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Posts Tagged ‘kiddie ride’

Coney Island Bumble Bee Ride Rebuilt, Set to Go on Road with Canadian Carnival

Posted in Amusement ride, tagged Bumble Bee Bop, Bumble Bee Ride, Bumblebees, Canada, carnival, carnival ride, kiddie ride, McCullough's Kiddie Park, Select Shows on February 15, 2015| 9 Comments »

Bumble Bees and Herschell Carousel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island, September 3, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita

Remember Coney Island’s Bumble Bees? The popular kiddie ride in McCullough’s Kiddie Park left its spot on the Bowery when the family closed their park in 2012 after being unable to extend the lease. In April, the Bees will once again be awhirl after finding a wonderful new home in Canada.

ATZ learned the good news from the ride’s new owner, Jim Mills, who operates Select Shows, a traveling carnival based in Manitoba. “This past fall I purchased the Bumble Bee ride from McCullough’s Park in Coney Island,” Mills told ATZ. “During the past winter it has been totally rebuilt and going to hit the road this spring on my show.”

Coney Island Bumblebee under Restoration. Photo © Select Shows, Manitoba

Mills, whose family-run carnival operates from mid-April through the end of September in Manitoba and Ontario, sent us photos of the rehab. “There is a picture of the beginning of the make over and the rest are showing the painting of the last two as well as the new sweeps, all new hydraulics, electrical and complete body work, which alone for the Bees is about 400 man hours. We have put approximately $30,000 into this project so far,” says Mills, who promises to send more photos once the redo is completed and the ride is set up. He has put up a page on the show’s website about the history of the ride, which survived Hurricane Sandy. SO happy to see the Bees lovingly restored and ready to begin their new life on the road!

Coney Island Bumblebee under Restoration. Photo © Select Shows, Manitoba, Canada

The McCullough family operated amusements in Coney Island for four generations and their kiddie park had been on 12th Street and the Bowery since the 1960s. The often-photographed Bumble Bee ride was emblematic of Coney Island and frequently photographed with the Wonder Wheel or Parachute Jump in the background. When Astroland closed in 2008, some photographers’ captions said it was the end of the Bees because they did not realize the ride was part of a different park.

On Flickr we posted: Please note the Bumblebee ride on the Bowery and the kiddie rides surrounding it are NOT part of Astroland. McCullough’s Kiddie Park has 12 kiddie rides and is open for the 2009 season. The McCullough family is related to the Tilyous and have owned and operated rides in Coney Island for many years and we hope many years to come!

Coney Island Bumblebee under Restoration. Photo © Select Shows, Manitoba, Canada

Fun Facts about the Bumble Bees:

The ride’s trademark name Bumble Bee Bop was first used in 2001. This aerial kiddie carousel was designed and manufactured by Sellner, the inventor of the Tilt-A-Whirl.

McCullough’s Bumble Bee ride inspired Galloping Boy Designs T-shirt of an adventurous tabby seeing the sights of Coney Island from the back of a bumble bee. The Bees can also be glimpsed in numerous films and music videos shot in Coney.

Artist Chris DAZE Ellis, who painted a mural adjacent to McCullough’s Kiddie Park for the Dreamland Artist Club in 2004, pays tribute to the Bumble Bees in his painting Kiddyland Spirits. The 1995 painting is among his works currently on view in the touring exhibit Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Kiddyland Spirits, 1995, oil on canvas. Painting copyright Chris DAZE Ellis

Black Friday Shopping: Coney Island Kiddie Rides for Sale

Posted in Amusement ride, tagged carousel, Coney Island, Ferris wheel, kiddie ride, used rides on November 23, 2012| 2 Comments »

Kiddie Ferris Wheel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island. June 14, 2008. Photo © Tricia Vita via flickr

Black Friday is here and it’s time to shop for toys to put under the Christmas tree. If the tree is growing in your backyard, a kiddie ride would fit just fine though you’d better check zoning regulations. Generations of kids have grown up riding this little Ferris Wheel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park on the Bowery at West 12th Street in Coney Island, but now it’s for sale. As previously reported by ATZ, the family-owned park closed in September after fifty years when the owners weren’t able to come to a lease agreement with property owner Thor Equities. The park’s rides are being offered for sale by usedrides.com. The Wheel is ten grand and the much-photographed Bumblebees are $42,000. Among the other rides are a Mini-Himalaya ($17,000), Alan Herschell Carousel ($50,000) and Zamperla Rockin’ Tug ($42,000). The rides were moved to the broker’s lot in Greer, South Carolina.

Although McCullough’s Kiddie Park has operated on 12th Street since the 1960s, 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. The McCulloughs are also the former owners of the B&B Carousell, which will reopen in Coney Island’s new Steeplechase Plaza next year. It’s sad that McCullough’s is closing and that Coney is losing another indie operator. They will be missed and so will their bees. But Coney Island isn’t losing all of its kiddie rides: Deno’s Kiddie Park on the Boardwalk has 17 rides for children, including the beloved Mangels Pony Cart and Fire Engine, and will reopen in the spring.

Bumble Bees and Herschell Carousel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island, September 3, 2012. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

Rare & Vintage: Pinto Bros. Pony Cart from Coney Island

Posted in Amusement ride, Artifacts, Auction, tagged Coney Island, kiddie ride, Pinto Brothers, Pony Cart, ride manufacturer on May 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

Pinto Bros. Pony Cart, Image Courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio

This charming cast iron pony and wood cart manufactured in Coney Island, New York, by the Pinto Brothers is up for auction on May 19 at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati. Two bids have already been placed online via liveauctioneers. The Pinto Brothers were kiddie ride manufacturers in Coney Island during the 1940s and ’50s. Like their better known contemporary William F Mangels, who also manufactured a popular pony cart ride, the Pinto family had a factory on West 8th Street. Pinto rides turn up less frequently than Mangels, which makes this piece of Coney Island memorabilia desirable despite– or perhaps because of?– its condition: “Unrestored, horse repainted, paint loss to cart, wooden slats of cart damaged with age.”

The owner found the piece at an antique mall in Lexington, Kentucky, where its name plate and Coney Island provenance went unnoticed: Pinto Bros Mfg. Amusement Devices, Coney Island, NY, USA. Among the kiddie rides that they manufactured and advertised for sale were a carousel, ferris wheel, rocket, roller coaster, miniature trains, sail boats, fire engine and pony carts.

In June 1948, the Billboard reported that Pinto Bros three new kiddie pony and cart rides built in their shop at 2940 West 8th Street were featured at Feltman’s park, in McCullough’s lot adjoining the Dangler on West 15th and Surf, and in Asbury Park. The brothers Albert and Silvio, along with their cousin Henry and father Silvio Sr., also operated a variety of other rides in Coney Island, including a Mangels Whip, a Scrambler, and the Tornado roller coaster and Spook House.

When the widening of the street for the New York Aquarium construction swallowed up their shop in 1954, they continued to manufacture ride parts for customers and operate rides. In 1959, the Pinto family bought the Cyclone roller coaster, which they operated before selling it to the City a decade later. According to a post with reminiscences of the Pinto Brothers on the Coney Island History Project’s blog “Ask Mr. Coney Island,” a pony and cart was restored at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio.