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Video of the Day: Let Us Now Praise Coney Island’s Zipper

Posted in Amusement ride, video, tagged Amy Nicholson, Coney Island, Jim McDonnell, Nelson Sullivan, Zipper on July 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Remember Coney Island’s Zipper ride? Check out the first three minutes of “Zipper,” Amy Nicholson’s documentary about “Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride,” on the film’s new Facebook page. “In a market-driven world where growth often trumps preservation,” says the film-maker, “Eddie and his Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.” The film is set to be released in 2012. In the meantime, here are a couple of vintage vids to show you what old school carnival thrills Coney Island has been missing since the Zipper left Brooklyn for Honduras.

When photographer Jim McDonnell shot the video “Dave Rides the Coney Island Zipper” six years ago, in July 2005, real estate speculator Joe Sitt of Thor Equities had yet to buy up property in Coney Island and decimate the amusement area. The independently owned and operated Zipper reigned on West 12th Street till it was evicted in 2007. Says Jim: “It was one of the few (if not only) operating Chance Zipper rides that allowed single riders, and you definitely got your moneys worth with a super long ride cycle. Dave is the only rider on this cycle – he’s in car #5 but its sometimes a bit hard to follow. Pardon the crude video work and enjoy the flipping!”

The manufacturer’s recommended ride duration is two minutes (two-and-a half tops), but Dave gets to ride for an astounding five-and-a-half minutes, which was typical for the Coney Island Zipper. The ride cost only $4.00, according to a sign on the ticketbooth. Our fave comment on the next vid’s YouTube page was “I remember when Big Louie ran that ride. He left me in there for a half an hour. It felt like I was in a washing machine left in the spin cycle.”

Take a trip back in time to 1987 and watch Larry Tee and Lahoma Van Zandt ride the Coney Island Zipper in this video by Nelson Sullivan, whose work chronicled the downtown New York club scene in the ’80s. You’ll catch a glimpse of a young RuPaul here and in another vid where the group rides a Swinging Car on the Wonder Wheel. The best part of the Zipper vid is the ride operator spinning the car at both the beginning and end of their ride. The worst part is watching the riders look for a spot to throw up. The Zipper, a notorious “puke ride” on the carnival circuit, was invented in 1968 by Chance Rides and is still manufactured today.

New Ride: The Whip + Tilt-A-Whirl = MegaWhirl

Posted in Amusement ride, tagged Gordon Rides, Jonathan Gordon, Larson International, MegaWhirl, ride designer on June 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

We’ve been a fan of Mangels’ Whip and Sellner’s Tilt-A-Whirl since our days as a carny kid, so naturally we’re excited about the debut of the MegaWhirl. Called the “MegaWhip” during its development phase, the new ride is said to combine the thrill of the Whip and the Tilt in a whole new way. MegaWhirl inventor Jonathan Gordon of Gordon Rides tells ATZ that the prototype is the culmination of two-and-a-half years of work.

The prototype designed by Gordon Rides and built by Larson International is set up on the factory floor at Larson’s headquarters in Plainview, Texas. A group of American Coaster Enthusiasts touring the new National Roller Coaster Museum adjacent to Larson were invited to try out the MegaWhirl and appear in the YouTube video shown above.

“I wanted to do this since I was a little kid. I spent summers as a ride mechanic at Rye Playland,” recalls Gordon, who grew up in Westchester County and went to Playland Park as a boy, where he rode the Whip and other classics. “That influenced me quite a bit,” he told ATZ. “The rides were beloved and they’re just not around anymore.” Gordon also worked in the superintendent’s office at Playland before going to engineering school and blazing his own trail as an independent ride designer. He holds numerous patents in roller coaster and ride design, including one on a “multi-track multi-vehicle interactive roller coaster.”

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. The ride has a footprint of 50 feet by 50 feet and an hourly capacity of 480. The only criticism of the ride has been that it could be a little faster than 4 m.p.h. The designer says he is willing to customize the speed. “If someone wanted the prototype, we could have it up and running this summer,” says Gordon, though he thinks it’s more likely the ride will debut next season. Which amusement park will give the first MegaWhirl a home?

UPDATE May 1, 2012:

Two of four trucks carrying the prototype of the MegaWhirl arrived yesterday in Coney Island! See “MegaWhirl Ride Prototype to Debut in Coney Island” (ATZ, May 1, 2012)

Coney Island Kiddie Park Getting Squeezed by Thor Equities

Posted in amusement park, Amusement ride, tagged Coney Island, Joe Sitt, McCullough's Kiddie Park, Thor Equities on June 14, 2011| 6 Comments »

Ride being dismantled and moved in McCullough's Kiddie Park, Coney Island. June 13, 2011. Photo © Eric Kowalsky

Coney Island had 64 rides when we did our annual ride census in April, but starting this week it will have 62. McCullough’s Kiddie Park, whose colorful banners trumpeting “More Rides” had a dozen rides, is losing two. The kiddie park owner is getting squeezed out by Thor Equities. A section of their park occupied by three rides–the Frog Hopper, kiddie train and boats– is a lot owned by Thor and was subleased to them a few years ago by Norman Kaufman.

Now that the sublease has expired, Thor Equities reportedly offered a new lease with such onerous terms that the park’s owners will not sign it. The three rides have to be off Thor’s property by Thursday, June 16th. On Monday, the little park’s train ride was sent packing. The kiddie boat ride also went bye bye. Meanwhile, the majority of the other rides had to be dismantled and rearranged to accommodate the Frog Hopper, which is staying. McCullough’s Kiddie Park, located at West 12th and the Bowery in Coney Island, will reopen this weekend with 10 rides.

The McCullough family is related to Steeplechase Park’s Tilyous and has owned and operated rides in Coney Island for many years and we hope many years to come. In 2005, Jimmy McCullough sold the B & B Carousell, the last wooden carousel in Coney Island, to the City after the death of his business partner Mike Salzstein. 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 Stubbman carousels, in the Coney Island History Project’s Oral History Archive.

Joe Sitt, CEO of Thor, on the other hand, has zero rides on his Coney Island property. What he does have is a dismal flea market disguised as a festival because flea markets are not allowed by the zoning. Despite what you may have read in a NY Times puff piece on Sitt, the flea does not feature “upscale product.” What’ll he do with the tiny lot reclaimed from the kiddie park, put in a few more flea market tables?

Joe Sitt is infamous for evicting amusement rides from his Coney Island properties. In 2007, the real estate speculator evicted the Zipper from 12th Street. He also evicted Norman Kaufman’s Go Karts, Bumper Boats and Batting Cages from Stillwell Avenue to “allow the new development to proceed in a timely manner,” but has built NOTHING there except a failed flea market in 2009 and another flea market this summer. (“Thor’s Coney Island: What Stillwell Looked Like Before Joe Sitt,” ATZ, March 3, 2010)

It’s bad enough that the City has let Joe Sitt continue to get away with blighting the amusement area. Why do the New York Times and other mainstream media continue to enable Sitt’s bad behavior with clueless coverage referring to him as a developer? Read the graffiti scrawled on his so-called construction fence: It says “Blight for Spite.”