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"The
Roosevelt Hotel"
by Paul McGehee. One of Ocean City's grand old hotels presided for many
years over the Boardwalk at North Division Street. Owned by Mr. and
Mrs. Elwood Fleming in the 1950s, as time went by it was eventually
sold to Tony Russo, a hard-working gentleman from Sicily who came to
this country in 1960 with a dollar in his pocket, and who only spoke
his native Italian. He worked his way up through the restaurant
business in the '60s and opened his first "Tony's Pizza" on 1st Street
in 1962. In 1968, the nearby Roosevelt Hotel became available and the
Russo family decided to try their hand at renovating and running the
beautiful old building on the Boards...but as fate would have it, fire
destroyed half of the structure in 1970. Undaunted, they kept the
remaining half of the Hotel open for business and developed the
remainder of the lot as a miniature golf course. A 1972 fire took out
the remainder of the building, and, after a few years of opening some
small shops along with the golf course, damage from a 1977 hurricane
altered yet again the fate of the property and Russo's businesses.
After razing everything, he built the iconic
"Tony's Pizza" restaurant which stands today, with its famous rooftop
deck watched over by a giant statue of Tony. One of the great success
stories of Ocean City, and a restaurant well worth your visit...and to
think that it all started as the old Roosevelt Hotel back in the day!
"The Roosevelt Hotel" is
faithfully reproduced from Paul's original color pencil artwork in a
limited edition of 500 hand-signed prints.
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