Randy Senna is a boardwalk
icon with over forty years of running vintage arcade games. He is currently running his nostalgic arcade dreams in Wildwood, NJ at the
Wildwood Mall. Since 2011, he has operated the “Remember When Retro Arcade”
in the basement of the Wildwood Boardwalk Mall. “As a boy he was enchanted by
one game — Fascination, a test of skill
that pits players against each other in a race to roll rubber balls down an
alley and into holes that light up the game board.” (Courier Post). Fascination would be considered in the same
family as skee ball and the game dates to the 1920s at Chutes at the Beach in
San Francisco. Across town on Pacific Avenue is the future Randyland, which is
to be a combined arcade game parlor and arcade heritage museum. This former
Woolworth’s building preserves 21,000 square feet of vintage arcade games,
boardwalk memorabilia and even hundreds of mannequins. “Discomfortingly, there
are also hundreds of mannequins, all lined up in rows, each an eerily perfect
reproduction of Randy. They have Randy's grin, Randy's haircut. The only way
you can tell them apart is that each wears a different costume.” (Jezebel). This
historic preservation of vintage arcade games and boardwalk memorabilia both as
a arcade parlor and museum is extraordinary.
