Idora Park left Youngstown, Ohio 35 years ago, yet the old park site has remained undeveloped since then. It's quite a sight to behold:
This was the location of Idora's old 'upper midway,' which had all sorts of typical flat rides. I tried finding a picture of it, but I couldn't get a good one.
Maybe one day this site can be made into a public park, perhaps even with a few portable rides!
14 comments:
You said it perfectly about imagining the screams and squeals of fun that came before here. To imagine this now quiet and peaceful place was once thriving with high human energy and thrills. It's almost like hearing the ghosts of years past. Thanks, Andrew.
I am the grass; I cover all.
I love comments like these!
And yet, you could drive right by without any inkling of what used to be there. History can be strange....
Looking at the photos of that land is sad and even a little bit creepy, but it wouldn't be without knowing "what used to be." If that makes sense! :-(
My college roommate was from Youngstown. Wish I'd known this was here; I would have loved to have come to see the abandoned rides while they were still there.
Wandering around and old theme park site and doing some "parkaeology" can be a lot of fun. I found and walked the length of the abandoned right-of0way of the old Fort Wilderness Railway back in '98, when the old, rickety bridges and rail were still in place, and it was a really neat experience.
I wish that I'd been able to see Idora in operation, but the abandoned rides would've been cool to see in a completely different way.
I've been able to take a bit of a look at the sites of some past attractions at Idlewild Park here in PA. (The park's still open, but they've removed some things.) It's extremely awesome what can still be there if you just know where to look!
Yes, I get what you're saying. If the 1983 fire that burned down the park's biggest roller coaster hadn't happened, imagine what could've been...
Six Flags St Louis is the same way. The surviving Sky Ride station is now an arcade (with the old load markings still painted on the floor), the load structure for the Mississippi Adventure has been enclosed and turned into a restaurant, and the old Dolphin Show amphitheater is now the queue for Pandemonium, a Gerstlauer spinning coaster.
I took a bunch of photos two years ago to compare with some 1971 pictures Ken Martinez shared with me, but i just haven't had the time to put the whole thing together. This may be the inspiration I need...
I'd love to see that. Even one post would be really cool! The early days of the Six Flags parks have always interested me, but I haven't learned about them as much as I would've liked to.
This is a sad scene, nothing left but Melissa's grass and memories.
JG
Woo HOO! I got the comments to work.
Andrew, while I am here, great job on this blog. I am enjoying every post, with the memories of the rest of the commenters.
Thanks for the hard work involved
JG
So, it seems for comments to work for me, I have to enter some comment text in the box, press Preview, which then makes the text vanish, along with the COMMENT button. So I went the previous comment REPLY button and pasted the same text as a reply, which also vanishes. But doing this makes the comment button come back, when I press that, I get a new comment window, and now the comment window recognizes my profile, so I can paste the text again and then publish.
Whew. I'll try commenting on some past posts, to see if this sticks. Thanks for your patience.
JG
I'm glad that you got it to work! For whatever reason, the Preview button doesn't work for me either, but going straight to "publish" always seems to work just fine.
Thanks for taking the time to figure things out!
Post a Comment