Old as the Thrills! Archaic Attractions.
Welcome to the first edition of “Old as the Thrills! Archaic Amusements.” We love theme parks and rides. I was mostly interested in Disney and there are all kinds of great stories about The Land and I’ll cover them soon. But for now, I wanted to shine the spotlight of history on a weirdly forgotten slice of time (in terms of theme parks) from the late 1800’s through the 1930’s.
Luna Park at Night
Why do I say “weirdly forgotten”? The parks, piers and World's Fairs of the times had unbelievably well themed, grand, thrilling attractions that would surprise and excite even today’s sophisticated carnival crowd. Themed coasters, dark rides, diving bells, funhouses, giant flumes and more chutes and slides than a barrel of monkeys. But some reason they were mostly forgotten.
Why archaic attractions then? First, these attractions existed a long, long time ago. Duh. And secondly, sometimes things like safety weren’t… well, just weren’t.
Or things like freak shows or animal acts and yes, even human zoos seem more than a little cringey today. Other ideas are just bizarre or so much a part of their time, that it’s hard to get the joke.
What makes an archaic attraction? I’m not looking for superlatives here. They don’t have to be the very first, or the tallest, or whatever… what I’m looking for is novelty. The rides, shows, attractions and events that you haven't ever heard of and probably never will. Novel concepts that were awesome and just forgotten or crazy ideas that went extinct, often for good reason.
I found so many awesome old attractions from totally rad, to laughably bad, that I could make this a recurring subject here on OlguinScene.com!
Ok, so here it is. Our first archaic attraction comes from Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. I have never been to Coney Island myself, but no one alive today has been to THIS Coney Island either so... You see what is known as Coney Island today; sort a permanent County Fair looking place, is now a shadow of Coney Islands’ hay day.
In the late 1800’s through the early 20th century it was an amazing seaside resort with clusters of grand theme parks and seaside attractions. During this time electricity, the industrial revolution and mass transportation were brand new and people were stoked to see what they could do with all this great stuff for fun.
The seaside of Brooklyn already had visitors going to the shore and people started building up the area with attractions from games to coasters and concessions. As popularity grew, the main street in the area and three large parks made up of what is known as Coney Island.
Most people arrived by ferry. Just imagine - sailing through New York harbor at night, then out of the dark and fog; the millions of lights from the parks, some moving and whirling on the rides. In the distance the sounds of festive music, shrieks of glee, and clattering of rollercoasters. The sweet smells of cotton candy and popcorn cutting through the cold salty air. Must have been quite a sight! Especially to the all the visitors from the rural parts of the country that had never even seen electric lights before.
One of the three main parks was Luna Park. It was huge and had so many rides that it would make you dizzy. Speaking of dizzy, one of the most visually impressive attractions was the “Scenic Spiral Wheel” or more commonly known as, “The Top”.
I picked this as the first Archaic Attraction to highlight because it’s totally bonkers. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of old timey opium-based patent medicine caused this fever dream of an idea for a rollercoaster. Nor can I ever truly fully visualize how anyone was convinced into actually build this thing, let alone ride it. Most baffling is how a crazy ride like this could be forgotten. Old + Bonkers + Forgotten = an Archaic Attraction!
How do I begin to explain “The Top”? The wood and iron framework resembles a top hat with a track spiraling around the outside. That’s not why it’s called The Top though or even what makes it unique. You see, the train cars don’t start at the top of the track and spiral down. They start at the bottom and spiral up. There’s nothing pushing or pulling the trains up. This is where it gets bonkers.
The WHOLE giant round coaster rotates! Not just rotates, but wobbles. Like a spinning coin that’s slowing down, doing that wobble thing just before it stops. (Similar to a wobbly top.)
This spinning, wobbly motion causes the trains to roll around the track, and the trains’ shifting weight keeps the whole track rolling and wobbling. It’s hard to imagine what this giant three-story coaster structure would look like in motion wobbling around like a dislodged hubcap with a coaster train full of screaming riders spiraling up the track.
Fortunately, you don't have to! Despite this ride coming and going over a hundred years ago, I found an old film clip showing this thing in action to demonstrate it better.
Although it didn’t have steep drops or anything, it must have been the most wobbly, woozie, stomach flipping ride this side of the wilderness!
You can wrap your mind around what most of the rides from this era were like, but no one can really imagine what this dilly must have felt like.
Nearest I can figure, it would be like riding a small tightly turning coaster that’s attached to the deck of an aircraft carrier in rough seas. The pitching and rolling of the waves constantly changing the momentum of the coaster. Fortunately there’s a rad old film reel to explain this one, as well as some books and articles that I found online.
It’s just so cool to me that there were attractions this insane back then. Even though I’m into this sort of thing, I didn’t know about this crazy ride and a bunch of others I plan on highlighting. Back then, ideas were wild, safety unheard of, and fun levels through the roof. So join us next time when we check out more wild rides on “Old as the Thrills! Archaic Amusements.”
Thanks for reading!
-Mike Olguin.
