I told myself I
wouldn't write one word today until I got my
office paperwork under control. I remind myself
of that every day and, well, it's now three days
later. Ah, I just cleared my desk by putting
everything in a box, again. Out of sight, out of
mind for now. I just want to play.
Last night I went on YouTube to restrain myself
from watching the 2016 Republican Convention. I
must admit, I did want to hear what the
beautiful Mrs. Trump had to say about her
husband, but that was all, so I recorded it so I
could skip the negativity. I preferred to get
lost in some Andrew Lloyd Webber to play in the
background while I was writing. His 1986 hit
musical, The Phantom of the Opera is my
#1 favorite of all time that I never get tired
of, though I could have been satisfied last
night with something from Evita or Jesus
Christ Superstar.
YouTube holds amazing surprises and my search
led me to many familiar choices and one I had
never heard of, Coney Island Waltz from
a new musical called Love Never Dies,
which was originally claimed to be Lord
Lloyd-Webber's sequel to Phantom. Needless
to say, I simply had to research everything I
could find about this new gem by my favorite
composer. One quote by him said "I don't regard
this as a sequel - it's a stand-alone piece." It
is set in Coney Island, New York, in 1907, ten
years after the Phantom disappears in Paris.After a lot of challenges and changes, a
touring production is slated to tour North
America in the 2017-2018 season. The music was
released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2012 over
Universal Studios Home Entertainment in the USA.
If you happen to subscribe to Amazon Prime, you
can hear the whole album for free in Prime
Music, along with literally a million other
songs if you have a lot of time on your hands.
I'm listening to The Coney Island Waltz again
right now. It's also at the bottom of this page.
The
last page I wrote about my junior high
school experiences made me wonder what other
childhood memories I had locked away from my
inquisitive mind and then thrown away the
key. Then I had to admit to myself that I
was being dramatic and the key was hidden,
not discarded, so I asked my muse-of-the-day
to lead me to videos about childhood
memories. I did my part by typing that in
the YouTube search box. It took me to a page
full of videos that all had Coney Island in
the title, including pages of the Cyclone
Roller Coaster. That was my first clue that
this page was going to be about my Coney
Island Memories.
Coney Island is the magical beach of my
childhood when it was filled with amusement
parks with every kind of ride to scare and
thrill a little girl. Mom loved the roller
coasters best of all and the scary Cyclone was
her absolute favorite and became mine at an
early age. That's why I chose the video above. I
wanted to remember what it felt like to ride on
the historic wooden roller coaster that opened
in 1927. It was refurbished in 1975 and declared
a New York City landmark in 1988, and as of 1991
its future was secured by its place on the
National Register of Historic Places. Maybe you
can go home again. If you click the Play
arrow above you can have a front seat ride and
see how you like it!
Coney Island is on the Atlantic Ocean in the
borough of Brooklyn, New York City. To me it was
the most wonderful amusement park I had ever
seen, though I'm not sure I'd ever seen any
other. My mother's inner child was alive and
well so I got to go to Coney often. Her favorite
ride was the Cyclone roller coaster and she made
sure we got to Surf Avenue and West 10th Street
early before the crowds arrived. Patience was
not a virtue of hers and I think that apple may
not have fallen far from the tree. I allow
myself that one fault (haha) and attribute it to
wanting to taste everything while I am visiting
this planet, while realistically acknowledging
it would take more than one lifetime.
Mom also like The Bobsled. It was first featured
at the 1939 New York World's Fair, though I was
only four then and don't remember it from there.
After the fair, they moved it to the Bowery and
Stillwell Avenue in Coney. We leaned back in a
toboggan and it felt like we were flying through
the wooden chute until the end of the ride! On
the Boardwalk near the Pier was The Parachute
Jump, another exciting ride in George C.
Tilyou's Steeplechase, the Funny Place. It also
first appeared at the 1939 World's Fair but I
was too young to go on it then. I made up for it
later. The Parachute was 25 stories high and
cost 40-cents a ticket to ride. Mom and I were
belted into a two-person canvas seat hanging
below a closed parachute. Then we were pulled up
to the top where we hit some mechanism that
released us and we would drop down in a free
fall, only slowed down by the open parachute. It
was a soft landing at the bottom, cushioned by
shock absorbers, which were springs mounted on
poles. It was a thrill to be up that high and
have a view of the New York skyline, the Jersey
Shore, and the Atlantic Ocean. What fun! I read
that it took three men to operate each parachute
and that's why the
cost was high. Imagine 40-cents a ride being a
lot of money back then.
I was looking through my oldest scrapbooks and
found a ticket I had saved from 1948 when I went
to Steeplechase, the Funny Place, with a boy
named Johnny Petrucci. I was 12 going on 16. I
remember when you got off the mechanical horses
you walked by a place with a hole in the floor.
A fan below blew your skirt up over your head. A
crowd always gathered to laugh at the
unsuspecting girls. I had been warned and wore
shorts!
The picture on the right is the Wonder Wheel. It
was built around 1918-1920 by the Eccentric Ferris
Wheel Company. It was 150-feet tall, like a 15-story
building. It had 24 cars, of which 8 were stationary
and 16 were swinging cars. Mom and I always waited
for a front seat on the swinging cars that could
hold 6 people. The cars slid on a track toward the
hub and as the wheel turned, they slid towards the
circumference, according to wonderwheel.com. It gave
you a little thrill even though you knew nothing bad
was going to happen. It was designated an official
New York City landmark in 1989. Over 35 million
rides have been given since it was built and they
can boast of a perfect safety record.
I simply have to devote at least another page, maybe
two, to Coney Island. It contains some of the
happiest memories of my childhood and one that
taught me a lesson I never forgot. I'll say bye for
now. Too many graphics make for slow page loading
and I don't like when I go to a site that takes
forever to load. (There's that patience thing
again.) I suspect you don't either. Life moves fast
in 2016, and as a friend used to say, If you
snooze, you lose!
