Cincinnati's Coney Island closing at the end of the year

I was very sad to see this news. While it was only a tiny relic at the end, it still had that long history to boast of. I remember enjoying it considerably on my first visit around 2003, which was on a bustling Fourth of July with a festive, good-vibe crowd of people having picnic lunches in the pavilion. That gave me a good first impression that lasted a long time. I visited intermittently until the amusement rides were removed, and always enjoyed it for what it was. I also appreciated its strange split identity as the ancestor of Kings Island as well as a plucky survivor of its move. I'm glad I took many photos of it.

Sunlite Pool goes with it, which also makes me really sad. I visited Coney in its hey day only one time. It was when I was in high school, I went with a friend, and we had a ball. That trip cemented my love for traditional amusement parks. When I was in college another friend and I would occasionally jump in the car on certain Sundays and drive right by Kings Island to go down to Sunlite. Water parks weren’t quite invented yet and that enormous swimming pool with its big slides provided awesome fun in the sun. It was great to walk around the old park grounds and let the old walkways, buildings and architecture rekindle memories of Old Coney.
This just sucks.

Yeah, not thrilled here either. We have the old Riverfront Coliseum, the new Brady music center next to the stadium, the whatever they're building in KY to compete with the Brady place, Riverbend and PNC already at Coney, and then the stadiums themselves. Why do we need yet another music center in a floodable area at that? Every music venue is along the river; this might be one time where the suburbs are a preferable location for expansion.

“Goodbye Coney Island, Goodbye”

iYKYK

This is awful news, but seems kind of inevitable given that they removed the rides in 2019. I get the impression that the people operating the Coney Island group (probably best known for their borderline criminal mismanagement of Americana resulting in the sale to the bidder least qualified to operate the park) do not understand or maybe just don't care about the amusement business. Or rather, the people who have a vision for what the parks could be have left the company, and as they leave, they do silly things like closing down and selling off their second park that isn't in a flood plain, divesting the park of all the amusement rides that make it an attraction for their core audience, and selling off the park that its President described in 1997 as the "highest and best use" for that property.

I wonder if the new facility will make use of Moonlite Gardens. During an NAPHA tour back in '97, we were told that when Taft started bulldozing most of the park, they knocked down the back half of the Moonlite Gardens building , but the bulldozer was halted when it got to the dance floor. If I remember right we were told that the dance floor "rejected a Caterpillar D9. Stood it on its nose." So they left the dance floor and the front half of the building, which still stands today.

How about some videos from Coney Island?

From 2010; I reallly need to remaster this one as there is something wonky going on with the brightness levels that wasn't in the original video...

https://vimeo.com/79077854

They had an unusual flat ride called a Moser Flipping Action Arm. Really rolls off the tongue, right? That's why they called it the Wipeout. Added in 2014, see it here:

https://vimeo.com/98259614

Finally, Entertrainment Junction has a model of Coney Island as it appeared a few years before Taft all-but destroyed it in favor of Kings Island. My 2015 video of the model:

https://vimeo.com/124616107

No ads in the videos and I won't even ask you to "like and subscribe!"

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Coney’s final collection of rides was interesting- definitely vintage/2nd hand. A carnival man once told me that Coney had the oldest operating Trabant. And by looking I’d say he was right. The decor was definitely the original design and I hadn’t seen one like that in decades. Cedar Point’s original Trabant was like that one, then they upgraded by buying a new one for the same spot. I was probably the only one who noticed, lol.
My favorite ride name at Coney was a small flat they called Spinaree. Not Spinaroo, no. Spinaree, whatever the hell that was.
I also wonder about some of the historic buildings there. Moonlite Gardens was still used as a flexible-use venue. For years the Cincinnati Flower Show was held at Coney in the early spring and that building was used as a designer’s showcase with interior vignettes. Just yesterday my next door neighbor told me she once went to a nice wedding at Moonlite. There’s a lot of history there. My mom went to college in Cincy and her dates would take her to Moonlite for big band music and dancing.
The building that housed three flats undercover (Dodgem, Whip, and Cuddle Up) featured the world’s largest free-span ceiling, or something like that, at the time it was built. The Cuddle Up and Dodgem made their way to KI but Whip was left behind. The building stands to this day and was used as a multi-use pavilion. I reckon it goes too.

You posted the same video twice.

Oops! Let me see if I can fix...

The correct link for the Coney Island model is:

https://vimeo.com/124616107

Now I'll go back and fix the original post.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thank you for posting that video. It’s been around 10 years or so since I’ve been to Entertrainment Junction and I don’t recall seeing that display. I would love to go back in time and see it. I go running inside the old Americana/Fantasy Farm area and like to picture what that place was like as well since I never went to it when it was open. I could take pictures and post what it looks like now but they wouldn’t be all that exciting.