Amusement parks

Distilling the history of amusement parks as separate from World’s Fairs is a bit dishonest in a way, because they have similar roots. So let’s establish one essential difference (although there are many differences): amusement parks were permanent, or perennial. World’s Fairs were one-time events.

Still, the roots of both are trade fairs and farm fairs and whatnot, going back centuries. One way or the other, people like to get together, and they like to have fun. They like to be amused, in other words. In the 19th Century, we finally have amusements that go beyond performances from singers and players. Now we have the technology to build physical amusements, like carousels and railroads. We start seeing parks permanently set aside for such amusements. Tivoli, in Copenhagen, opened in the 1840s. The Prater in Vienna precedes that by a hundred years or so (but as a place of amusement, not yet a place with amusements, as it became). We commoners love to be amused!

It is what are called trolley parks that started the amusement park business in the US. In the late 18th Century, newfangled trolley companies were jumping during the week, but were pretty quiet on weekends when no one needed them to get to work. So the trolley companies started building amusement areas at the end of the line outside of town, and people would go out to those areas on the trolleys, and there you go, the idle-trolley problem solved. (It is unclear how many fat guys were thrown off the bridges to stop the trolleys, if those of you who debated Sept-Oct of '08 were wondering.) The idea caught on, and others aside from transportation companies started to realize that if you could find cheap land at the end of the line somewhere, people might come for amusements. Coney Island, therefore, was a natural place for amusement parks to spring up, because people had been going there for years just for the beach. Throw in railway traffic, and eventually a number of parks opened (the original of what we think of as Coney Island was a number of parks, not just one big one). Milton Hershey built a park for his employees near his chocolate factory, which he later opened to the general public. Next door to my home town, Port Chester, we have Rye Playland, a beach area that was already popular when it was turned into a bona fide amusement park in 1928. The early part of the previous century was the golden age of amusement parks, as the growing middle class came into its own. Add to this that the parks were relatively cheap entertainment, they remained popular during the Depression into the war years.

Amusement parks didn’t hold up that well after WWII. Maybe people had other things on their mind: adults were busy doing what was necessary to make the Baby Boom happen, and maybe the move to suburbia was a factor, or maybe the operators’ money was running out, but there wasn’t much movement anymore in terms of development and in some cases upkeep. There certainly weren’t many new ideas. Maybe the amusement parks just became old hat. Now you could go see movies in 3D, in glorious Technicolor, breathtaking Cinemascope and Stereophonic Sound (thank you, Cole Porter). You could watch television. Sure, you’d take the tots to kiddyland, but the bloom was off the rose. This was what Disney was saying when he spoke the myth of going with his two daughters to an amusement park and being bored. The parks weren’t relevant anymore.

Disney changed that by inventing the theme park. (We’ll go into detail on what that means, distinct from amusement parks, next time.)

The success of the Disney enterprises did not go unnoticed by others. Not only were there theme parks emulating Disney’s success in their own way, there was also a rebirth of amusement parks, mostly revolving around thrill rides. This may be connected to the rise of the group known as teenagers, which didn’t exist as a cultural force before WWII, with their own transportation and disposable income and the ability to ride rides that would turn adults into pea soup. (Ultimately this spurt of new or improved parks evolved into coaster wars: the highest, the fastest, the meanest.) Plus there was the runoff from the more tony enterprises. You couldn’t go to Disney World without getting on a plane and staying for days, but you could go to AroundTheCornerWorld easily because it was, well, around the corner and it claimed to be a theme park. It wasn’t, but it was close enough on an off day if you did enough squinting.

Recently amusement parks have hit some hard times, thanks to the recession, but that’s probably just temporary. After all, the theme parks were also hit, and no one is predicting that WDW will go out of business. I sort of think that we’ll see less on that coaster war front: you can just go so fast or so high and it isn’t fun anymore, even if you’re a total masochist. But I could be wrong at that. As a fan of wooden coasters, I’m looking for something else anyhow.

So amusement parks go on, and Worlds Fairs go on, and theme parks go on. So where was Disney in all of this after Disneyland opened in 1955?