originally posted on 10/12/2019
Photo: S. Madonna Horcher. View full-sized image.
The good news, Cincinnati Ohio’s Coney Island, which opened in 1886 (an amazing 133 years ago), will continue to exist; the bad news, it will no longer do so with any amusement rides. Coney Island is removing all of its 24 rides (including a Ferris wheel, carousel and steel coaster) and will shift its focus to enhancing its waterpark experience and event hosting spaces. The last day for guests to enjoy the rides was September 21.
According to Rob Schutter Jr., Coney Island's president and CEO, feedback from visitors indicated most came for the waterpark experience. “Dividing resources between both its rides area and the waterpark limited the number of man-hours and dollars that could be invested in either area,” the park said in a statement (as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer). “All of our consumer research, all of our consumer feedback and all of our in-park data show that the vast majority of our guests come to Coney Island because of the fun they have while in the Sunlite Pool area [still the largest recirculating swimming pool in the world],” Schutter said.
Photo: Bobby Nagy. View full-sized image.
Photo: Bobby Nagy. View full-sized image.
In addition to expanding and enhancing the water park, Coney Island plans to create additional spaces for its most popular events, including the Appalachian Festival and Summerfair Cincinnati, and it will carve out new spaces to host new events, community festivals and group outings.
Historians will note this is not the first time rides and coasters have left Ohio’s Coney Island. Taft Broadcasting purchased the park in 1969 with the intent of closing it (since Coney had suffered from frequent devasting flooding) and then building Kings Island. Many of Coney’s rides (e.g., Monster, Scrambler, Flying Scooter, Dodgem) were transported to Kings Island's Coney Mall area (then called Old Coney) when the new theme park opened in 1972, but no coasters, which meant the demise of Coney’s famed (Herbert Schmeck) Shooting Star and Teddy Bear woodies, which were left behind on the abandoned rides site and demolished. Of note, Teddy Bear was rebuilt from blueprints at the nearby Stricker’s Grove in Ross, Ohio.
Photo: Michael Horwood. View full-sized image.
The Sunlite Pool continued to operate, however, and Coney would be partially restored years later, with rides eventually returning. In 1999 one of those was a coaster, Python, a D.P.V. Rides Zyklon model, which previously had opened in 1996 at Splash Zone Water Park, Wildwood, New Jersey, before being moved to Coney.
Attractions such as Python and other rides will be sold off by a third-party broker. Let’s hope that most of them will, as in 1972 (including the coaster this time), find new homes.
— Randy Geisler
Photo: S. Madonna Horcher. View full-sized image.
@#$%&!
#ACENews