After the 1973 season, Lincoln Park management threw in the towel when it came to the Fun House, and I can attest to why. Starting in 1970, I began seeing evidence of the corridor walls defaced by vandals with marker pens in form of obscene language and illustrations. During the summer of 1973 – the summer before my college sophomore season – I found a pack of youths hanging out in the slanted room. At first glance, they made threatening moves towards me and the group I was in, but seeing that I was much bigger than them, they decided to abort their plans.
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But these gang types didn’t extend the same courtesy to patrons smaller in size, and for those reasons, the Fun House ended its 33-year reign.
Starting in 1974, for an upcharge, you could ride the new Pirates Den dark ride that now occupied the Fun House building. The façade now featured pirate artistry by Spadola including a giant pirate head, a small scale pirate ship, and cutout pirate figures made of plywood.
By all accounts, the ride vehicles, small sailing ships, once served duty in the former Pleasure Island’s Wreck of the Hesperus dark ride, and were purchased from the Wakefield, Massachusetts theme park after it closed in 1969. |
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For the most part, the interior of Pirates Den was a series of wall illustrations of pirates engaged in the same activity found in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The building wasn’t fully utilized and one could look up at the building rafters high above. Spadola had done the exact same Pirates Den conversion treatment to Mountain Park’s Fun House; the only difference being that Mountain’s used later model Pretzel “tub” cars as its rolling stock.
Lincoln Park’s Pirates Den ran for about ten years, then was gutted out and replaced with a gift shop. Years after the park closed, the building became a prime location for trespassers with paintball guns. Yet, one could still see a small section of the Fun House’s second floor where patrons navigated the shuttle boards.
Right: Pirate boat at Pleasure Island, Wakefield, MA
Photo: Carleton Kenerson |
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In 1965, Spadola converted a game stand building into the Out Of This World fun house. It had elaborate façade theming, featuring a flying saucer crashed into the side of a planet.
The interior walk-through was equally entertaining with several large, fenced in, dioramas including an astronaut and an alien in combat with their ray guns, both across from each other on a revolving turntable. Intergalactic sound effects were piped inside and outside the attraction. Sadly, a 1978 fire in the attic of the adjoining Fascination building marked the end of this fun house.
If you wanted to experience Out Of This World again, you would have had to travel two-hours northwest to Mountain Park, where Spadola created an exact duplicate that operated until being replaced by an arcade in 1981. |
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| Over the years since its 1987 closure, most of Lincoln Park’s remains were cleared away, with the exception of the Comet coaster. Having abandoned all proposals and future plans, the Comet was finally put out of its misery, also saving its legions of fans further suffering in watching it wither away. The coaster was demolished on July 11, 2012. In 2015 I ventured out to the site of the former amusement park which was then in the process of becoming residential property known as Lincoln Park Place. The site of the Comet had been mostly cleaned up and renamed Roller Coaster Way. As I write this, the former amusement park is a housing development. |
If you wonder how I recall the dark rides and fun houses of Lincoln Park so vividly over all these years, remember what I wrote at the onset, “everything there was larger than life.”
That said, it was impossible to forget. |
The author would like to thank:
Ed Serowik
Ed Cribben
Sean McCarthy
James Armenti
Jay Ducharme
Jim Abbate
Rick Ciliberto
Friends Of Pleasure Island
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