Freedomland

September 30, 2002 10:03 AM

Freedomland was an entertainment park, the largest anywhere in the world. It was New York's answer to Disneyland. Built in the shape of the United States, this 205-acre park's main theme was American history. It was divided into seven sections of our country, each with its own special exhibit or disaster. You could travel from the East Coast to the West Coast, all in one day. It only lasted frm 1960 till 1964 and considered one of the greatest failures in amusement park history.
posted by atom128 (10 comments total)

More amusement park history.
posted by liam at 10:09 AM on September 30, 2002

Wow, I got a tremendous sense of deja vu when I saw their logo -- I think I vaguely remember my older brothers going there on a Cub Scout outing when we all lived in New Jersey and I was a (literate) pre-schooler.
posted by alumshubby at 10:12 AM on September 30, 2002

Freedomland is also a very good book (nothing to do with the amusement park, tho)
posted by matteo at 10:20 AM on September 30, 2002

I used to go there as a kid, since it was just down Tremont Ave in the Bronx from us. Last year I visited a buddy in the Bronx and we drove over to the spot... and spontaneously broke into the Jungleland greeting: " UNGAWA! WELCOME TO MY JUNGLE!" Got my first davy crockett hat there too... And saw Count Basie play there just before it closed. Compared to the flashy stuff offered today, I really wish I could take my kid to someplace like that...
posted by zaelic at 11:15 AM on September 30, 2002

An amusement park featuring the Chicago Fire and the 1908 San Francisco earthquake? At first I figured this was some sort of elaborate hoax, but my friends who grew up in New York swear up and down that this place actually existed. Growing up in Connecticut, though, I was lucky to have access to Holyland. My parents never took me, though, damn their eyes.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:16 AM on September 30, 2002

wow ... i've honestly never heard of this thing, and it seems to have been fairly substantive.
posted by donkeyschlong at 11:41 AM on September 30, 2002

Never heard of this myself, though I know that urban amusement parks tend to have rocky histories. With the themed areas and high-concept rides this place seems ahead of its time in many ways. (It was, of course, mimicking the recently-completed Disneyland.) I'm floored that it's where Co-Op City is; that's a well-known named development that nearly has a reputation as a locality unto itself, like the nearby City Island. Here's a Mapquest indicator of the location (feel free to zoom in), for those unfamiliar with NYC geography, esp. in the outer boroughs.

This was an era when other urban amusement parks also hit the wall, with property taxes, crime, transportation, and development pressures seeming to be prime culprits.
posted by dhartung at 12:12 PM on September 30, 2002

few rival
AUTOWORLD
in its failure.

what.where.they.thinking.

but....it was torn down to make room for U of M-Flint class
rooms.

I feel this was quite sane.
posted by clavdivs at 1:34 PM on September 30, 2002

The Venice/Ocean Park/Santa Monica waterfront in Southern California had a string of amusement park piers throughout the last century. One, Fraser's Million Dollar Pier, lasted only 15 months before being destroyed by fire. The last save Santa Monica pier, Pacific Ocean Park, closed in 1967.
posted by liam at 1:41 PM on September 30, 2002

Perhaps I should have written "throughout two-thirds of the last century".
posted by liam at 1:53 PM on September 30, 2002