Bumble Bees and Herschell Carousel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island, September 3, 2012. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr
A family who has operated amusements in Coney Island for four generations and is related to the Tilyous of Steeplechase Park is closing their last remaining business here. We’re sad to report the news that McCullough’s Kiddie Park, which has been on 12th Street at the Bowery in Coney Island since the 1960s is closing this month. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to come to an agreement on extending the lease. Technically today is the last day,” Carol McCullough told ATZ on Labor Day, “but we might stay open another weekend or two or three, depending on the weather.” The lease with property owner Thor Equities leaves them until the end of the year to move the rides off the property.
“Jimmy McCullough and the McCullough family would like to thank our customers for generations and decades, and all of our business associates in Coney Island,” said Carol McCullough, whose father Jimmy is the oldest ride owner in Coney Island. The closing of McCullough’s marks yet another critical point in the exit of independent amusement operators in Coney Island. It started in 2007, with Thor’s eviction of Norman Kaufman’s Batting Range and Go Kart City and the Zipper and Spider rides documented in Amy Nicholson’s upcoming film “Zipper.”
Although McCullough’s Kiddie Park has operated on 12th Street for fifty years, the family’s history in Coney Island goes back much further. Four generations of McCulloughs have owned and operated amusement rides here. They are related to the Tilyou family of Steeplechase Park as well as to the Stubbmann family, whose Coney Island carousel became part of the one in Flushing Meadows.
More Rides at McCullough's Kiddie Park, Coney Island. May 15, 2009. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr
“My grandfather’s parents were James McCullough and Katherine Tilyou, who had eight children,’ said Carol, who along with her sister has worked in the family business for the past twenty-six years. The McCulloughs were also traveling showmen. They owned and operated such rides as one of the first Zippers ever manufactured, the Round-Up and the Skywheel, which they brought to Toronto’s CNE and booked into fairs as independent ride operators.
The park currently has ten kiddie rides: Bumblebees, Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Swings, Motorcycles, Yellow Submarine, Dizzy Dragons, Himalaya, Ladybug and Frog Hopper. Last year, McCullough’s had to be reconfigured and lost two rides after a sublease expired on an adjacent property also owned by Thor Equities.
In the 1950s, the McCullough family had Kiddielands at Surf Avenue and 15th Street and Surf Avenue and 8th Street next to the Cyclone. They also operated four historic carousels which remain in New York City’s parks. One of them was the 1912 carousel carved by Charles Carmel which was at 8th Street and is now the Prospect Park Carousel. The Stubbmann Carousel, known as the Steeplechase Carousel when the McCulloughs operated it at 16th Street and the Boardwalk, was sent to the New York World’s Fair in 1964 along with some horses from Feltman’s and still operates in Flushing Meadows Park. The third was the B&B Carousell, the last wooden carousel in Coney Island, which Jimmy McCullough sold to the City in 2005 after the death of his business partner Mike Salzstein. The restored carousel will reopen in Coney Island’s new Steeplechase Plaza next year. The fourth is the 1908 Stein and Goldstein Carousel in Central Park.
You can listen to Jimmy McCullough’s interview about learning the carousel business from his father, James McCullough, who began his career working on the Steeplechase and Stubbmann carousels, in the Coney Island History Project’s Oral History Archive.
“Many thanks to all! It’s been quite a ride, pun intended,” said Carol McCullough. “We wish everyone well who operates there and hope that Coney Island goes on for a great many years to come for people to enjoy.”
B&B Carousell, Coney Island. August 2005. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr
Related posts on ATZ…
November 23, 2012: Black Friday Shopping: Coney Island Kiddie Rides for Sale
July 26, 2012: Film Trailer: Zipper, Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride
June 14, 2011: Coney Island Kiddie Park Getting Squeezed by Thor Equities
March 3, 2010: Thor’s Coney Island: What Stillwell Looked Like Before Joe Sitt
This is very sad news indeed. Is there any chance for an 11th hour breakthrough, and a new lease? I certainly hope so..If not, my heart goes out to the McCullough family for their loss. I’d also say we owe them a debt of gratitude for the many, many years of joy they’ve given to so many, and for staying the course over so many years, keeping Coney Island alive.
Oh boy, here comes another vacant lot!
I’m sorry to see them go. I tip my hat to the McCulloughs, the Alberts, the Kaufmans, the Fitlins and all the other vanished or vanishing operators who carried the torch through the post-Steeplechase era.
Well said!
Another family business put to death by Thor. What happened to Joe Sitt to make him hate Coney Island so much that he’d want to destroy it piece by piece?
Bloomberg is what happened.
I used to love the same family’s batting cage operation that Thor Equities shut down a few years back. It was a vacant lot for years after that and has been a hodge podge of randomness since.
NYC needs to do SO MUCH MORE to preserve long-time RETAIL businesses that make a neighborhood what it is. In Paris, there is rent stabilization for RETAIL businesses, allowing them to remain after a neighborhood gentrifies. This is something that I’m sure most New Yorkers would agree with. We need laws in place that allow development of the city but PROTECTS long-term businesses from being priced out of the neighborhoods put in sweat equity and risk over years to organically develop.
Batting Cage & Go Kart City, which also included Bumper Boats and a Mini Golf Course on Stillwell Avenue was operated by Norman and Kenny Kaufman, another family with a long history in Coney Island
Take plenty of pictures and Videos, Long live Coney Island.
i hope they make a bid to operate a new amusement park on west 15th street
I am sad to see the kiddie rides go too. I’m Jamie, Jim McCullough’s granddaughter and I’ve known Coney Island for my entire life. I was named after my grandfather and he always let me play on the rides and help sell tickets When i was younger. I Recently took an interest in learning about my family history for school. It is unfortunate that our lease is up but another problem is that there is no one in our family willing to take on the responsibility of the rides. It was fun while it lasted so thank you to everyone who came to enjoy the rides. We all went up as a family on my grandfathers birthday last May to enjoy the experience one last time and just for the record, everything about the family business was worth it.
take care jimmy you will be missed thanks for the fun