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Dreamland (amusement park)
Encyclopedia
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
at Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
, Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from 1904 to 1911. It contained primarily freak show
Freak show
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics, people with other extraordinary diseases and...
s.
History
Created by a Tammany HallTammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
-connected businessman William H. Reynolds
William H. Reynolds
William H. Reynolds was an American film editor whose career spanned six decades. His credits include such notable films as The Sound of Music, The Godfather, The Sting, and The Turning Point...
, Dreamland was supposed to be (relatively) high-class entertainment, with elegant architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, pristine white towers and some education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al exhibits along with the rides and thrills. It was reputed to have one million electric light bulbs illuminating and outlining its buildings—quite a novelty at the time.
Among Dreamland's attractions were a railway that ran through a Swiss alpine landscape, imitation Venetian canals with gondolas, a "Lilliputian Village" with three hundred dwarf inhabitants, and a demonstration of firefighting in which two thousand people pretended to put out a blazing six-story building. The side shows were owned by the Dicker family (they also owned the hotel next to the park, which burned down in the blaze reported below). There was also a display of baby incubators, where premature babies were cared for and exhibited. The triplets were the members of the Dicker family. The doctors advised them of the new invention, but they could not use it because incubators were not approved for use in hospitals. So the triplets were placed in the side show, which was allowed. Two survived. They lived on to have full lives until their passing. In a bid for publicity, the park put famous Broadway actress Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...
in charge of the peanut-and-popcorn stands, with young boys dressed as imps in red flannel acting as salesmen. Dressler was said to be in love with Dreamland's dashing, handlebar-mustachioed, one-armed lion tamer who went by the name of Captain Bonavita.
In spite of its many draws, Dreamland struggled to compete with nearby Luna Park
Luna Park, Coney Island
Luna Park was an amusement park at Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City from 1903 to 1944. A second Luna Park was opened on the former site of the nearby Astroland amusement park...
, which was better managed. In preparation for its 1911 season, many changes were made. Samuel W. Gumpertz (later director of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus) was put in the park's top executive post. The buildings, once all painted white in a bid for elegance, were redone in bright colors. On the night before opening day, a concession called Hell Gate, in which visitors took a boat ride on rushing waters through dim caverns, was undergoing last-minute repairs by a roofing company owned by Samuel Engelstein. A leak had to be caulked with tar. During these repairs, at about 1:30 in the morning on Saturday, May 27, 1911, the light bulbs that illuminated the operations began to explode, perhaps because of an electrical malfunction. In the darkness, a worker kicked over a bucket of hot pitch, and soon Hell Gate was in flames.
The fire quickly spread throughout the park. The buildings were made of frames of lath (thin strips of wood) covered with staff
Staff (building material)
Staff is a kind of artificial stone used for covering and ornamenting buildings.Staff is chiefly made of powdered gypsum or plaster of Paris, with a little cement, glycerin, and dextrin, mixed with water until it is about as thick as molasses, when staff is cast in molds it can form any shape...
(a moldable mixture of plaster of Paris and hemp fiber). Both materials were highly flammable, and as they were common in the Coney Island amusement parks, fires were a persistent problem there. Because of this, a new high-pressure water pumping station had been constructed at Twelfth Street and Neptune Avenue a few years earlier. But on this night it failed. Water was available, but not enough to contain the fire before it enveloped Dreamland.
Chaos broke loose as the park burned. As the one-armed Captain Bonavita strove to save his big cats with only the swiftly encroaching flames for illumination, some of the terrified animals escaped. A lion named Black Prince rushed into the streets, among crowds of onlookers, and was shot by police. By morning, the fire was out, and Dreamland was reduced to a soggy, smoldering mess.
Early editions of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
claimed the incubator babies had perished in the flames, but later the paper corrected this and reported that they had all been saved.
Though other Coney Island parks were rebuilt after major fires, some multiple times, Dreamland was abandoned after the fire of 1911.
Dreamland was located between Surf Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
at West Eighth Street
West Eighth Street-New York Aquarium (New York City Subway)
West Eighth Street – New York Aquarium is a station on the BMT Brighton Line and the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway. The station is located over the private right-of-way of the defunct New York and Coney Island Railroad, north of Surf Avenue and running easterly from West 8th Street on...
opposite Culver Depot
Culver Depot
Culver Depot or Culver Terminal was a railroad terminal on Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, United States, located on the northern side of Surf Avenue near West 5th Street....
, the terminal of New York City Subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
's Brighton
BMT Brighton Line
The BMT Brighton Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. Local service is provided at all times by the Q train. The Q is joined by the B express train on weekdays...
and Culver Lines
IND Culver Line
The IND Culver Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway, extending from Downtown Brooklyn south to Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, United States...
. The site is now the location of the New York Aquarium
New York Aquarium
The New York Aquarium is the oldest continually operating aquarium in the United States, having opened in Castle Garden in Battery Park, Manhattan in 1896. Since 1957, it has been located on the boardwalk in Coney Island, Brooklyn. The aquarium is managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society as...
and the West Eighth Street
West Eighth Street-New York Aquarium (New York City Subway)
West Eighth Street – New York Aquarium is a station on the BMT Brighton Line and the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway. The station is located over the private right-of-way of the defunct New York and Coney Island Railroad, north of Surf Avenue and running easterly from West 8th Street on...
station.
Literary References
- Kevin BakerKevin BakerKevin Baker is an American novelist and journalist. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey and grew up in New Jersey and Rockport, Massachusetts....
wrote a historical novel, DreamlandDreamland (Kevin Baker)Dreamland is a 1999 novel by American author Kevin Baker, published by HarperCollins Publishers. It centers on the colorful underworld of turn-of-the-century New York City, with much of the action taking place in the Coney Island amusement park of Dreamland.It is written about the adventure park...
, about life in New York City at the time Dreamland existed, touching on the politics, economics, social conditions of the time, and Dreamland is one of the central places in the book. His book also contains a description of the fire. The following is an excerpt where he describes one of the very common fatal accidents at amusement parks of the time:
- The greatest roller coaster ride of all time took place on a balmy Sunday afternoon on Coney Island on September 6, 1901, at 4:07 P.M.
- It was on a new coaster, called The Rough Rider, where each train was run by its own motorman. Done up in full San Juan Hill regalia. Instructed to make 'em scream, the louder the better--that's what brings in the paying customers. Until that afternoon when one of the ersatz Teddies, pushing his train at full speed, snapped off the rear two cars and sent them soaring out, sixty feet into the air above Surf Avenue.
- After the accident they didn't close The Rough Rider, or even change it. The crowds were greater than ever for the roller coasters--thanatos and eros, the death wish and the pleasure principle, all at the same time. You could see them in the long line, staring avidly at the twisted track, the hole in the guard rail where it had smashed through. Wondering what it was like--
- The cars rising slowly along the impossibly steep track, jerking and grating on their chains. The dread growing steadily in the pit of the stomach, until that last, awful moment, when you pause for a moment at the peak, and look down over the impossibly narrow, curving track, face-to-face with what you have done. Yet always sure that at the very end, you will be pulled back from the brink--
- Did they understand it? That's what all the gawkers, the rubberneckers in line wanted to know. After the impossible happened, and the chain broke, and they crashed through the last barrier--did they understand in those last, suspended moments above Surf Avenue, before they hit the ground, that theirs was the greatest thrill of all?
- Henry MillerHenry MillerHenry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
mentions Dreamland in his novel, Tropic of CapricornTropic of Capricorn (novel)Tropic of Capricorn is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, first published in Paris in 1938. The novel was subsequently banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene. It is a sequel to Miller's 1934 work, the Tropic of...
: I was walking again in Dreamland and a man was walking above me on a tightrope and above him a man was sitting in an airplane spelling letters of smoke in the sky.
- Steven MillhauserSteven MillhauserSteven Millhauser is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Martin Dressler. The prize brought many of his older books back into print.-Life and career:...
in his short story paradise park also talks about dreamland as a rival amusement park. There are some similarities between paradise park and Dreamland
- Dutch writer Arthur JapinArthur JapinArthur Valentijn Japin is a renowned Dutch novelist.-Biography:His parents were Bert Japin, a teacher and writer of detective novels, and Annie Japin-van Arnhem. After a difficult childhood - his father killed himself when Arthur was twelve years old - Japin entered the Kleinkunstacademie in...
's novel De grote wereld (The big world), about two midgets, is partly set in Dreamland.
- Also Dutch writer J. BernlefJ. BernlefJ. Bernlef is a Dutch writer, lyricist, novelist and translator. He made his literary debut with Kokkels in 1960. He became known to a larger public with his novel Hersenschimmen from 1984, which treated the theme of dementia. The book is basis for a film from 1987, and a theatre play from 2006...
's novel De witte stad (The white city) narrates about the fictional lives of many Dreamland inhabitants.
- Dutch Architect Rem KoolhaasRem KoolhaasRemment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
writes at length on Dreamland in his retroactive manifesto for Manhattan Delirious New York.
Music References
- Brian CarpenterBrian Carpenter (musician)Brian Carpenter is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and radio producer. He is the lead singer and songwriter for the Boston, Massachusetts band Beat Circus. His primary instrument is the trumpet. He also leads the Ghost Train Orchestra in New York City...
wrote a play treatment which he used as a springboard for lyrics and compositions behind his second studio album for Beat CircusBeat CircusBeat Circus is a band from Boston, Massachusetts fronted by multi-instrumentalist / singer-songwriter Brian Carpenter, who has been its only constant member since its inception.-Musical style:...
entitled DreamlandDreamland (Beat Circus album)Dreamland is the second studio album by American band Beat Circus. It was released on January 29, 2008 by Cuneiform Records, and shares its title with the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. The album is a 150-page score for 9 musicians composed...
. Carpenter's Dreamland is a 150-page score and song cycle based on historical fact—real people and places—interwoven with Carpenter's fictional tale of an impoverished, alcoholic gold miner who makes a pact with the devil before fleeing eastward to work in Dreamland's sideshows. The album features Todd Robbins, current executive director of Coney Island, and its booklet includes historical images of Dreamland donated by the Coney IslandConey IslandConey Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
Museum.
See also
- Dreamland, Melbourne (amusement park)
- Rockaways' PlaylandRockaways' PlaylandRockaways' Playland was an amusement park located on Beach 98th Street in Rockaway Beach in the Borough of Queens, New York City, at Beach 98 Street between Rockaway Beach Boulevard and the beachfront...
- List of abandoned amusement parks