Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 221

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(NEW YORK CITY.) Group of blueprints of Coney Island and amusement park attractions. 45 blueprints, one blueline print, 2 original drawings, and several building permit documents; various sizes and conditions. Vp, 1918-64, bulk 1940-49
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Additional Details

These plans all relate to the famous strip of amusement parks, arcades, and restaurants which line the beach of Brooklyn's Coney Island. Most of the plans are from a two-block stretch along the boardwalk along either side of West 16th Street (now Kensington Walk). This land now encompasses part of the home stadium of the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team and an adjacent vacant lot. This collection includes plans for a restaurant, miniature golf course, and arcades on various corners of this property from 1938 to 1964. Most notably, the collection includes the 1947 plans for an elephant track and stables. Billboard Magazine discussed this attraction: "The Circus Equipment Corporation opened an elephant ride on Coney Island Monday. Five bulls, all broken to carry howdahs, are used on a 500-foot track. A fireproof barn is used for stabling" (5 July 1947, page 85).
Also included in this lot are: "Revolving Platform within the Building," 811-817 Surf Avenue, uncredited, 15 December 1919 Group of 6 plans for the Witching Waves rides at Detroit and at Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland, OH, some crediting the design to inventor and proprietor Theophilus Van Kannel of Brooklyn, January 1918 and February-April 1924 (originally a Coney Island attraction, and later licensed to other locations) Structural plan of a portion of the Thunderbolt (a Coney Island roller coaster built in 1925), 19 June 1928 "An Analytical Determination of the Stresses & Safety Factors in the Rollo-Plane." 8 manuscript pages with engineering drawings copied onto one blueprint sheet, by the Everly Aircraft Co. of Salem, OR, 11 October 1938 (this ride burned at Coney Island's Luna Park in 1944) "Plan of New Amusement Device Patented March 1st #2,109,972" by Peter F. Meyer, Brooklyn, undated, but the patent issued in 1938 described a ride "wherein a comparatively large number of persons may use the device at one time and be in view of each other at all times" "1947 Bubble Bounce Foundation Plan" by the Custer Specialty Co. of Dayton, OH, 21 April 1947, a ride which was built in Coney Island in this period (see Billboard, 24 May 1947, page 76). A more detailed list is available.