March | 2014 | Amusing the Zillion

Archive for March, 2014

Memoirs of a Carny Kid: Monkeys on the Midway

Posted in Animals, Artifacts, tagged antique, carnival, International Independent Showmen's Museum, memoir, monkey, Monkey Go Round, monkey speedway, racing car on March 19, 2014| 2 Comments »

Antique Circus Monkey Racing Car. Photo by Architectural Anarchy, Chicago via 1st dibs

Coming across this photo of an “Antique Circus Monkey Racing Car” recently sold by Chicago dealer Architectural Anarchy rekindled the curiosity that I felt as a carny kid. My father’s story about how he had a real, live monkey on a trapeze in his popcorn trailer to attract customers in the 1940s began with mention of where he got the idea: a Monkey Speedway! It was at the Patriots’ Day Celebration in Boston. The term was one I’d never heard before because this long popular carnival attraction had by then disappeared from the midways of New England.

Vintage Photo of Monkey Speedway. Photo © Tricia Vita Collection

Right through the 1950s and 60s, carnivals placed ads in the Billboard and then Amusement Business for Monkey Circuses and Speedways as well as managers to run them. “We are interested only in a show man that can and will work hard for a seasons bank roll,” said an ad for King Reid, New England’s largest carnival, in 1946. Carnival supply house H.C. Evans called its Monkey Speedway “The unbeatable carnival attraction! Equal to a free act!” A trio of trained monkeys in little metal cars raced around a wooden track while people placed bets on the laydown of numbers. The prizes were boxes of candy, my father said.

It was the crowd-stopping appeal of the Monkey Speedway that gave Dad the idea to put a monkey act in his popcorn trailer one spring when the show owner changed the location of the merry-go-round, leaving him up in front with no customers. After trying unsuccessfully to buy one of the Speedway monkeys, my father went to Benson’s Wild Animal Farm in New Hampshire, where they had monkeys for sale.

“So they sold me a little rhesus monkey for $15 and they put him in a small wooden cage. I put the cage on the front seat of my truck, and while I was driving back to the carnival, the monkey would look at me and I would look at the monkey, and I don’t know if I was more afraid of him than he was of me.”

Vintage Photo of Monkey Speedway. Photo © Tricia Vita Collection

“After we got back to the lot, the monkey ate a few meals and got to like me. I’d built a small trapeze and fastened it to one of the rafters on the popcorn stand. I tried to train Roebuck to sit on it and swing. It was against the law to keep an animal in a food stand, but I had to take a chance because it was either that or go out of business.”

It took my father three weeks to get Roebuck to sit on the trapeze and swing. And when he did he was surrounded by a crowd of people who bought peanuts and popcorn and candy apples to eat while they watched the free show. “Some kids would do anything to to be near the monkey: They’d bring bananas. They’d throw pennies. And Roebuck would catch quite a few of them.”

When the kids would ask what’s the monkey’s name?” he’d say, “I’m Sears, he’s Roebuck,” and the kids would laugh.

Monkey Speedway, Cetlin & Wilson Shows. Photo © International Independent Showmen’s Museum

Though my father bought and sold Roebuck years before I was born, I felt as though the monkey was my long-lost brother. I just knew that he missed the peanuts, popcorn and pennies as much as I did when we stayed from October through April in my grandmother’s house, away from the free-wheeling life of the road.

The Monkey Speedway is one of the long-vanished shows documented in the collection of the International Independent Showmen’s Museum in Gibsonton, Florida. And the tiny race cars, if you’re lucky enough to find one, have entered the realm of folk art.

Monkey Go Round, a German film released in the 1960s by Castle Films, is the fairytale-like story of a troupe of monkeys and their caretaker’s show biz comeback and will give you a glimpse of a Monkey Speedway.

RFP for Children’s Amusement Park in Staten Island’s Midland Beach

Posted in amusement park, Amusement ride, tagged Midland Beach, Parks Department, Request for Proposals, RFP, Staten Island on March 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The site in Midland Beach includes the Foundations for Six Amusement Rides. March 13, 2014. NYC Parks Department

In January, NY Carousel Entertainment and Big Mark’s Action Park were among the amusement park operators eyeing Staten Island’s beachfronts when the City released a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) that mentioned rides as well as carnivals and stall-based amusements. Last week, the Parks Department followed up by issuing an RFP (Request for Proposals) for the development and operation of a Children’s Amusement Park as well as the operation of mobile food units and souvenir carts in Midland Beach, with a 12-year term.

Midland Beach’s 2.5-mile boardwalk and beach area extends southeast from Fort Wadsworth to Miller Field’s Gateway Recreational Area. The proposed site is located on Father Capodanno Blvd. between Seaview Ave. and Sand Lane, and includes concrete foundations for six rides. A diagram shows the pads occupied by a carousel, magic castle, sky glider, mini airport and spinning teacups circled by a trackless train, though these are just examples. There’s also a pad for a concession building with attached public restrooms, which are under construction.

Vintage Postcard: The Souvenir Booth, Midland Beach, Staten Island, N.Y. Collection Milstein Division, New York Public Library

The RFP does not say when the park is expected to open, but a proposer meeting and site tour is set for March 28, with a due date for proposals of April 16th. To download the RFP, visit the Parks Department’s Concessions Opportunities page.

Midland Beach, just south of South Beach, once had hotels, beer gardens, bathing pavilions, theaters, carousels, Ferris wheels and other amusements. Vintage postcards in the New York Public Library show a variety of entertainments, including trapeze performances, boxing exhibitions and a Whip ride.

UPDATE June 25, 2014

Fantasy Shore Amusement Park in Midland Beach opened on June 28th with four rides: Tea Cups, Train, Frog Hopper and a mini-roller coaster christened the Verrazano Viper. Fantasy Shore is run by NY Carousel Entertainment, which also operates Fantasy Forest Amusement Park at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens.

Vintage Postcard: Everybody Rides the The Whip at Midland Beach, Staten Island. Collection Milstein Division, New York Public Library

Coney Island Bunny Makes Broadway Debut at Union Square Petco

Posted in Animals, tagged adoption, animal rescue, binky, Coney Island, House Rabbit Society, NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue, Petco, Petco Foundation, rabbit, Rabbit Rescue and Rehab on March 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

Marcie Frishberg of NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue demonstrates how to pet Steeplechase the Coney Island Bunny at Petco in Union Square. March 15, 2014. Photo © Tricia Vita

The Coney Island “coney” named Steeplechase made her Broadway debut at Union Square Petco on Saturday, where rescue group NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue has an adoption center. There are 4 rabbits that reside there but it was Steeplechase’s first appearance. The refugee from the bulldozed Coney Island Community Garden was rescued by William Leung and fellow volunteers in January after 21 days on the run. Since then, Steeplechase has received medical care and been spayed, and is now being fostered by Leung, who already has four companion rabbits at his home in Queens.

Steeplechase the Coney Island Bunny at NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue adoption center in Union Square Petco. March 15, 2014. Photo © Tricia Vita

ATZ asked Leung how the Coney Island rabbit is getting along with the other bunnies. “She is still a little shy, but loves attention. She has met my rabbits,” he said. “She was eager to make friends but my female rabbits were jealous and don’t like her. My little boy Chad is smitten with her and would dance for her whenever he sees her through the pens. His current girlfriend Duchess knows that and tries to bite her whenever she sees her.”

Rabbits dance for each other?

“They binky. When he sees her, he binkies all over the place,” explains Leung.

Binky? Okay, so we had to look up the word! Here’s some Bunny Binky Action courtesy of YouTube user Kate Midkiff…

Coney Island was named Conyne Eylandt –Rabbit Island– by the Dutch after the wild rabbits that lived here in the 17th century. But Steeplechase, a white bunny with black ears, is a Californian breed of domestic rabbit and had lived her entire life outdoors in the boardwalk garden and surrounding area until this year.

Steeplechase’s favorite place in Leung’s apartment, which she has the run of at night, is his walk-in closet. The rest of the time she has her own room. “She is very curious and eager to explore,” says Leung. “She likes to climb and jump into things, but if you tell her once not to go somewhere, she actually gets it and won’t go there again, so she is one smart cookie. She is also very good with litter box skill, I mean I have never seen a bun this clean. Not only is she 100% in the litter box, she only uses one corner.”

Union Sqaure Petco NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue

Petco Union Square Manager Josh Axelrod presenting a check for $2240.79 from the Petco Foundation to NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue’s Marcie Frishberg. March 15, 2014. Photo © Tricia Vita

When ATZ visited on Saturday, Josh Axelrod, the longtime manager of the Union Square store, happened to come by to give a check for $2240.79 from the Petco Foundation to NY Metro Rabbit’s Marcie Frishberg. Axelrod said that $1000 came from a Petco-sponsored contest won by Union Square staff and the balance was raised from customer donations at the checkout counter. The Petco Foundation donates about $15 million a year to help more than 8,000 local animal welfare groups across the country. Union Square Petco also hosts Kitty Kind, where we adopted our cat Talulah about two years ago. On Saturday, Long Island Bulldog Rescue also had a booth and the ASPCA’s adoption van was parked outside.

NYC Metro Rabbit Rescue is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing abandoned New York City rabbits and finding them permanent indoor homes. Their website features a plethora of info, from a documentary on what it’s like to live with a companion rabbit to articles on their care and behavior. In addition to Union Square Petco, the group has rabbit adoption locations at the Petco on Lexington Avenue and 86th Street and the City’s Center for Animal Care and Control (ACC) on 110th Street at 2nd Avenue. The group is a satellite of Rabbit Rescue and Rehab, which is the downstate NY chapter of the House Rabbit Society.