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New York City has big plans for Coney Island. The Brooklyn neighborhood will soon have new thrill rides and other amusements designed to bring back the glory years when Coney Island was known as “the People’s Playground” after years of decline.
Luna Park at Coney Island will open on Memorial Day weekend with 19 rides. Among them will be the Air Race, which sends riders swinging and soaring around a control tower. It will be the ride’s global debut.
Also promised are games, live entertainment, and concessions including Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand, which opened in 1916, pioneering America’s concept of fast food.
By the summer of 2011, Scream Zone at Coney Island will offer two roller coasters, go-carts and a human slingshot launching people more than 200 feet into the air.
Other plans include shopping centers, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, and 5,000 new housing units for the area. Link -via Fark
(image credit: AP/NYC Economic Development Corp.)
When you pay a visit to your county or state fair, or when a carnival comes to town, you may get a chance to ride on one of Michael Jackson’s amusement park rides. The rides were sold to amusement companies around the country and have been refurbished and put back into use.
“It was a blast!” said Benny Vasquez, a Visalia, Calif., welder who was regaining his bearings after a dizzying turn on the Spider, an arachnid-shaped contraption with blazing green bulbs lining its black legs. “It’s exciting for people to be able to sit on something that he owned.”
Over the years, Jackson acquired about 18 rides for his 2,600-acre ranch in Santa Barbara County. Some gradually were swapped out for newer models and hit the carnival circuit without fanfare. But most stayed in place even after Jackson, acquitted on child molestation charges in 2005, left Neverland for good.
Several big amusement companies purchased what remained in 2008, repainting and sprucing up rides run down by weather and lack of use.
(image credit: Tomas Ovalle/LA Times)
Remember those old dinosaurs you use to ride many years ago at the local amusement parks? Well, some of these have gotten a facelift, and some remain some of the most famous, original thrill rides of our time.
The Diamondback is the new hyper-coaster at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, my old stopping ground. The coaster measures 5280 feet long, stands 230 feet in the air, has a 215 foot drop, has 10 complete drops, 2 helix measuring 323 and 287 degrees, and reaches speeds of 80 mph. The Diamondback “is similar to the Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland in dimensions and statistics, and like Behemoth has staggered seating.”
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These monstrous beasts defy the laws of
gravity, making our brains slosh around in our craniums. Sounds fun right?
There was a time when I was child that I was terrified of these wooden and metal beasts. My Dad made me ride the Gemini at Cedar Point when I was barely tall enough to ride. On the way down the first hill, I started to lift out of my seat and the bar started to come loose. I started to scream bloody murder, and for the rest of the day, I couldn’t even look at another ride.
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