Fond Memories

What was it about that park?

I sit at work tonight after hearing about Coney Island redevelopment plan and felt a feeling of loss similar to the felling I had when I was 7 years old but not as intense, after all it is not Palisades Park. I looked up the park on Google and found your site. I am amazed at the fact my brother and I are not the only ones who morn after so many years. What was it about that park I wonder?

We would go to the park every year when we were kids, my father seaming so brave to ride the scary rides and my mother watching us with a tender smile as we enjoyed the children's rides. Laughter, cotton candy, lights and sounds. A day that would leave you waiting for a year in anticipation of returning and never letting you down! Until the day the world changed for ever in 1972.

It was a gloomy day, dark Grey clouds hung low in the sky on an Easter Sunday, almost predicting the unforeseen sadness that awaited us. As we drove along the Henry Hudson parkway looking across at the cliffs of the Palisades my brother and I sat quietly hoping to catch a glimpse of the park we were so eager to get too and silently praying for some Devine intervention to part the clouds and bring a blue sky more fitting to a day a the park. My father driving the car seemed to be doing the same thing as the car was quite for such a glorious day. I miss him also.

Finally the long ride from Brooklyn was over and we turned the corner to see an empty parking lot. The dark clouds began to let small cold drops of water fall and we felt as let down as we thought we could be, not knowing that worse news was to come. My Father the optimist thought maybe we were just to early so we got out of the car and walk towards the entrance it was obvious now that something was wrong, as if life had once lived in a place and now had not died but just left. The gates where chained and the sign read the park was forever closed. Walking away we then noticed the already partially dismantled park seemed almost as if it wished to still have us come in and enjoy our selves. My brother and I stood in disbelief and sobbed the long ride home.

What was it about that park?

Howard Gorden