Steve Epstein (left) presented pinball legend Steve Kordek with an award from the industry’s Century Club back in 2006.
One of pinball’s greatest promoters, Steve Epstein, has died. His legacy in the amusement business was huge, most especially in the world of the silver ball. Beginning as a youngster standing on a milk crate to play the game, through his decades running the Broadway Arcade on New York’s Great White Way, and into his later years as an executive with the two big pingame associations, PAPA and IFPA, Steve loved the sport like few others.
Steve cut his coin-op business spurs at that Broadway Arcade which he ran in partnership with area distributor Al Simon. The business closed in 1997, and Steve would later partner up with a pinball playing champion Steve Zahler in a new arcade on Third Avenue called Modern Pinball. But apart from business, he worked tirelessly to promote tournaments, as well as exhibitions for the two associations. He also served as president of the coin-op industry’s longtimer association called the Century Club.
Steve Epstein left many friends in the pinball world, including Gary Stern, Jack Guarnieri, Roger Sharpe and his sons and a legion of players who looked up to him as an icon of their sport. He will be missed. May he rest in peace.
Steve Epstein watches his friend and fellow longtime pinball aficionado Roger Sharpe play a game.
Steve Epstein (right) with Jack Guarnieri and a third-place finisher in a pinball contest on Jersey Jack Pinball’s Wizard of Oz game. Jack said Steve came to every open house at JJP and ran the tournaments.
