Several people in this threadmentioned Freedomland, and I figure it’s worth a thread of its own.
Freedomlandwas a short-lived amusement park in the Bronx, designed by Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, who had worked on Disneyland and decided to create his own. It was shaped like a map of the USA, with historical themed rides and attractions, and failed after four seasons. It ran from 1960-64, when it closed down; the land was sold for the construction of Co-op city.
I went once when I was ten or twelve. I remember the donkey rides, the skyride (didn’t take them, since the line was too long), and the crazy house (designed on weird angles and painted with optical illusions so you thought the law of gravity wasn’t working right). I do remember liking it, but I loved anything to do with history.
Oh yeah, we had a lake house in Connecticut rented that year, and the ads were so ubiquitous the parents broke down and took us. All I remember really is lines. But weirdly, I recall that “Little” Stevie Wonder was appearing later that nite and they announced it over the PA over and over and over. Mostly with harmonica music.
I was born in 1961 in Astoria, NY, and I don’t have any real memories of the place… but my parents have old, old home movies showing me there as a 2 or 3 year old, dancing while some kind of Dixieland band was playing.
It was turned into Co-Op City when I was in kindergarten.
I lived in Jackson Heights and remember going to Freedomland once. Other than that I got nothing. I was probably 15 at the time so should remember more, so I’m guessing I wasn’t impressed.
I lived nearby in the Westchester Square area of the Bronx, and was between 8 and 12 when Freedomland was open. I’m not sure how many times we went, but my aunt took me and my two younger brothers there several times. I loved the place. I have the guidebook on my desk as I write, which I pulled out in response to the other thread.
Somewhere I have a photo of me and my brothers helping put out the Chicago Fire with a pumper truck. I may also have a certificate saying I helped.
I loved the historical rides like the Civil War Ride, the Stagecoach, and the Northwest Fur Trappers. I also liked the Casa Loca crazy house. I was amazed at how convincing the optical illusions were.
As I mentioned in the other thread, after it closed I and my brothers used to sneak in through a hole in the fence and roam about the deserted park. We walked along the dry course of the Fur Trappers ride and were able to get into the Mine Caverns ride (which was mostly just an empty building at that point) and the Casa Loca, which was just as crazy. The fun ended one time when we heard guard dogs barking in the distance and we hightailed it out of there.
I only recently found out that the actual site of the original park was not Co-op City, as I had supposed, but the parking lot of the Bay Plaza shopping area. Some of the stonework from the Fur Trappers ride is still visible at the corner of the lot.
The Wonderland that replaced it for me was the NY Worlds Fair 1964-65 which I must have visited a dozen times. (My mother prohibited me from going on my own, since it was a long bus ride, but I used to sneak off there anyway.)
That’s the part I remember the best. (Also that there was a Budweiser brewery on site for some reason.) We went two or three times.
I grew up in Bayside just a short bus ride and one subway stop from the fair, so I went lots of times, often with friends. Yeah, the Fair was far superior.
The Richard Price novel of the same name is excellent; the movie adaptation of Freedomland managed to inexplicably leave out the setting of the book altogether, which is rather like leaving the bridge out of* The Bridge On The River Kwai*.
I visited three times, and still have some of the souvenirs. The park was actually BIGGER than Disneyland at the time, and located entirely within New York City. One reason that it (and Wood’s other projects) undoubtedly failed was because they were located in places where they had to close them dowen during the winter (Disneyland and Disneyworld are far enough south that they can stay openm year 'round. Later incarnations like EuroDisney opened after the brand was well enough established)
It was a pretty neat setup. Like Disney, they got outside companies to sponsor attractions (Like Chun-King foods sponsored Chinatoen). I recall helping “put out” the Old Chicago fire by pumping on the fire engine, got a ride on the paddlewheel steamboat, rode the “bucket ride”, rode on Danny the Dragon, and so on.
There were wandering live-action performers, like “Digger O’Toole”, the undertaker in the Wld West section. There were glassblowers making “pennies in the bottles”, and a caricaturist did my portrait using a stylus on a thin copper sheet (!)
There used to be a big Freedomland website, but I think it’s down, now. It had lots of tourist photos, pictures of souvenirs and memorabilia, and reminioscences, but I think that site is down, now. It also told what happened to the rides and attractions. There’s this wonmderful site:
But I don’t think it has as much stuff as the old site did.
As I mentioned, a lot of stuff is stiull around. A lot ended up at the Lake George NY amusement park. Quite a bit is at Clark’s Trading Post in New Hampshire, including most of the Train Station (It’s their main entrance), the Space Theater from Satellite City (their version of Tomorrowland) is being used as seating for the Bear Act and the circus, with the original seats. Some of the gingerbread-covered buildings are in use there, and the streetlights from Newe York are all over the park. They didn’t bring the Casa Loca, but they used the plans to build their own version, the Tuttle’s Rustic House:
