa's Workshop did not close for Christmas Day. Park staff ended up completely overwhelmed, however, when children tried to return their toys to Santa. Now, the park is only open through Christmas Eve.
It's amusing to see children interviewed about what they asked Santa Claus for -- some seem to think that making the trip to deliver their wish lists months ahead of time will make them a priority. But the issues facing the larger community in Wilmington form another important focus of the film.
It's easy to just put on rose-colored classes and run a montage of old footage, Cotterill says.
"That's why we zoomed out to the town," she says.
A local market owner likens Wilmington to Mayberry, a place where people can leave their doors open. (North Pole has its own zip code and post office -- something about all those letters.)
"I found it really inspiring in a lot of ways," Cotterill says. "People are really there for each other." (It was also a change of pace to film in a town where she couldn't get cell phone reception and had to actually rely on people showing up at a given time, sans texts and calls ... imagine that.)
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The community lobbies to open a new gas station after its only one was bought and abandoned by a convenience chain. When the station opens, there's an actual ribbon cutting. But it's the possible closure of the park that looms over the otherwise cheery film.
By 1998, Santa's Workshop at North Pole, NY and the Magic Forest were the only parks left in the area, with some having been bought up by larger companies, as with Six Flags' purchase of Great Escape in Lake George.
In 1999, Bob Reiss, the founder's son, put the park up for sale. A businessman named Greg Cunningham bought the park, but according to a local reporter interviewed for the film, just wanted to drain money from the park. For the first time, the park's demise seemed imminent.
One local compared the scenario to the Grinch stealing Christmas. Cunningham, who was arrested for another scam, ultimately went to prison and the park was restored with the help of a new investor in 2002.
According to Cotterill, today, only six percent of mom-and-pop roadside attractions are still open." The thing that really appealed to me is the sort of 'then' and 'now,'" shel says.
Bobby Getchell Jr., who lives in Hawthorne and plays Paul Stanley in the KISS tribute band Dressed to Kill, speaks fondly of the park in the documentary. For generations, his family would make the trip there. Now, he takes his kids every year, and tries to recreate old photos from decades ago.
"You just look around and it's like you're stuck in the middle of a whole Christmas card," he says.
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.
