Brothers Ernie and Gene Fodor remember their father, Jerry Fodor, and his orchestra playing in front of huge dancing crowds at The Gypsy Camp Nite Club at 1956 Front Street, Birmingham.
 
The Gypsy Camp was originally named Strick’s Hall when it was built in 1902 and renamed The Playdium in the 1940s.
 
It was a lavishly designed recreational center equipped with a theater, bowling alley, and other activities for the Hungarian community, but it served people from throughout Toledo and Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.

The Playdium was built in Second Empire Style with Hungarian embellishments — serving as a landmark for the Birmingham community for over a century.

“It was all Old World — Hungarian,” said Gene Fodor, a retired police detective. “They had the hall upstairs, which was an old hall with a stage, and I was married upstairs there in 1954. There were some good people, including an opera star who sang at my wedding.”