Amusement parks not there anymore
|
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
.........http://www.kilduffs.com/AmusementPar...ingHood_PC.jpg
...........http://www.kilduffs.com/AmusementPar...hitesHouse.jpg ...............................................................http://www.kilduffs.com/AmusementPar..._3Bears_PC.jpg ...........................http://www.kilduffs.com/AmusmentPark...ntedForest.jpg ........................http://www.kilduffs.com/AmusementPar...orest_1969.jpg |
3 Attachment(s)
|
Originally Posted by earlsmoviepicks (Post 861406)
I went back here several years later and it was gone......:bawling::bawling::bawling:
http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Redneck_48cf05_2527490.gif |
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
Pacific Ocean Park (1958-1967)
The material is copyrighted © 1998 by Jeffrey Stanton.Revised April 6, 1998 In 1956 CBS and the Los Angeles Turf Club (Santa Anita) acquired the lease on the Ocean Park Pier and they proposed to build a $10,000,000 nautical theme park to compete with Disneyland. They closed the pier after Labor Day, hired the best amusement park designers and Hollywood special effects experts and began to design innovative new attractions for the theme park. More than 80 special effects men, scenic designers and artists worked for more than a year on the project. They like Disney, found corporate sponsors to share the expenses of some of the exhibits. To save money they renovated existing buildings and incorporated six of the old attractions into the layout; the roller coaster merry-go-round, Toonerville Fun House, Glass House, twin diving bells, and Strat-o-liner ride. They called the new park Pacific Ocean Park. The 28 acre park was decorated throughout in a sea-green and white art moderne look. Its entrance set amidst fountains, sculptures and large sea horse and clam shell decorated frieze, set the mood for the wonders within. The ticket booth in Neptune's Courtyard was set under a six legged concrete starfish canopy. Plastic bubbles and sea horses adorned its top. All day admission was ninety cents for adults; less for children. This included access to the park, Neptune's Kingdom, the Sea Circus and the Westinghouse Enchanted Forest exhibit. Other rides and attractions were at additional costs. http://www.westland.net/venicehistor...pop-ticket.jpg The ticket booth and entrance to Pacific Ocean Park. - 1959 Opening day on Saturday July 28, 1958 drew 20,000 curious people and dozens of Hollywood celebrities. Sunday's 37,262 paying customers brought traffic jams to the area. During the first six days it out performed Disneyland in attracting customers. Visitors entered the park through Neptune's Kingdom where they descended in a submarine elevator to the oceanic corridors below. Across from the elevator was an enormous sea tank where it appeared a shark and its prey shared the same tank. Beyond and covering one entire wall was a large diorama filled with creatures that couldn't live in captivity. Motorized artificial turtles, manta rays, sawfish and sharks glided by over coral reefs and hanging seaweed. Sponsored by Coca Cola. NOTE: This article is condensed from the P.O.P. chapter in my book Venice of America - Coney Island of the Pacific. While the book is rich in detail, ride descriptions in this article are sparse since this site is designed to view photos by clicking on locations on the park maps. [See Pacific Ocean Park map.]
http://www.westland.net/venicehistor...p-sealshow.jpg The seal show at Pacific Ocean Park. - 1959 Apparently many people enjoyed the park, for by the time it closed for remodeling on January 5, 1959, it had attracted 1,190,000 visitors. Management decided to add four new attractions at a cost of $2,000,000. Actually only two of the attractions were completed.
http://www.westland.net/venicehistor...pop-bubble.jpg The Aerial Skyway transported passengers to the end of the pier and back. The Sea Serpent Roller Coaster is in the background. - 1959 The new owner instituted a one price admission policy to attract more customers. He set the price the following spring at $1.50 for adults and $1.00 for children. The Sea Serpent roller coaster was an extra 25 cents because it was the one ride not owned by the park. Morehead's goal was to run the park as a small family amusement park instead as competition to Disneyland. He expected to raise prices for the summer. Unfortunately the park continued to lose customers. The trouble was that Pacific Ocean Park was in a run down, seedy part of town. The nearby streets were littered with bums and winos who accosted customers for money. Local teenagers, whose parents frowned on them going to the park on weekend evenings, told them they were going to a movie and sneaked down to P.O.P. The park, too, was having trouble maintaining its own operation. It offered a large number of rides and attractions for the price, but with such a high overhead it had to skimp on maintenance. Rides were often broken, and everything deteriorated against the rough ocean elements. In short the park was run down, but however, it did attract 1,216,000 customers in 1963. http://www.westland.net/venicehistor...-divebells.jpg The Diving Bells plunged passengers beneath the sea to view creatures in the ocean. - 1959 It was sold in October 1963 to Irving Kay, a San Francisco real estate developer, for $7.5 million. At first he leased P.O.P. back to management, then in January sold the park to Robert's company for $2.5 million. The 1964 season was the most successful; 1,663,013 visitors. New rides included a flat ride called the Himalaya and the Monster Mouse steel roller coaster where Fun Forest stood. The kiddie rides were moved to the Fisherman's Village area. But in 1965 Santa Monica began its Ocean Park urban renewal project. There was wholesale demolition of nearby buildings and closing of streets leading to the park. The entire area was chaos while they built two large apartment towers nearby. In short, visitors couldn't reach the park and attendance plummeted to 621,000 in 1965 and 398,700 in 1966. Roberts paid bills rarely, not even his modest lease rent to Santa Monica. Finally at the end of the 1967 season, P.O.P.'s creditors took action and forced the park into involuntary bankruptcy. Santa Monica precipitated the action when they filed suit to take control of the property because Roberts owed them $17,000 in back rent since 1965. The park closed on October 6, 1967. The park's assets were auctioned off on June 28, 1968 and ran through June 30th. The proceeds from the sale of 36 rides and sixteen games were used to pay off creditors. The park's dilapidated buildings and pier structure remained until several fires and the final demolition in the winter of 1973-74 removed it from all but people's fond memories. Today there isn't even a sign saying where the park once stood. But in the no man's area between Venice's Rose Avenue parking lot and Santa Monica's Ocean Park parking lot, there are signs saying "No Swimming - Possible Underwater Obstructions." One can stop their bikes on the bicycle path and stare out at sea and wonder what might have been if the amusement park had survived. |
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
I've deleted a number of posts, because of, ya' know, the fighting and derailing of the thread and everything. Carry on. :)
|
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
They had a dolphin there in a pool who would throw out a ball to play catch with anyone walking by without any prodding. It was also where some killer whale almost drowned a female trainer. |
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
Movieland Wax Museum
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq..._CA_MWM_34.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq...962_60618B.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq..._CA_MWM_12.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq...t_Day_MWM5.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq...llobridida.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq...w_GW_529_A.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-wlW5BxRhq...Nancy+Kwan.jpgNancy Kwan On May 4, 1962 Mary Pickford dedicated the Museum on behalf of the outstanding entertainers of the Cinema world. On Oct. 31, 2005, after 43 years in business and 10 million visitors, the large Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California closed its doors for good, due to declining visitors and revenue. About 50 of the museum's celebrity figures were shipped to a sister museum in San Francisco, and 80 others went to a museum in South Korea. Most of the rest were put up for public auction in March 2006, which brought in over a million dollars. |
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
Cool stuff, will. :)
|
3 Attachment(s)
|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUYc3uZbRW4
|
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
That's just evil, SC. When the world ends, it'll be your fault.
|
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
I have no pictures to paste on here, but Nurumbega Park, in Newton, MA, was also a memorable amusement park that's no longer in existence. It had a number of cool rides, such as "Davy Crockett's nightmare", The Caterpillar, the Spinning Teacups, to mention afew. The Hotel Marriott, as far as I know, has now been in that area where Nurumbega Park was, for the longest time. There was also a duck-feeding area nearby, but that may or may not be gone, also.
Whalom Park, out in Lunenberg, MA, is also a long-gone amusement park, as is Pleasure Island, out in Wakefield, MA, which was also pretty cool. Again, no pics of either Whalom Park or Pleasure Island, but too many cool memories linger to mention. Paragon Park, down in Nantasket, MA, on the South shore, is another amusement Park that's long gone, as is Revere Amusement Park, in Revere, MA. Both those areas are all condos now. Oh, and need I mention the venerable Coney Island, in Brooklyn, NY. That amusement park, with its cool rides, arcades, honky-tonks and boardwalks, is also long gone. Cool memories remain here, too. |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyDeLlyiwGM
|
Thanks for the cool video on the existence and fall of this particular amusement park, will.15.
|
http://cfhsreunion.myevent.com/clien...309944_org.jpg
we used to go to Rocky Point all the time when i was a kid. it was in Warwick, RI til the mid 90s i think. and i remember it was right on the ocean (hence the name). i also remember it had a little restaurant that served good seafood (if you like New England seafood i guess). http://www.joenisil.com/rockypoint/i...ckyPoint12.jpg i'm glad i found a picture of this because it was always the most memorable ride at the park for me as a kid. i never went on it, though. i was too scared. but just the image of those little carts coming through that tram on the second floor in the picture, usually filled with children who looked scared shitless, was enough to burn a memory that'll probably last a lifetime for me. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0Vx8_IhOav...eofhorrors.jpg http://www.pillsburyphoto.com/photos/fullsize/73564.jpg http://cdn.travora.com/dims4/TRAVORA...k-collage5.jpg |
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
Margate isn't in England anymore. They have knocked it down. They are in the process of building another one though
|
Re: Amusement parks not there anymore
There used to be a "midgetville" in maryland.
A bunch of houses built to scale for dwarfs. I don't think anyone ever actually lived there though. I visited it once, probably 15 years ago. It was a fun little trip only took about 30 minutes to get there. Too bad they tore it down. It would be an awesome place to go and film. |
All times are GMT -3. The time now is 11:06 AM. |
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright, ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
User Alert System provided by
Advanced User Tagging v3.3.0 (Lite) -
vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Copyright © Movie Forums