Remembering Fairyland

From [the screams on hoffman drive] by Matthew Kremer


it is funny to walk past life
and figure it to be a place
unlike what it is.
for instance, mozy a
block northeast and find
yourself at the heart
of queens center mall,
one of the most profitable
in the entire united states,
according to those who
keep tabs on such things.
take back the clock
fifty or sixty years,
and the spot was an
amusement park for kids
known as 'fairyland.'
open year round, it seems
to have been a rinky-dink
spot you'd take the family
without having to travel
far or break the bank.
there was nothing
all that glamorous
about the rides.
from the pictures
i've run across,
there were boats
with little bells that
went round in a circle
and a wooden coaster
called the 'comet jr.'
that seems to have
been a main attraction.
the cost was predictably scant:
single tickets, good on any ride,
were priced at 14 cents
and were good for adult
or child admissions.
if the kids didn't act up,
you'd take them down to
wetson's for a milkshake.
the park was demolished
in 1968 to make way for
Hot Topic and Bling Bling.
you'd be hard pressed
to imagine the site
housing anything like
the squeals of children
in the nineteen sixties.

History of Terrace on the Park

From the NY Times:

...Terrace on the Park may be best known for the view from the outside, hard to miss from Queens highways: four conjoined, 120-foot, T-shaped towers, which are a dramatic leftover from the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

The building’s roof was a Port Authority helipad and turned the structure into the fair’s aerial gateway. In August 1965, during the fair, the Beatles used it as a way station toward their record-setting concert at Shea Stadium. They made the short trip to the stadium in a Wells Fargo armored truck.

Jeffrey Kroessler, a preservationist who is writing a book on the history of Queens, said “many people in Queens are fond of it” because it is a symbol of exuberant mid-1960s optimism about a space-age future, a world where people could hopscotch by helicopter among multiple helipads, like one atop what was then known as the Pan Am Building in Midtown. A 1977 accident atop Pan Am dashed that vision.

When the fair ended, the 1,100-seat Top of the Fair restaurant, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, became an obvious site for a banquet hall. A penthouse ballroom replaced the helipad, and part of the roof became an outdoor terrace for cocktails. During its four and a half decades, practically every New York mayor has broken bread at Terrace on the Park.

A Blimp Lands In Flushing

"When I was little my grandfather told me about a "Goodyear Blimp" that floated over his house on weekends. As I had not heard the word "blimp" before, and knew from TV commercials that Goodyear made automobile tires, I could only comprehend that he was describing some kind of a giant automobile tire floating above his house. Oh, that Grandpa - he was always pulling my leg.

Goodyear at that time had started using nearby Flushing Airport to dock it's aerial-broadcast blimp during the weekend games at Shea Stadium. For many local residents the big balloon was a new major attraction, and they'd visit the airport just to watch it come and go in it's amusingly lumbering fashion. Grandpa, of course, filmed it for posterity, and his movie cleared up any confusion I had over Goodyear blimps and tires.

Flushing Airport has been out of business since the 1980's. Half of it is now a swampy mess, while the other half has been developed into - what else? - a shopping complex." - Robert Martens, April, 2011