I visited Rye Playland this weekend (5/94) for the first time since my childhood. The park is very easy to get to (2 minutes off I-95) and has a great location on the shore of Long Island Sound. Parking was $5 (varies with weekdays, weekends and holidays), and admission was free, with rides on a per ticket basis. Most rides were 3 or 4 tickets, and tickets went from $.65 to $.45 depending on how many you buy. I did not see any mention of a POP at the ticket gate, so you can plan on spending quite a bit of money at Playland if you're going to ride the day away.
The park itself is quite beautiful, IMHO. The architecture is Art Deco, and most of the buildings date from the 20s and 30s. Running along the center of the park is a formal lawn, with the Sound on one end and a tower structure (I didn't catch what this was used for) at the other end. To either side of the lawn are the rides and games of chance. Playland also has a boardwalk on the Sound (see the film 'Big' for shots of this section of the park (as much as I looked, I couldn't find a Zoltar machine :-()), and a miniature golf concession.
We spent about 2 hours at the park during its opening day 'Mayfair', and although the parking lot was packed, the longest line for any ride was about 10 minutes. We were unable to find any souveniers of the park, and didn't get a chance to try out any of the food.
Some of the rides include: A Whip, Bumper Cars, Ferris Wheel (new), Octopus, Yo-Yo (disassembled), Haunted House, Old Mill, Falling Star, Flume (under construction), Thunderbolt, Wipeout, Swinging Ship, and a Flight Commander.
There are also two beautiful carousels at Rye, the first being a Carmel 4-row that was recently restored by R & F Designs in Bristol, CT. This carousel features Carmel's finest carvings, though many of the horses have been 'improved' by Borelli with glass jewels stuck everywhere.
The other carousel is a rare Prior & Church Racing Derby, with horses by Illions. A racing derby (I believe the only other one is at Cedar Point) differs from a standard carousel in that the horses are nearly life-size accomodating two riders (though there was a single-rider only policy) and moving about 3 times the speed of a normal carousel. The horses' poles are mounted in slots on the platform, allowing them to move forward and aft while the platform spins. The Derby Racer at Rye, however, did not have the horses moving forward and back. This was my first time on one of these, and I couldn't stop smiling. The operator cranks it up to a mild speed and then gives instructions as to where to put your feet and which way to lean. Then he cranks the speed up so you're wondering how long you can hang on. I can't imagine this ride in a theme park, you could actually get hurt on it if you wanted to !:-)
Of course, Rye Playland also has a roller coaster or two.
A near-impossible ride to get on your stats, as there is a 54" height restriction. Wood track, runs mondo-cute miniature NAD Century Flyer trains. The track runs over a little house in its oval layout. This is a gem from an earlier age.
This is the only remaining full-size coaster at the park, where once the mighty Aeroplane (Traver Bobs) delivered world-class thrills. The Aeroplane ruled the park from 1928(9?) until 1958(9)? when it was deemed "unsafe" by the park's new insurance company and Westchester County did not want to spend the $100,000 to make it "safe". It fell to the bulldozer possibly while Harry Traver, who ran 2 concessions at the park, stood by and watched.
The Dragon Coaster was meant to be a 'Scenic-Railway' type of ride, delivering mild thrills to park patrons young and old. A family ride. And it still is.
The exterior of the station looks much the same as it probably did when the ride opened some 65 years ago. There's an old-fashioned ticket booth, similar to the Coney Island Cyclone's. You hand over 4 tickets and step onto the curved station, relishing in the old-time atmosphere. You notice the manual station brake levers, and the lack of electronic trickery. You could be standing there in 1929. Ah, here's the sound of the train coming in to whisk you away into yesteryear. What's this?! Fiberglass! For God's sake, it's a MORGAN!!!!!! I can't emphasize how utterly out-of-place these trains look on this ride. To think, not that many years ago this coaster was still running the original Prior & Church open-front trains.
[ To be fair, the Morgans gave a pretty smooth ride. I've ridden good Morgans (Santa Cruz) and bad Morgans (Riverside), and this is about in the middle. ]
There was only a 10 minute wait with one train running. We took our one and only ride in the backseat of the 6-car train. Things looked promising as we were rocketing up the lift hill (fast!), but went downhill shortly after (sorry). We had a little bit of air on the first drop, but that was it. After that, the train just sort of mosey'd it's way around the layout, every once in a while going up or down, or rounding a curve gently. This is not a thriller, nor was it ever meant to be. It would have been nice to ride in the original trains, but without them there really is no great attraction to this coaster. I don't mean to slam it, as I would a modern ride built like this (PGA's Grizzly, for example), as it is one of the very few rides from the 'Golden Age' of coasters that are still operating. Just don't expect a lot from it. Besides, Coney Island is only a short drive away from Rye :-).