Just For Fun

Over a year ago I had been planning to stay in Melbourne due to the convenience of public transportation, the lower cost of living, and plentiful opportunities to rent a room in a house somewhere. It originally had been suggested that I stay in St Kilda, as someone I met had family there. As I was investigating the area online, I saw Luna Park marked on the map. It sounded interesting and was within easy walking distance from my intended location. The first image that came up on a search was that of a three story high, happily maniacal face with as gaping mouth serving as an entry gate. I immediately knew this was a place that needed to be visited. So imagine my delight when I learned that the Sydney counterpart of Luna Park was located a short walk from my hotel.

By the time I got there on Friday it was after dark. I actually hadn’t planned to go, except that I saw it all invitingly lit up and busy with activity on the ferry ride from the city to the Hotel. It sweetly, if a tad nightmarishly, beckoned and so as a moth to a flame, I went.

I couldn’t have imagined that what I would find there still even existed. For the next two hours I was completely transfixed.

There was an episode of the Twilight Zone called Walking Distance, in which a man stops by his childhood hometown to find it completely unchanged and realizes he has stepped back in time. That’s basically what the evening there felt like. On the one hand there was an aesthetically unsettling quality to a lot of it, but on the other hand it was absolutely nostalgic and sweet.

For one thing the music was wonderful. Jazzy, orchestral versions of There’s No Business Like Show Business, I Could Have Danced All Night, A Spoonful of Sugar, Singin’ in the Rain, and many others. The atmosphere was great too. The night was cool and breezy, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs hung in the air mingled with the music of the carousel, and the sound of children happily laughing was everywhere. I meandered through the park stopping at each attraction and trying to take it all in. I felt I must have stepped into another time. I half expected to find my long dead grandfather sitting on a bench eating popcorn and watching the people go by. It was absolute magic.

Part of the reason for the feeling of nostalgia, was that Luna Park’s origin goes back to 1903 Coney Island in New York; the style of the signage, the rides, and the signature foods have been lovingly preserved and perpetuated. Among said rides were the Rotor, the dodge ems, a ferris wheel, the Tumble Bug, air swings (Volare), The Moon Ranger, and The Wild Mouse (a single car roller coaster for smaller kids) and many others. A few of the rides, such as the Wild Mouse and the Crazy Cars were exactly the rides I remember from a small park called Shady Lake, which in turn consisted of leftovers from the long defunct Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland. There were other rides as well as fun house mirrors, ice cream parlors, and, during the day, appearances by Lunabob and Lunabelle, the clownish mascots of the park. The clowns were actually pretty amusing, but the characters themselves were kind of terrifying when I saw them on merchandise. There was no entry fee, but if you wanted to ride the rides you needed to buy tickets for those.

Then there was the Coney Island building itself. Part of what drew me in was a mechanical Popeye in a boat outside surrounded by pictures of his supporting cast. I saw kids running in the entrance and up a flight of stairs but couldn’t see beyond, so I asked a worker what was inside. She directed me to a ground level balcony of sorts where I could poke my head in and see.

The first thing that caught my eye was one of those giants slides with a couple of hills and children in burlap sacks riding down. But there was also a penny arcade, various games and activities, and a contraption I had only ever seen in an old film reel. People would sit in the center of a large disc that was slightly domed and then the disc would spin and one by one they would be flung off by the centrifugal force til only the winner remained. I didn’t pay to go in, but I had gotten a glimpse into a past long gone and was very glad for it.

The artwork and branding of the entire place felt straight out of the first half of the 20^th century, back when the line between cute and unsettling wasn’t well defined. For example the trash and recycling bins were placed behind two rotund, laughing clowns whose gaping mouths begged you to throw something in. Giant disembodied, gloved hands pointed people to different places and the style of all of the murals and characters was that of an earlier age.

Having explored and documented all I could, I finally decided to buy a box of popcorn and just sit on a bench along the midway and watch the passersby. I honestly didn’t want to leave and took my time eating one kernel at a time. All the while I couldn’t stop smiling. A friendly worker with a heavy Aussie accent gave me a thumbs up as she walked past and said ‘You’ve got the best seat in the house, hey?’

She was right. That’s exactly how I felt.

The park began closing so I finally got up and walked toward the exit, stopping in to the novelty shop on the way out to buy a small book on the park, two chocolate bars and a jar of fruit shaped lollies, (for the Craig girls) and a T shirt. I really just felt like I wanted to support what was being done with this place and hoped it would stay around for years to come. Its not good to focus too much on the past, but its nice to know that there was a place where that past was preserved and cherished.

Then I stepped back out into modern day Sydney again and walked to my hotel whistling some showtune I didn’t particularly like and now can’t remember. But I’d gotten to travel back in time for a few moments, and how many people get to do that?