Harold J Potter Comedy Magic Circus Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
Decades before JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books and the fictional Ministry of Magic, the original Harry Potter– a Michigan minister named Harold J Potter– performed magic for his congregation and with a sideshow. His repertoire included hypnotism, the bladebox and a premature burial illusion inspired by the tale by Edgar Allan Poe. These six banners painted for “Harold J Potter’s Comedy Magic Circus” in the late 1960s by master banner painter Fred Johnson will be up for bid in Mosby & Company’s November 10th Americana auction at their gallery in Frederick, Maryland. Bidding will also be available online beginning in late October.
Monster Museum Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
Harold J Potter’s son says that his father was fascinated by Harry Houdini and Harry Blackstone as a boy and took up magic at an early age. The family consigned the Johnson banners, which are fresh to the market. In the banner shown below, a contortionist act is billed as Plasteena. The Bladebox is cleverly called “Six Section Sal” and there’s also a “Guillotine Gal.”
Plasteena Sideshow Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
After getting out of the Army in World War II, Potter started practicing magic again on the side in Detroit, according to his son. A minister by profession, he would perform some magic tricks during services. We’re hoping that some of his sermons will turn up! On weekends, Potter did the sideshow performances for which he commissioned the banners. In the summertime, he and his family toured Michigan doing tent shows.
Monster Sideshow Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
Banner artist Fred Johnson (1892-1990) was only 17 when he learned the secret of creating an eye-catching banner: color, not exaggeration. “We call it ‘flash.'” Johnson once said. During an illustrious 65-year career, the Chicagoan painted banners for all the big circuses, carnivals, and amusement parks, including the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
Master Magician Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
Fred Johnson worked for Driver Bros Tent Co. from 1921 until 1930, and in 1934 he came to the O. Henry Tent & Awning Co, where he remained for 40 years. He imbued his Houdini-esque escape artists, Amazon snake charmers and master magicians with a quirky and mysterious quality that drew customers into the sideshows and continues to make his work prized by collectors.
Hypnotist Banner by Fred Johnson. Mosby & Co Auction. November 10, 2012
Vintage postcard of the 1926 Tornado Roller Coaster, also known as The Bobs, on Stillwell Avenue East, Coney Island
News that the landmark Childs Building on the Boardwalk will be developed into a music venue brings the delightful prospect of Coney’s amusement area extending all the way from 21st Street to the soon-to-be-renovated to the tune of $150 million New York Aquarium on West 8th. An RFP to develop and operate amusements on a narrow City-owned lot at 15th Street makes it likely that Coney Island will get a major roller coaster as well.
The Coney Island Rumor Mill has been saying for months that Luna Park operator and ride manufacturer Zamperla was designing a brand-new coaster for Coney with some claiming to have seen the design. When Italian Wired asked Alberto Zamperla over the summer what his company was secretly working on, he mentioned only a super coaster inspired by the sci-fi Western “Cowboys & Aliens” as well as an interactive water attraction to be built in Coney Island before being sold around the world.
Will the new amusements on 15th Street pay tribute to any of Coney Island’s famed coasters of the past? We’d love to see an homage to the Tornado, aka “The Bobs,” which is pictured above. The 1926 thriller was a complex ride built on a narrow lot on Stillwell Avenue East and had an array of other rides, games, sideshows and restaurants beneath it. What more could we ask for in Coney Island? It’s time to bring out ATZ’s big wish list. This is actually the first of a series of posts since the list is a bit longer than we anticipated!
When a $168 million, 26-acre surf park was planned for Randall’s Island several years ago, our first thought was they should be building it in Coney Island. A year-round surf venue in Coney would attract surfers and spectators, residents and tourists alike. Then the project fell through due to funding problems and technology flaws. Over the past two years, new surf parks and surf pools are once again in the news, thanks to innovations in artificial wave surfing.
Next year, the first indoor surf park in the US will open in Nashua, New Hampshire featuring what American Wave Machine Inc. describes as the world’s largest standing wave surfing machine. The all-season surfing venue will have a retractable glass roof, glass walls for spectator viewing, surfside lounging area and a cafe. Last year in Lima, Peru, the company debuted the world’s first surf arena at La Ola Movistar SurfStream, which visitors from the US in the above vid describe as “The closest thing to surfing outside of the ocean yet. If I was a kid I would not leave this thing.” Promo vids of special events at the arena show world-class surfers competing in contests while rock bands play poolside. Build it and they will come to Coney!
Coney Island once had dozens of year-round arcades, now there are just a few open seasonally. Meanwhile in California, Las Vegas, Baltimore, and on the Jersey Shore, pinball museums have become local gathering places and year-round tourist destinations. The Asbury Park Boardwalk is making a comeback and part of the allure is the bells, buzzers and flashing lights of pinball. The Silver Ball Museum Arcade and Pinball Hall of Fame boasts the top 200 machines from the electromechanical wonders of the 1930s and ’40s up to the solid state electronic games of today.
When we visited Silver Ball last year, owner and pinball machine collector Rob Ilvento explained: “Every game you’re playing at the museum was the top game of that year. Six thousand titles were made, like everything else some games are fun some aren’t. If the operators couldn’t make money, the manufacturer would stop making it, so it may make it rare but it doesn’t necessarily make it collectible. The ones that I put in the museum are not only collectible but have a fun factor when you play.”
Signage above the machines narrates the history of pinball and the stories of the individual games. Patrons pay $10 for a one hour pass, $20 to play all day and $25 for a family of six on a Sunday night. The museum also hosts parties, weddings, fundraisers and pinball tournaments.
Coney Island is famous as the place where the hot dog was invented and the roller coaster was perfected. Coney is less well known as the place where William F. Mangels invented the Whip since the ride doesn’t operate here anymore though it thrives elsewhere. The same thing can be said for the game of Fascination and Frozen Custard, among other Coney Island originals. Why not bring them back for people to enjoy once again, perhaps in a special section of the revitalized Coney devoted to historic rides and attractions?
In Margate, England, the Dreamland Trust is creating the world’s first heritage amusement park with a 1914 Whip, a 1920s Caterpillar and other rides collected from around the UK, as well as their park’s original 1920 Scenic Railway, the oldest of its kind in Britain. “Work is now underway to reinstate Dreamland as one of the UK’s best-loved amusement parks with a heritage story to tell,” according to the website of the £10m park, which is funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, the UK government and their local council.
Last year we wrote “Bring Back the Whip! A Birthday Gift for William F Mangels” (ATZ, Feb. 1, 2011), which includes a Whip Census. If you know of any Whips not on the list, please let us know. It’s a shame that Coney Island, where this classic ride was invented in 1914, doesn’t have an operating Whip. If you want to ride it, you’ll have to take a trip to Rye Playland, Knoebels, Kennywood, Cedar Point, Trimper’s or any of the other parks or carnivals listed on ATZ’s Whip Census. The Whip was one of the first and most popular thrill rides. Old timers tell us there used to be quite a few Whips as well as quite a few carousels and roller coasters in good ol’ Coney Island. Wouldn’t it be fitting to have a Mangels Whip installed in Steeplechase Plaza next to Mangels’ B & B Carousell? It’s not in the plans, so we’ll add it to our wish list for 15th Street.
FAST BUMPER by Richard Eagan and Philomena Marano, Coney Island Hysterical Society. Wood construction, paint, hand cut paper and printed paper, 2012
Coney Island currently has three bumper car rides–The Eldorado, the refurbished Astroland ride at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park and one at 12th Street Amusements– and once had many more, but artist Richard Eagan says Fast Bumper is not a literal portrait of a particular ride. “It is intended to recall the way rides were retro-fit into buildings re-purposed from the turn of the 20th century,” says Eagan, who has a background in cabinetmaking and architectural sculpture, while his collaborator Philomena Marano brought her expertise in cut paper collage and printmaking to the mixed media piece.
Fast Bumper is among the individual and collaborative Coney Island-inspired works in the exhibition “Art of the Coney Island Hysterical Society” opening on October 18 at 440 Gallery in Park Slope. No, we don’t mean Historical Society. Brooklyn-born artists Eagan and Marano have been collaborating since 1981 when they founded the Coney Island Hysterical Society because they were “Hysterical” at the rate that Coney’s amusement rides and attractions were shutting down. Joined by friends and fellow artists, the group took on such projects as the restoration and operation of a dark ride on the Bowery, an homage to souvenir cut out photo boards, and a 2,500 foot mural celebrating the lost glory of Steeplechase Park.
“In Fast Bumper, Richard and I poured in the rowdy and the elegant of Coney Island,” says Philomena, who describes the piece as “a fast and fun colliding joy ride housed inside an elegant Victorian building from Coney’s former life. It reflects our shared sensibilities in so many ways- one in particular is a childhood memory we both recalled of peering into the windows or back door of a closed ride and observing it in quiet darkness, a razor sharp contrast to the ride in motion; like seeing it’s ‘other side,’ the ‘hidden nature of it’s soul. I think this piece also makes reference to a Coney Island truth, sometimes it gleams from the inside and other times from the outside.”
“Art of the Coney Island Hysterical Society” runs through November 25 and will also feature special events at 4:40pm on Sundays in November. On November 4, Richard Eagan, who worked as the manager and outside talker for a shark show as well as a game and ride operator, will perform “Alive in the Inside,” his one-man play about his surreal journey through Coney Island. On November 18, Eagan and Marano will present an illustrated talk about the history of their work as the Coney Island Hysterical Society.
“Art of the Coney Island Hysterical Society,” October 18 – November 25, 2012 at 440 Gallery, 440 Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, 11215. Gallery hours are Thursday and Friday, 4-7pm, Saturday and Sunday, 11am-7pm or by appointment. Phone 718-499-3844.
Amusing the Zillion 