Episode Transcript
Katrina Schwartz: Attempt to think about the primary time you noticed the lights of an amusement park twinkling within the night time sky…
To me these lights meant enjoyable with my household, fried meals and rides! Though to be trustworthy, I’ve at all times had a little bit little bit of a weak abdomen for them.
All through the final 100 years or so, amusement parks like Marine World, Neptune’s Seaside, Nice America, and Discovery Kingdom have dotted the panorama right here within the Bay Space … a number of are nonetheless round, however most have closed for good. In a number of years, California’s Nice America in Santa Clara will develop into the subsequent to shut its gates.
This week we bear in mind two amusement parks which have etched themselves into the imaginations of generations of Bay Space residents….Idora Park in Oakland, and San Francisco’s Playland on the Seaside. This episode first aired in 2022, however we’re bringing it again to have fun the top of summer season. I’m Katrina Schwartz. You’re listening to Bay Curious.
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Katrina Schwartz: This week on Bay Curious, we glance again at Bay Space amusement parks of yesteryear. Right here’s reporter Christopher Beale.
Christopher Beale: Within the early 1900s, Oakland was bustling with exercise. The Mannequin-T was nonetheless a number of years away so automobiles weren’t tremendous commonplace but. The streets buzzed with bicycle and trolley site visitors. The principle streetcar round Oakland in these days was the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Railway (SFOSJR), which later grew to become the Key System. The streetcar and the land it ran on was owned by the very mob-sounding “Realty Syndicate.”
TJ Fisher: An impossibly evil identify for a company.
Christopher Beale: That is TJ Fisher.
TJ Fisher: However the Realty syndicate was precisely what it seemed like.
Christopher: TJ grew up on the east coast. He now lives within the Castro in San Francisco and says he has cherished and studied amusement parks, just about his whole life.
TJ Fisher: Once I was in faculty, I wrote my thesis about completely different intersectional elements of the best way individuals loved amusement parks over time and the way that mirrored different components of tradition.
Christopher Beale: The way in which TJ tells it, this group of rich businessmen…
TJ Fisher: The Realty Syndicate.
Christopher Beale: Owned the trolley system, in addition to a whole lot of land round Oakland. The trolleys have been busy on the weekdays with commuters, however on the weekends…not a lot. This offered a money movement situation for the Syndicate…they thought if they might enhance weekend ridership there may be different advantages down the road. The Syndicate owned a chunk of land in what’s now North Oakland, simply north of the place the 24 freeway crosses telegraph now…
TJ Fisher: Between 56th and 58th streets and Shaddock and Telegraph.
Christopher Beale: And so they leased it to this firm known as Ingersoll Amusements. Ingersoll got down to create a phenomenal vacation spot for Oaklanders, and the Realty Syndicate put a streetcar cease close by. In 1904, Idora Park was born, and was an instantaneous hit with locals.
TJ Fisher: It was nearly 10 cents admission price to get in, which might be about $3 in immediately’s cash. That’s a implausible cut price when you concentrate on what it prices to get into Nice America or Disneyland immediately.
Christopher Beale: That admission received you into the greater than 17 acre park the place there have been curler coasters, slides, swings, and all method of concessions.
TJ Fisher: You bought the superbly landscaped grounds. You bought some, however not the entire rides, there have been an enormous variety of issues on show that may actually get individuals occupied with new applied sciences. They’d an expertise that confirmed you what a coal mine was like. So these sorts of issues could be included after which concessions like a curler coaster, a carousel would value further.
Christopher Beale: There was additionally an opera home, animals, reveals, and a pool.
TJ Fisher: It was actually a middle of tradition in Oakland earlier than we had as many public metropolis parks as we do immediately, you’ll go to Idora to get exterior. It was actually one thing that everyone would’ve identified.
Christopher Beale: However the Realty Syndicate…that’s the trolley firm…had one other motivation for making this a part of Oakland a vacation spot.
TJ Fisher: They’d at all times hoped that the realm across the park would develop and be thought of fascinating and they’d be capable to use the park for one more goal. So it was an enormous shock when on the finish of 1928, it was introduced that the Realty belief was going to subdivide the park and promote it as actual property. And so, issues have been dismantled in a short time in, uh, early 1929. and now it’s a really residential neighborhood and there are not any indicators that there was ever an amusement park there.
Christopher Beale: When Idora Park was at its hottest within the early nineteen tons of, one other amusement park popped up simply throughout the Bay at San Francisco’s Ocean Seaside.
Like Idora Park, new trolley traces performed an enormous position…meals stands and small rides greeted passengers using all the best way to the Western finish of the road. Quickly, the ragtag park would develop into a beloved getaway for younger and previous alike.
Jim Smith: In 1914 they really put within the, uh, merry-go-round there. And that was the Loof’s Hippodrome.
Christopher Beale:That’s Jim Smith.
Jim Smith: I’m the creator of, San Francisco’s Playland on the seaside the early years and a second e-book, the golden years.
Christopher Beale: Loof’s Hippodrome was this ornate carousel, shortly after it opened it this man John Friedel purchased in and introduced large concepts to the realm residents have been calling Chutes-At-The-Seaside.
Jim Smith: Friedel determined that he wished to make a primary fee park out of it. So in 1919, he went in and began constructing a whole lot of rides and other people cherished it. I imply, at the moment there was nothing close to prefer it wherever else within the west coast.
Christopher Beale: George Whitney grew to become the supervisor in 1926 and formally modified the identify of the roughly three block space to Playland-at-the-Seaside.
Jim Smith: Now, one of many good issues they did was they, uh, made it free to get within the park. There have been no gates. You simply go down there and For those who received 1 / 4 otherwise you received a dime, you possibly can put these in the direction of a trip.
Sound of LAFFING SAL
Christopher Beale: That’s Laffing Sal, probably essentially the most iconic character to outlive Playland on the Seaside. Extra on that later. She was a type of early animatronic…and this was approach earlier than Disneyland. She was situated on the entrance to the Funhouse. Jeanne Lawton remembers visiting within the 60s.
Jeanne Lawton: And at all times the scariest factor about going into the funhouse when carrying a skirt was the airholes within the ground that randomly would blow a shot of air as you stepped over them. We women would scream with delight and attempt to bounce over them earlier than they received us, however we by no means succeeded.
Christopher Beale: One night time she and her girlfriends found the key to that gag.
Jeanne Lawton: I distinctly bear in mind the day that I occurred to search for within the balcony and noticed a man that was working there grinning from ear to ear, after which he would hit the button.
Christopher Beale: The Playhouse was one of an entire choice of sights obtainable on the park. There have been meals distributors too, one of many extra standard ones was truly invented by George Whitney in 1928. When he received the system proper he’s mentioned to have yelled “It’s…it!” the It’s-It was born.
Jeanne Lawton: Again then they made their very own oatmeal cookies, after which put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in between the cookies, after which dipped it in sizzling chocolate and handed it to you to eat instantly.
Christopher Beale: You may nonetheless purchase It’s-Its at many west coast grocery shops within the freezer part. A Lot of the sights and meals stands at Playland on the Seaside have been independently owned and operated. Like small companies.
Jim Smith: Bob’s curler coaster. The merry-go-round. The Whirlpool trip, which you’re sitting in a cage spinning round, was actually quick. They’d, uh, Dodger, it was initially, it was known as Dodge him, after which it grew to become Dodger and so they didn’t ever name ’em bumper automobiles cuz they didn’t need you to slam ’em into one another. They needed to restore ’em. The massive dipper once they constructed that was actually tall.
Christopher Beale: 65 ft…like a 7 story constructing.
Jim Smith: And it had big drops and lengthy climbs. It was actually an thrilling trip and all people wished to trip that factor. By the best way it had no seat belts, no bar, nothing to hold onto besides the rail on both sides. Individuals did get harm on that on occasion
Christopher Beale: Just like the rides weren’t very secure have been they?
Jim Smith: No, there was no OSHA again then!
Sound of the Diving Bell
Jim Smith: Diving bell was enjoyable. It was a bell formed factor. When you get in, they bolt down the door, you recognize, tie it down, like in a, like in a submarine They’d this 40 foot deep, nicely, and as you have been happening, you’d see fish in there. I imply, it had sharks. It had, uh, Octupie. It had all types of various, uh, salt water animals. I believe it was designed this fashion on goal it leaked, and the man was working. It will say uh oh, uh, oh, we’re leaking right here. We’re gonna sink. I’m not gonna be capable to get this factor again up. He says, let’s see . If we are able to come up. Effectively, he’d pull the brakes off this factor. And it will Bob to the highest, like a cork. Some individuals thought it was a riot and a few individuals have been scared to loss of life.
Christopher Beale: Through the nice melancholy within the 30s, Whitney was in a position to consolidate energy by shopping for out different concessions as they failed, and thru this he garnered management of a lot of Playland-at-the-Seaside. The Whitneys even purchased the land Playland sat on, and close by plots for future enlargement. However then, in 1958, George Whitney died. With out him, Playland-At-The-Seaside was rudderless and started to fail.
Jim Smith: They began flattening the rides. They tore down the Huge Dipper.
Christopher: The property itself fell into disrepair, and folk stopped visiting. Then in 1972, Whitney’s widow offered Playland-At-The-Seaside to a developer.
Jim Smith: They offered it to Jeremy Ets-Hokin.
Christopher Beale: Ultimately the property’s new proprietor determined to shut Playland.
Jim Smith: He wished to construct on it and he wished to construct these, uh, large condos up there. Everyone hated him within the metropolis.
Christopher Beale in scene: Wait, why did individuals hate him?
Jim Smith: The way in which they noticed it’s he stole Playland from them. No one wished to see a Playland go away apart from those that wished the cash.
Christopher Beale: Ets-Hoken had the park torn down.
Jim Smith: He had no permission or something. After which the town fathers received all ticked off. So that they put a ten 12 months moratorium on constructing on that lot. So he was caught with this factor. He paid a fortune for it, however he couldn’t do something with it now.
Christopher Beale: The moratorium finally ended. In the present day, these flats which can be numerous shades of pastels…and the Safeway on forty eighth Avenue, are the place Playland-At-The-Seaside… was once. Fortunately, a number of vital items of Playland survived the demolition. A reasonably seen one is the massive Wurlitzer organ on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. In fact there may be Laffing Sal, at Pier 45’s Musee Mechanique and the unique carousel from Loof’s Hippodrome continues to be round too. In the present day the Leroy King Carousel, because it’s now identified, is operated by the Kids’s Creativity Museum at Yerba Buena Gardens.
Deyvi Solorzano: Key within the ignition. Bell time.
Bell rings. Overhead announcement: Welcome to the Leroy King Carousel! Whereas the trip is in movement please stay seated going through ahead.
Christopher Beale: Okay. So I heard that earlier and I assumed it was a recording. I didn’t notice that was truly you saying that.
Deyvi Solorzano: That’s me. Yeah. My identify is Deyvi Solorzano. I’m the operations and occasions coordinator right here. carousel operator, amongst many different issues.
Christopher Beale:Is it loopy to face right here each day and function one thing that’s like a number of lifetimes older than you want that has been round all this time and other people have cared for it. And now it’s in your arms?
Deyvi Solorzano: Yeah. It’s a extremely cool job. Um, it’s not even a job. I don’t even, I I’m, I’m actually simply right here. This isn’t a job.
Christopher Beale: Yeah. Don’t, don’t inform them, you’ll do it totally free although.
Deyvi Solorzano: Yeah, no, I received’t say that.
Christopher Beale: Idora Park closed 90 years in the past…Playland has been gone nearly 50 years. There are not any items of Idora Park remaining, however these tangible recollections of Playland-At-The-Seaside, like organs, carousels, and bizarre carnival sights like Laffing Sal will stay on below the watchful eye of their caretakers. Permitting the subsequent era of thrill seekers, and people chasing nostalgia one other journey again in time.
Katrina Schwartz: That was reporter Christopher Beale. Due to David Gallagher, Mike Winslow and Carol Tang for his or her assist with this story.
We’ve received photos galore of those previous parks on our web site … you should definitely examine them out at BayCurious.org. And when you are there, take a second to vote in our August voting spherical.
Listed below are your selections:
Voice 1: How did Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and Oakland develop into such a hub of East African delicacies?
Voice 2: What was South San Francisco “the birthplace of biotechnology,” and why is it nonetheless house to a lot of the biotech business immediately? Why didn’t it develop nearer to universities in Palo Alto or Berkeley?
Voice 3: What’s the historical past of the concrete ruins in American Canyon proper off Freeway 29?
Katrina Schwartz: These three are neck and neck proper now…however there’s nonetheless time to make your voice heard. Go to Bay Curious dot org to solid your vote.
Our workforce shall be off subsequent week for Labor Day, however we’ll be again with a model new episode on September eleventh.
Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.
Our present is produced by Gabriela Glueck, Christopher Beale and me, Katrina Schwartz.
