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Luna Park, Melbourne
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Luna Park, Melbourne
Luna Park Melbourne is a historic amusement park located on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria. It opened on 13 December 1912, with a formal opening a week later, and has been operating almost continuously ever since.
Luna Park was built by American showman J.D. Williams, together with the Phillips brothers Harold, Leon and Herman. Not much is known of their background, but they were involved in the building of picture theatres in Spokane, Washington and Vancouver before coming to Sydney in 1909 and quickly establishing a chain of luxury cinemas in that city and then Melbourne.
They then took the lease of the Dreamland site, a failed amusement park on the St Kilda foreshore, and reputedly brought out experts directly from the birthplace of the amusement park, Coney Island in New York, to build an up to date attraction. It was to be named Luna Park, perhaps after the first park of that name, the 1903 Luna Park on Coney Island, or Luna Park, Seattle, opened in 1906. Melbourne's Luna Park opened on 13 December 1912, to huge crowds and was an immediate success.
It is not clear exactly who designed the famous mouth entrance; T.S. Eslick is credited with the design of the park in the opening day brochure, and as the 'engineer-in-chief' in contemporary newspaper reports, while Vernon Churchill was described as the scenic artist "in whose fertile brain the various attractions have been arranged".
In the years before World War I, the park was a great success, with attractions such as the Scenic Railway, Palais de Folies (later Giggle Palace), River Caves of the World, Penny Arcade, a Whitney Bros 'while-u-wait' photo booth, the American Bowl Slide, as well as live performances in the Palace of Illusions and on a permanent high-wire. Williams returned to the US around 1913, and helped found First National Films which subsequently became Warner Brothers. The Phillips brothers stayed on and ran the park until their deaths in the 1950s.
Luna Park closed for the war, although the Scenic Railway continued to operate, and the park itself was still used for "patriotic or fund-raising events". It did not re-open until an extensive overhaul in 1923 added new and improved attractions, such as the Big Dipper roller coaster, a water chute, a Noah's Ark, and a four-row carousel made in 1913 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (that had previously been at White City in Sydney).
Between the wars, a number of new attractions were made, including dodgem cars in 1926–27, and in 1934, a ghost train. In the 1950s, the park was refurbished, including the addition of The Rotor in 1951. The park remained popular throughout the 1950s, 1960s and into the late 1970s, when some of the earlier attractions began to be replaced by modern mechanical rides. A fire in 1981 destroyed the Giggle Palace, and in the same year the River Caves were declared unsafe, and demolished. In 1989, the Big Dipper was demolished in anticipation of a new large roller coaster which never eventuated. The ride was also demolished due to safety concerns with its age, following a major derailment, that injured 20 people, on the older rollercoaster, the Scenic Railway.
The main historic features of the park to remain include the iconic "Mr Moon" face entry and flanking towers (1912, restored 1999), the Scenic Railway (1912), which is the oldest continuously operating roller coaster in the world, and the carousel (1913 restored 2000). Other historic attractions include the ghost train (1934), and the fairytale-castle-style dodgems building constructed to house the newly patented ride in 1927 (the ride itself was relocated from the first floor of this building to the ground level in the late 1990s).
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Luna Park, Melbourne
Luna Park Melbourne is a historic amusement park located on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria. It opened on 13 December 1912, with a formal opening a week later, and has been operating almost continuously ever since.
Luna Park was built by American showman J.D. Williams, together with the Phillips brothers Harold, Leon and Herman. Not much is known of their background, but they were involved in the building of picture theatres in Spokane, Washington and Vancouver before coming to Sydney in 1909 and quickly establishing a chain of luxury cinemas in that city and then Melbourne.
They then took the lease of the Dreamland site, a failed amusement park on the St Kilda foreshore, and reputedly brought out experts directly from the birthplace of the amusement park, Coney Island in New York, to build an up to date attraction. It was to be named Luna Park, perhaps after the first park of that name, the 1903 Luna Park on Coney Island, or Luna Park, Seattle, opened in 1906. Melbourne's Luna Park opened on 13 December 1912, to huge crowds and was an immediate success.
It is not clear exactly who designed the famous mouth entrance; T.S. Eslick is credited with the design of the park in the opening day brochure, and as the 'engineer-in-chief' in contemporary newspaper reports, while Vernon Churchill was described as the scenic artist "in whose fertile brain the various attractions have been arranged".
In the years before World War I, the park was a great success, with attractions such as the Scenic Railway, Palais de Folies (later Giggle Palace), River Caves of the World, Penny Arcade, a Whitney Bros 'while-u-wait' photo booth, the American Bowl Slide, as well as live performances in the Palace of Illusions and on a permanent high-wire. Williams returned to the US around 1913, and helped found First National Films which subsequently became Warner Brothers. The Phillips brothers stayed on and ran the park until their deaths in the 1950s.
Luna Park closed for the war, although the Scenic Railway continued to operate, and the park itself was still used for "patriotic or fund-raising events". It did not re-open until an extensive overhaul in 1923 added new and improved attractions, such as the Big Dipper roller coaster, a water chute, a Noah's Ark, and a four-row carousel made in 1913 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (that had previously been at White City in Sydney).
Between the wars, a number of new attractions were made, including dodgem cars in 1926–27, and in 1934, a ghost train. In the 1950s, the park was refurbished, including the addition of The Rotor in 1951. The park remained popular throughout the 1950s, 1960s and into the late 1970s, when some of the earlier attractions began to be replaced by modern mechanical rides. A fire in 1981 destroyed the Giggle Palace, and in the same year the River Caves were declared unsafe, and demolished. In 1989, the Big Dipper was demolished in anticipation of a new large roller coaster which never eventuated. The ride was also demolished due to safety concerns with its age, following a major derailment, that injured 20 people, on the older rollercoaster, the Scenic Railway.
The main historic features of the park to remain include the iconic "Mr Moon" face entry and flanking towers (1912, restored 1999), the Scenic Railway (1912), which is the oldest continuously operating roller coaster in the world, and the carousel (1913 restored 2000). Other historic attractions include the ghost train (1934), and the fairytale-castle-style dodgems building constructed to house the newly patented ride in 1927 (the ride itself was relocated from the first floor of this building to the ground level in the late 1990s).
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