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MegaWhirl Ride Prototype to Debut in Coney Island

Posted in amusement park, Amusement ride, tagged Coney Island, Gordon Rides, Jonathan Gordon, Larson International, MegaWhirl, new ride, prototype ride, Steeplechase Park on May 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

MegaWhirl Ride in Action, Still from Promotional Video. © Gordon Rides

The MegaWhirl, a prototype ride described as combining the thrill of the Whip and the Tilt in a whole new way is expected to make its debut in Coney Island this season. On Monday, the first two of four trucks carrying the MegaWhirl structure arrived on Thor Equities’ Stillwell Avenue lot leased to the BK Festival promoters for their new Steeplechase Park. The new ride’s arrival is another promising sign of Coney Island’s revival. Back in the day, the first models of new park or carnival rides would make their debut here.

“This is the prototype. It’s running like a charm,” the MegaWhirl’s designer Jonathan Gordon of Gordon Rides told ATZ. Over the next few weeks, the ride will be set up, tested and inspected. “If all goes well, we’re hoping that the ride will make its debut along with the rest of the park on Memorial Day Weekend.” The prototype was built by Larson International and was previously set up on the factory floor at Larson’s headquarters in Plainview, Texas. Promo videos show visiting ride enthusiasts going for a test spin.

“This dizzying ride swings riders in all directions, creating the illusion of near-misses with other carriages and the edges of the ride,” according to Gordon Rides website. Unlike the Whip, the cars of the MegaWhirl spin all the way around- 360 degrees – in a random curve pattern that could be mild or intense. As a family ride, it runs at a maximum of 4 miles per hour. “We’re going to tweak it a little bit faster,” said Gordon.

When we interviewed Gordon last year for “New Ride: The Whip + Tilt-A-Whirl = MegaWhirl” (ATZ, June 28, 2011), the White Plains-based ride designer said that he grew up in Westchester County and went to Playland Park as a boy, where he enjoyed riding the Whip and other classics. “That influenced me quite a bit,” Gordon told ATZ. “The rides were beloved and they’re just not around anymore.” He spent summers working at the park, first as a mechanic and later in the superintendent’s office before going to engineering school. He holds numerous patents in roller coaster and ride design, including one on a “multi-track multi-vehicle interactive roller coaster.”

First Trucks Carrying the MegaWhirl Arrive in Coney Island. April 30, 2012. Photo © Gordon Rides

Coney Island Carousel Vying for Online Votes to Win Grant

Posted in Amusement ride, historic preservation, tagged B & B Carousell, B&B Carousell, carousel, Competition, Coney Island, Coney Island History Project, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Partners in Preservation on April 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

B & B Carousell, Coney Island. August 2005. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Last night the Empire State Building was lit up blue and white in honor of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It was a prelude to this morning’s announcement that New York City has been selected as the location for Partners in Preservation 2012. American Express, in partnership with the National Trust, will award $3 million to preserve historic places in New York City. Coney Island’s B & B Carousell is one of 40 competitors vying for your online vote.

From April 26 through May 21, New Yorkers as well as anyone who loves New York may cast one vote daily on the Partners in Preservation New York City website or via Facebook, smartphone or tablet. According to the initiative’s press release, the top four vote-getters, to be announced May 22, are guaranteed to receive grants for their preservation projects. A Partners in Preservation advisory committee of community and preservation leaders will select sites that will receive the rest of the $3 million in grants.

On May 5 and 6, the Coney Island History Project is hosting a “B & B Carousell Open House” where the first restored horse will be on display along with photos of the restoration process and archival images of the carousel. The historic carousel was saved from auction in 2005 when the City purchased it for $1.8 million. The 1919 ride was packed up and moved from its longtime location on the north side of Surf Avenue and sent to Carousels & Carvings in Ohio for restoration.

The Partners in Preservation grant would fund transport and assembly from the restoration in Ohio back to New York. In 2013, the B & B will reopen in a new pavilion next to the Parachute Jump.

Saturday Matinee: A Switchback Railway (1898)

Posted in Amusement ride, film, video, tagged La Marcus Thompson, roller coaster, roller coaster history, silent film, Switchback, Switchback Railway on April 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

La Marcus Thompson’s Gravity Switchback Pleasure Railway debuted in 1884 in Coney Island on the site where the Cyclone thrills today. Film footage doesn’t exist since the Kinetoscope wasn’t invented until the 1890s, but this documentary short by British filmmaker R.W. Paul shows patrons at an English fairground enjoying a Switchback Railway in 1898. We love the little boy running up to see the coaster and hope that he got a chance to ride!

Thompson’s 1885 patent was titled “A Roller Coasting Structure” and his gravity-powered ride which took its inspiration from a mining railway is known as America’s first roller coaster. In Coney Island, the first cars seated passengers sideways and went 6 miles per hour over 600 feet of undulating track. When people waited on line for up to three hours to ride, a reporter for the New York Sun proclaimed that “Coasting” was all the rage in Coney this season. As for the nickel ride: “It combined the effect of seasickness, imparted by the primeval swing, with the rush of a runaway ice wagon on a down grade; but besides all this there is a feeling of sailing through space which is elsewhere unattainable without the assistance of a balloon.”

By 1888, Thompson had been granted 30 patents and had built at least 20 roller coasters in the U.S. and 24 more abroad including several in the U.K., according to Robert Cartmell’s The Incredible Scream Machine.