S I)JN1'"INC \VIIEJ~ L: A n o ld amusem e nt-park fnvori t c",RTI beUer than a hayride for throwing young fo l ks together.

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1:-rT I>R S"TI OS"1. PAR,\ CII UTE JU)lI': A thrill at the New York \Vorld's Fair, its 200-foot drop \,3S so SCE.\"I C R \IL\Y.\Y: It s peeds up courtship by IlrO\'iding un cx­ like UhiLling the s ilk" that it was take n mer b) the \rm) to train paratrooper... c u~c for her to sink into his arm~ - ~onletime ~ \\ith this res ult.

OE McKEE, a trim little gentleman of some of in the ride. The r"':,hole thing is in the mind. You take sixty-odd years with kindly blue eyes and 8 slow­ the roller coaster. I he average twister, she don't do no moving air of gentle serenity, is one of the lead­ more than thirty, forty miles an hour. Our B b led ing American scientists of suffering. McKee is one of ride, here.at Palisades, she's fast-she does abou~ s~xty the five persons in this country who can design and an hour, Just about. the fastest coaster in the business. build you a roUer coaster guaranteed to frighten strong Our Skyrocket does about fifty . Well "y.",r 0 u k now the average person what will think nothing f d " men and terrify weak women. "h . a omg A sevent.y, elg t.y In a car, or you take, On the olh , d roller coaster cannot be produced in a factory. Tt "I t " , er laD , is designed for a specific amusement. park, and built a pi a on a purSUit. pane. that docs tllr~. ...-.:: hu n d re d ml" ' es right on the premises. A roUer coaster, essentially, is an hour, he will take ~ ride on the Skyrocket and she'U just some cars riding around on tracks laid on a skel­ scare the pants off him. It's all in the ill· ·t'" "d f h "d uslon, I S III eton of planks and trestles. What makes the roUer t h e mm ate n er. That's my angle a ·t • "Y tak f II . n I • ]1)' (~ ]~ ZOI"O'.fOlV coaster the nauseating experience of pleasant agony is au e a e er lD a plane, he's up in lh k all the combination of drops and turns, of banks and dips, b y h".Imse If ,n "d" 109 Wit" h the clouds, and it don"te .... s"'em y so the contrasts between slow and fast, and the general terrtble fast. But we put him in a roller co te d tUUI (H~]) S. 1{1l.HiU t th . lin as r, an we illusion of danger which the designer creates. ge e cars J~g g and screeching, and those wooden go by like crazy, and of course the wi d" la HI been building these twisters about forty, forty­ posts.. thC n!Ssp_ one years, I guess," McKee said. To the ride man, a p~g y~~ III b e ace, and, by gosh, you think you are Almost lOO,OOO,OOOworthof coaster is known as either a "figure eight" or a gomg e a at out of heU. It's all in the mind mis- .. twister." McKee, now the chief engineer in charge of ter," concluded McKee. ' exhilarating mental agony is sold torment, mayhem and hysteria at Palisades Amuse­ . Theto discovery that .normal human be,'ngs werew­ill yearly to thrill-seekers who love ment Park, in New Jersey, studied engineering at ~g pay a substantial sum for being tortured_in a Carnegie Tech. He has constructed various imple­ mee way, o£ course-was made in 1884 , whe n La mar- to terrify themselves in roller ments of torture in Mexico City, Coney Island, Chi­ cus A. Thom~son, a Sunday-schOOl teacher and un­ successful textile manufacturer (rom ELkhart I d ' coasters, Tilt-A-Whirls, Tumble­ cugo, Pittsburgh and Baltimore" " il ' n ,ana, built th fir t "The main idea of the thing," he explained, his blue e· s sceruc ra way " anywhere at C oney I s- Bugs and Loop-O-PJanes. land S eyes twinkling genially, "is you got to scare the people . IDee then, more. than . 6000 rides h ave bee"n Ill- mentally because actuaPy there is nothing to be afraid vented. Today, the ride IDdustry is solidly established 16 - , " { DOODLE BUG: I t s tands hig b in po p h larity bcc~tu s e t s upplics all t he t h" ills of a ta n k or jeep r idc wit h o ut the co ntus io n s.

J,o\C::IC NANNII'fG DIVE BO~ I BEn: Born of the war , it g h'es slay-at-homes ROLLER COASTEn : Eas ily t h e mos t popuJar and p rofi ta ble ride C\'c r in \cntoo, it chance to pretend they arc a ces bagging Zeros in t h e Pacific. mus t afford a cOllvin c ing il lus ion of le rrifying s peed, fli rt \, ilh dan ger, ye t be safe.

in the entertainment fie ld, since almost everyone has have a merry-go-round, a roller coaster, a Whip a nd a the new generations of children a lways like lhe horses discovered t hat- ironic as it seems-you can get a re­ D odg'em or Skooter. best. mar kable exhilarat.ion, relief a nd violent pleasure by The mer ry-go-round is the nucleus of the park, they T he a musement-ride business was founded in Phila­ paying two bits to have yourself tortured for fifty sec­ a ll agree. lt.'s not exclusively a children's ride, cit her­ delphia by G. A. D entzel, whose father, Michael D ent­ onds. about 40 per cent of the equestria ns being more t.ha n zel, a Germa n immigrant, hod brought the firs t. car­ In a thousand a musement. pa rks, traveling carnivals t.wen t.y -one-but it is, on t he whole, a mild a nd peace­ rousel t.o this country in 1814 . G. A. Dentzel built. t he a nd summer resorts a ll over the la nd, ha ppy masochists able journey, even for children. And yet t.he whirling fi rst domest.ic merry-go-round in 1867. The horses a nnua lly spend close to $100,000,000 having a wonder­ horses, wit h the glass jewels on t heir ha rness a nd tra p­ were carefully carved by ha nd, t he pla tform was pow­ fully painful time. pings, wit h t heir painted saddles a nd leather straps, ered eit her by steam or by a li ving horse, a nd t.he ride T he manufacturing of t hese weird machines, of with t heir rai<-ed forelegs a nd huge eyes, with their at evening- was illuminated by eighteen kerosene t hese Octopuses a nd Caterpillar s, t hese Tilt-A-Whirls, brass rings a nd the orchestrion blaring a n exubera nt lam ps. The D entzel family continued t.o make merry­ Whips, D odg'ems, Skooters, Loop-O-Pla nes, Ferri.'i melody. these are pJJ a n integt'al a nd basic part of the go-rounds until 1927, when Ole last. of the fa mily, ~heels and T umble-Bugs. is concentrated in t he devil- Mardi-gras atmosphere. T he merry-go-round is also W illia m, died and the factory was d ismantled. Today, 18h hands of less than a dozen T orquemadas, who, in the most a ncient of all amusement devices. The R o­ t he carrousel-or " fly ing jinny " as she is known in the peacetime, tUrn out from five to ten million doll ars' ma ns had merry -go-rounds in the age of t.he emperors, trade-is lighted by as ma ny as 2200 electric bulbs, worth of these instruments annually. Most of t hese a nd t here is a minia t..are bronze carrou.sel-pa tina ted by a nd t he modern horses are often cast aluminum. You gentlemen-like M a ngels, who t urns out 'A' hips, or green mold- in t he R oman-sculpture court. at the can buy 8 fairly nice carrousel for SlO,OOO-including Sellner, who makes t he Tilt-A-Whirl-are very quiet Metropolita n Museum of Ait in New York. the band organ and motor-bu t. if you want a really a nd peaceful persons. When you talk to them, y ou get The carrousel-and the correct spelling of the word fa ncy job wit h aU sorts of im itation jewelry on the t he impression that it is t he ingenuity a nd novelty of is not " car ousel" -as we know it, was developed by horses, and if y ou want. "jumpers"-that is, horses the profession t hat int rigues t hem. the Fre ncb around 1660 as a gam e that. imitated the that. move upward a nd downward on a brass pole­ They have got. so used t.o the rides t hat the severity medieval tournaments between knights. The word then y ou may have t.o invest as much as $40,000. no longer frightens t he m. M cK ee, for insta nce, will "carrousel" means a jousting ma tch . The tradition Amusement-park operators agree t.ha t. t.he most pop­ personally test most of t he severe rides in t he early tha t t he riders on a carrousel must be astride horses ular and profi table ride ever invent.ed is the roller morning every day. A large park like P alisades offers will not. down. William P . M angels, one of Ole la rgest coaster, under any of it.s fa ntastic na mes-that is. a wide gamu t. of rides. P alisades has thirty-eight, ma nufacturers of merry-go-rounds, says t hat over tile Thunderbolt, Skyrocket, Zephyr, Mile S ky Chaser, which require at. least two hours to experience. Every years people have tried put ting roosters, lions, t igers, Cyclone a nd G iant R acer. Harry, J . Batt, who has a musement. park, no matter how small, will usua lly gira ffes, stags a nd cam els on the circling plaUorms, but been operating (Con,inued 011 Pag e 42) 17 , 42 June 9, 1945

skirt the edge of danger. It is a kind of RIDE ' EM AND WEEP secure insecurity. And an amusement­ (Continueci from Page Ii) park ride must always be dangerous, and yet safe. This tendency goes SO deep that Pontchartrain Beach, outside New Or­ I would call it a prepotent reflex, an leans, for more than twenty years, says, instinct to seek mild suffering. More "The Zephyr is our biggest ride. Noth­ people a re masochistic than sadistic, ing can ever equal the good old roller really. For the adult to go on a roller coaster for thrills and excitement. An coaster is for him to experience a pattern operator is interested in volume and re­ of emotions which brings him back to rides, nothing else. On the average the 'secure insecurity' of childhood, and ride-a Skooter or a carrousel or a n Air­ this is one of the sources of the perverse plane Swing-when the ride is over, you pleasure attached to riding on a Toll er have to stop the machinery, unload the coaster." riders and load up the new crop. So you This question of the danger of rides got to figure on a dead period. baflles most of the men in the industry. .. But the coaster is in continuous op­ Some of them say that an accident actu­ eration . While one train of cars is being ally booms business. Now and then, a unloaded, ybur two other trains are in drunk or a youthful bravo stands up in operation, completing their rides. The the car as the coaster takes the dip, and coaster never stops. Also, the capacity is is flung out to his death. In some parks, bigger, a nd you get the most rerides. We there will be a long line of customers at figure about sixty per cent of our patrons the ticket office the next day. In other will take a reride on the coaster . On a places, business will drop off for weeks good hot Labor Day we can ride ten afterward until the accident is forgotten. thousand people on the coaster, and Frequently, also, just like children we've done as much as twenty-seven overdoing a severe game of being thrown hundred dollars in business on that ride into the air, a rider will go on the Toller alone in one day." coaster once too often and, in the case of What seems to make the roller coaster women, will develop a lovely case of the most zestfully dangerous of aU rides hysterical tantrums. Every amusement is that it involves a speedy risj ng and park has a nurse and first-aid station. falling motion, a nd also that the car is, Contrary to the popular notion, shy so to speak, not under any control, but is young lovers aren't the only ones who proceeding by gravitational pull. The ride the roller coasters. A good percent­ cars of the coaster are drawn up to the age of the customers are singles who ride high point by a conveyor hoist and, from again and again for a thrill. that point on, they a re on their own. ~he shy young lovers are, of course, a After the first drop or dip, the cars gain marnstay of the amusement-ride indus­ enough momentum to proceed uphill and try. And the imagined dangers of the downhill all the rest of the way. It is roller coaster provide the conventional comparable to the sensation of coasting girl with a respectable excuse for seeking in neutral when you're in a n automobile the arms of her escort. "We figure," said going down a steep circular mountain McKee, .. our rides promote about a trail with a sheer precipice on both sides dozen cases of matrimony every season. and no brakes in the car. A steep roller coaster is the greatest The human a nimal is a perverse crea­ matchmaker in the world." ture. Dr. Lows Berg, a psychiatrist who Tn 1938, a boy and a girl who had metat has studied this aspect or personality. Palisades Park, and whose love had first points out that we seek not only security awakened during a dip on the coaster, but also insecurity. "From childhood we,re actually married on the scenic rail­ on," Doctor Berg says, .. the human be­ ~ay. there. The managemen,t provided a ing likes to flirt with danger. Every Jusbc.e of the peace, a ring, a license, a nd child likes to be thrown into the air. It promised the couple a honeymoon in will scream in terror, and yet ask you to Bermuda and furniture for an apartment throw it up again. The child likes to (Colltiulled Oft Page " 4)

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Tlla T l ' ltOAY avaNINO POST

HIt's about my salary; a gross incqu.ity e xi s ts!" • 44 TilE SATUlWAY EVENING 1'05'1' June 9.19'5

(Continued fro,,-.. Page 42) rocket at Palisades. for instance, you used in such rides as the Chair-O-Plane wheel which featured several inner cir­ iI they would go through with the stunt. travel its 2800 undulating feet in about or the Airplane Swing. in which the seats, cles of cars, in concentric fashion, but he As the newsreel cameras churned, the thirty-two seconds. instead of being set on a platform, hang forgot to work out a method of getting couple, the justice and the witnesses New t hrills, new variations of the old from the roof of the ride and, as the roof the passengers into the inner cars. A cer­ went around and around. For the sake o( principles a re always in demand. Jimmy is rotated, the chairs or the airplanes tain Simpson, in 1888, patented a circle the cameras, it was necessary to rehearse Onorato, manager of Coney Island's swing out in a circle. swing in wluch each car was equipped the action quite a few times. By the time Steeplechase Park, says that a large Centrifugal force is also a handy fac­ with sails and got its locomotion from the <:eremony had been completed, the amllsement park has to come up wit.h at tor in the Loop-O-Plane, perhaps the the winds. Norman Bel Geddes, the cars had gone around a dozen times, and least one novelt.y every season. At biggest at.traction in t he t raveling carni. eminent designer, once dreamed up a when it was all over, the face of the jus­ Steeplechase, the newest feature is the vals today. Developed only within the whiz of a gravity coaster, which was a t.iee of the peace was thoroughly white a nd Parachute Jump, in which you a re seated last ten years, this is simply a car shaped car suspended from a monorail. It was his eyes had a greenish glaze. under .a large parachute and drawn up like the body of a n airplane and sus­ tried out at an Eastern amusement park, Hundreds of dollars in small amounts about 200 feet and then dropped with a pended from a steel tentacle, which is at a cost of $150,000, and it failed. A of silver are lost each day by the custom· sickening "voom" until the parachute moved to and fro, swinging the passen­ C hicago World's Fair ride of which you ers as they are whirled, twirled, swirled balloons out. The War Department gers in ever-increasing arcs until they don't hear much a ny more was one and gyrated. These are called "drop­ adopted the Parachute Jump to train are making a complete revolution and in which the passengers traveled in a outs," and are considered a perquisite of paratroopers. Strangely enough, the first are hanging straight down, being glued balloon car between two towers. The the attendants on the ride. Brassieres, ride a paratrooper takes when he visits to their seats only by centrifugal force. sam~ ob~v ion .befell a circle-swing type shoes, false teeth, toupees, eyeglasses, Steeplechase is the Parachute Jump. The invention of the Whip in 1914 of nde 1.0 which passengers, seated in bracelets and rings are also wrenched Similarly, the first ride a professional gave the "flat ride" a new lease on life. cars shaped like pursuit planes, shot at away by the centrifugal and gravitational jockey will take when he visits this fa­ In 1918, Stoerer, an amusement-park bombers with toy machine guns. It was pulls. During a five-month season, Pali­ mous old park is the Steeplechase Horse operator in Salisbury Beach, Massachu­ probably ahead of its time. sad es collects more than 10,000 10At hats, Ride. This is a gravity ride, in which lour settsi . ~n vented a small self-propelled car Sometimes the fantasy can be devel­ which are given to the Salvation Army. horses ride on four parallel t racks, each whicn- he called the Dodg'em. About oped into a practical device. When Her­ Gradually, the rides have tended to horse loading two customers. The ride is twenty of these small cars, which can be bert ,,:,. &:llner wa~ a small boy, he liked evolve in the direction of greater speed, actually an unpredictable race-but the steered and guided in any direction, are to build his own mmiature trains and he more violent and perpendicular dips, race is not to the swift, or to the lean, or caged up; when the attendant turns on fooled ~ound with steam engines. Later, and more bizarre movements and novel to the jockeys, but to the fat. The fatter the juice, the riders can bump and col­ he got mterested in rides, and conceived twists. During the 1890's, the most pop­ and hea vier the rider, the stronger the lide with one another and have an unin­ the idea of a nautical merry-go-round-a ular rides were the scenic railways a nd gravitational pull, and the quicker the hibited time. The Lusse Brothers in group of boats arranged in a circle and the "dark rides," such as The Old Mill, horse will go. Aware of this fact, the Philadelphia d eveloped a ride along attached to a central platform by sweeps. invented by E. C. Boyce. The scenic quick-thinking racket boy will entice a similar principles called the Skooter. The boats would actually be placed in railway, in which patrons originally sat sucker to bet filty or a hundred dollars Skooter and Dodg'em are second to the t.he ocean, .and be powered by outboard lengthwise, parallel with the tracks, was that he and his girl friend will beat t.he roUer coaster in popularity in most per­ motors. Tned out at a beach the device a slow ride at a pace of fifteen miles an sucker and the sucker's girl on any horse, manent parks. The trend is to rides that proved impractical-the high waves hour, with gentle dips, and its main ap­ a nd he will give the sucker his choice of the rider can control. There is now a boat wr~king . the boats. Sellner kept on ex­ peal was that it offered the riders a the hoTSC. The wise boy has made sure ride called Water Skooter, with small penmentlng. H e transferred the idea to cha nce t.o see the park, the ocean or the that his girl friend is a hefty type, a 175- boats driven by the pas.~nger, and an land, ~n undulating circular trac.k now countryside. F requently, operators ran a pounder, if possible. The sucker thinks Airplane Swing ride, Spitfire, in which supplymg the wavy motion. A diabolic scenic railway through a tunnel, and pic­ the wise boy is out of his mind, especiaIJy the rider can manipulate a stick and do a touch here and there, and the Tilt-A­ turesque scenes were painted on the with a handicap like Miss Elephant. belly roll whenever the mood is upon him. Whirl finally was achieved. It made its walls. But no matter which of the four horses he Many rides, says McKee, are dreamed debut at Wildwood Park, St. Paul, in The Old Mill was a long ride through rides, the wise boy wiU always win. up by amateurs. Flying Turns was in­ 1926. and it was an instantaneous sensa­ a dark tunnel. Outside, a large wheel Based on the same gravity principle, vented by a garageman in Chicago. The tio":. Costing only $7500, the Tilt-A­ churned up a foam and provided a cur­ Henry Elmer Riehl, a construction engi­ Bobsled ride-a violent version of the Whirl grossed $30,000 for a carnival the re nt in the stream in which the boats neer, invented a ride involving a circular coaster theme-was conjured up by the first season. Since then, the Sellner Man­ scudded. It was considered dashing for car whirling down a twisted incline. He owner of a large tennis court in Queens, ufacturing Company has produced more the gay blade to reach out his hand and named it after his daughter, Virginia, and ew York, during along lull in business. than $1,000,000 worth of these sadistic stop or slow up the boat. The dirt which it is now one of the most popula r rides­ A textile manulacturer [rom Pennsyl­ machines in its pleasant, lawn-bordered t.he swain's fingers gathered was soon the Virginia Reel. vania named Ramm got the idea for the shop in Faribault, Minnesota. transferred to the girl's face, a nd when The round-a nd-around principle which . C uddle-Up ride wlule watching a weav­ W. E. Sullivan, who founded the Eli the boat finally emerged into the sun­ makes the carrousel eternally popular ing machine in operation. Most of the Bridge Company in Jacksonville,Illinois, light outside, the crowd would shout, was adapted and varied in the Whip, ideas t.urned out by the amateurs, fifty years ago, had no intention of ever .. Look at 'er face! t, and the embarrassed which Mangels developed in 1914. The though, are highly fantastic. A chap in dabbling in appl~ed torture. He just couple would frantically run down the principle of centrifugal force has been Puerto Rico got a patent on a Ferris wanted to make ruce wholesome bridges. midway, the girl hurriedly dabbing at N~body c~a red to buy Mr. Sullivan's her (ace with a handkerchief. bnd/?es. 1 hen a friend who owned a H enry Ford's contraption and the v carOl val told him about the need for widespread popularity of the automotive , sturdy, but portable, Ferris wheels and petting party soon made the Old Mill ~r. Sullivan, with a sigh, tU,med td Fer­ obsolete, and today most amusement ns wheels. Today, the Eli Bridge Com­ parks have ripped out their Old Mills pany is t.he leading Ferris-wheel ma nu­ and t.heir scenic-railway rides. Mean­ facturer in the world, and has sold ' close time, however, the roller coaster was get;.. to ~5.000,OOO worth of wheels, many of t.ing fast.er and dropping deeper. The ulti­ which were exported to amusement mate in recklessness was the Loop-the­ par~ in Euro~. One type of Eli wheel Loop, developed by Elmer Preslon in car 15 so spacIOus that the operator of 1901 at a cost of 400.000. In this ver­ an am~ment park in Los Angeles re­ sion of the roUer coaster, the car raced -- cently dISCovered he could convert it into down an incline at a wild speed and was a .small ~welling, a nd he has rented out whirled into a complete vert.ical loop ) his Ferns-wheel. cars as cottages-the which stood everybody upside down. - most novel solutIOn of the housing short­ The ride was a masterpiece of the en­ / age to date. gineering art, and before it was opened The industry is a little troubled about to lhe public, sandbags were loaded on the postwar picture. Many operators it (or the preliminary test.. AU new rides - ... feel that not a few servicemen alter are first tested with 140-pound sand­ ~aving eXI>E:rienced so many real d~ngers bags-known to the industry as "dead 10 battle, Will be bored and jaded by the men" -and they are then tried by t.he same old rides when they return The engineers and ride men. The Loop-the­ most annoying remark they can h'ear is Loop passed aU tests, and it was even when a pB:Lron says, "That ride was de monstrated that a glass o( water could too tame; Just a trolley ride." So t.he be carried on the trip without spilling a manufacturers are brooding about all drop. The ride was tried at Coney Island sorts of new tortures. and other parks, but it was unprofitable . Willi am.P Mangels, however, is skep- and failed. The capacity was too lim­ t1c:at of change. In his large one-story ited, only one car being able to make brick fact.ory in Coney Island Mangels the loop at anyone time. The investment has been building carrousels a~d Whi ps in a coaster is so heavy-from $75,000 to for. nearly sixty years. H e is an old, $150,000 for an ordinary one- that it ~rlOkled. serene man. He puffs brood­ must do a large volume to make up its rngly ?n a cigar and says he has seen cost. v.ery little fundamental change in rides Today, the roller coaster gives you an smce 1900. "The new generations are average first dip oC seventy to ninety always growin.g up," he says, "and they feet, a nd it gives you speed. The lengthi­ are always d.l.SCovering for themselves est part of the ride is the uhoist."-the the same old rides, the same old thrills. drag up to the first dip. From t.hen on, TH. SATURDAY aVlrNlNG PUS. f'l!0, you can't. ever change t.hat. These the coaster really coasts. At the Sky. ndes are 88 old as gravity."