Musée Mécanique

The Boy Who Started It

Edward Zelinsky began collecting coin-operated mechanical machines as a boy in the 1930s, when such devices were still common on piers, in hotel lobbies, and outside cigar stores. He never stopped. By the time he was a man, the collection had outgrown his home, then his garage, then a succession of warehouses. It was the kind of accumulation that baffled his neighbors and consumed his weekends. The machines needed oiling, the felt needed replacing, and the wooden figures cracked if the humidity swung. He did it anyway, and the habit became a museum. Today his son Dan runs the place, which is the quiet end of a story that started with one teenager unable to walk past a coin slot without feeding it. Look at the photo strip near the entrance showing the collection as it was — in the basement of the Cliff House.