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Amusement Park

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Long Island’s most popular amusement park adds more value through the new ‘Wave Twister’ ride, new games, and additional amenities—at last year’s prices 

Adventureland, 2245 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale has announced it will be freezing its prices— without freezing the fun! Long Island’s most popular amusement park, offering family fun for everyone since 1962, is offering more value this year, and for the same ticket prices as last year. The park is freezing its admission rates, group rates, season pass rates, and birthday party rates at the same prices from the 2024 season. 

“At a time when everything around us is going up, we are proud and excited to be able to provide our guests this price freeze on admission,” said Jeanine Gentile, Adventureland Park Manager. “We are still making additions to the park, so you will definitely see some great changes for this upcoming season. But one thing that will not be changing is the admission prices for the 2025 season!”

The price freeze is not the only exciting news from Adventureland. For the first time, the amusement park is offering payment plans through FlexPay for online orders of $100 or more. This brand-new option will allow visitors to book tickets and purchase season passes online—now—and conveniently pay over time. Daily tickets and season passes are currently available for purchase online. For full details please visit https://adventureland.us/?keyword=Tickets

Last year, Adventureland announced plans for a multi-year, five-phase $15 million redevelopment. Now currently in phase 2, the amusement park promises a ‘Bigger and Better’ 2025 season, which includes two new outdoor games: ‘Wave Blaster’ and ‘Jungle Run.’  Additionally, plans are in place to install three new concession stands and a third restroom facility. Especially exciting is the highly-anticipated new family ride, ‘Wave Twister,’ scheduled to open this spring.

The opening weekend of the 2025 season will be March 22 and March 23. For further information, call 631-694-6868 or visit Adventureland.us. 

 

Historian pens new book on local amusement parks of yesteryear

Actors, including local resident Jane Owen playing the notorious outlaw Belle Starr, pose in front of the bank at Dodge City in Patchogue. Photo from the Eaton family

Living in Suffolk County, we’ve all heard of Splish Splash, Chuck E. Cheese’s, Dave and Buster’s, Boomers, Adventureland and the Long Island Game Farm. But how many of us have ever heard of Frontier City, Fairytown USA, Dodge City or Turner’s Amusement Park?

Photo from The History Press
Photo from The History Press

Historian Marisa L. Berman’s latest book, “Historic Amusement Parks of Long Island: 118 Miles of Memories” (The History Press) takes us on a nostalgic journey to explore the kiddie parks of Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau and Suffolk that are now just a distant memory. According to Berman, this book is “a celebration of the amusement parks that Long Islanders have loved and unfortunately have lost. … [It] will tell the story of Long Island through the memories of its children.”

Berman’s first book centered on Nunley’s Amusement Park in Baldwin, which she often visited as a child. At book signings, according to her second book’s introduction, many people would mention other parks on Long Island that they had fond memories of and she “quickly realized that there were many more stories that needed to be told.”

The author reached out to sources on Facebook and received many photographs, stories and memorabilia from people who had visited these parks. After much research and numerous interviews, the book finally came together.

All of the 33 amusement parks featured in the book opened in the 1940s and ‘50s, with the exception of Playland Park in Freeport, which opened in 1924 and closed in 1931. Berman attributes this to the many veterans who moved east from the city to Long Island to raise their families after World War II and the need to “entertain the masses.”

Each park is described in vivid detail, from inception to closing, from admission prices to rides, including what is in that location today — almost always a shopping mall or store. The wonderful black-and-white photographs, 80 in all, pull everything together.

Many of the kiddie parks featured a petting zoo, carnival rides and a train, but each had its own special niche. In our neck of the woods, there were western-themed parks like Dodge City in Patchogue, on the corner of Sunrise Highway and Waverly Avenue, and Frontier City in Amityville, on Route 110, complete with a bank, jail, cemetery, general store and sheriff’s office.

Children ride the miniature train at Lollipop Farm in 1952. Photo by Kathryn Abbe, courtesy of SPLIA
Children ride the miniature train at Lollipop Farm in 1952. Photo by Kathryn Abbe, courtesy of SPLIA

Fairytown USA in Middle Island, which was located across from Artist Lake on Middle Country Road, consisted of a storybook-inspired village and sections with themes like Planet Mars and Mother Goose. Farther west, Lollipop Farm in Syosset had a miniature train that carried children around the four-acre farm. The train miraculously survived, stored in pieces in a barn, and was recently lovingly restored by the Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association.

The majority of the defunct parks’ artifacts, however, have been lost forever. Mostly family-owned and operated, Berman attributes the parks’ demise to the decline of the baby boom in the mid-1960s.

By the end of the book, Berman will have the reader yearning for a simpler and more innocent time, “a time when there was nothing better than your parents bringing you to your park so you could play and just enjoy being a kid.”

Todd Berkun, founder of the Facebook page “Long Island and NYC Places That Are No More,” sums it up perfectly in the foreword: “Whether you spent time in these parks growing up or live on the Island now and have wondered about their glorious past, this book is for you. As a testament to an era of great fun and enjoyment on the Island, this work describes a vibrant and important part of Long Island’s history.”

“Historic Amusement Parks of Long Island: 118 Miles of Memories,” $21.99, is available at local retailers and online bookstores. It is also available through Arcadia Publishing and The History Press by calling 888-313-2665 or by visiting www.arcadiapublishing.com.