Never mind what Hizzoner says. Coney Island? Over. Rapacious demolition there has left us with little more than developers’ dismal dreams of condos and
stores, confirming Coney Island as an emblem not for The Big Apple, but for our post-Disney shopping mall: The Big Applebee’s.
Granted, Coney Island sputtered decades ago when its inventive dark rides and electric-light thrills were mostly replaced by concrete and off-the-shelf carny rides.
Other parks have been luckier. Yes, the old-style amusement park isn’t dead in America. Not at all. It lives on in Pittsburgh, where rents are cheap.
There, picturesquely perched on a cliff above the Monongahela River and the old mills that huddle on its banks, an amusement mecca named Kennywood has enchanted since 1898, and it survives in white paint-and-calliope glory that Coney Island only possesses in very long memories.
Kennywood, like Coney, initially drew work-weary summer bathers to the end of the rail line. But unlike Coney, it’s still lushly green, and most importantly, still so treasured by locals that removing so much as a toothpick from its 90-year-old coasters would incite riot. Now there are 32 rides and six coasters, many landmarked.
This is a park where church groups still bring picnics and parents wheel toddlers in Radio Flyers. The most popular eatery, the Potato Patch, attracts half-hour lines for bacon and canned cheese ladled over the signature dish, cut fresh by strong-armed teenagers.
Many of the parks’ creaking metal contraptions might look outdated elsewhere, but they lend a sense of living history that’s nearly palpable. The Turtle, in which six-person undulating carts go round a track on the cliff above the river (it’s more perlious than it sounds), was built as the Tumble Bug in 1927 and is the last of its breed. So is the Flying Kangaroo, which tosses rotating carts off a metal cliff each time they fly round a circle. The heaving Noah’s
Ark walk-through fun house, from 1936, is one of only two left in the world (the other’s in England).
At Coney Island, where the modern fun houses are housed in tractor trailer containers, little is rare except the mighty Wonder Wheel and the rib-crackling Cyclone. But Kennywood trumps Brooklyn for coasters, too. Enthusiasts consider it the royal seat of great coastering. One of the oldest wooden ones in the world, 1920’s Jack Rabbit, still makes adults temporarily weightless as it double-dips into a ravine where, incidentally, George Washington once nearly died in a raid against the French. Beside that is the Racer, born in 1927 (the same year as the Cyclone), in which two competing trains come so close that riders can high-five each other in transit.
Tossing riders off the cliff above the Monongahela is Kennywood’s best magic trick. The breathless Thunderbolt throws you off it as soon as you leave the station. And the Phantom’s Revenge hurls riders straight toward the water for 232 harrowing feet and at 85 miles an hour.
Do The Whip, in which wheeled cars press riders to their sides as they run laps, and you’re riding a machine that was actually invented in Coney Island in 1914 by William F. Mangels. But you won’t find it in Brooklyn. Years ago, its specimen was boxed up and shipped to Kennywood (kennywood.com).
WOOD YOU LIKE A RIDE? 5 more old school coasters to ride this summer
#1 PHOENIX @ KNOEBELS Elysburg, PA
The Phoenix (1947), packed with air time, is so exciting it was shipped, board by board, from a shuttered
Texas park (knoebels.com
).
#2 RAVINE FLYER 2 @ WALDAMEER Erie, PA
Riddled with tunnels and with a top speed of 60 mph, this 3-year-old wood-and-metal beast is breathing new
life in its 115-year-old home park (waldameer.com
).
#3 BOULDER DASH @ LAKE COMPOUNCE Bristol, CT
Wooden coaster uses its mountain setting, dodging rocks and trees. Its park has been in operation since
1846 (lakecompounce.com
).
#4 LEAP-THE-DIPS @ LAKEMONT
Altoona, PA
The world’s oldest roller coaster, from 1902. Tame by today’s standards, but half the fun is wondering if it’ll
hold together (lakemontparkfun.com
).
#5 EL TORO @ GREAT ADVENTURE Jackson, NJ
Only five years old but consistently top-rated by fans, it’s the third-tallest, third-fastest on Earth (sixflags.com
).
For more information on travel to Pittsburgh, check out visitpittsburgh.com
.