The Steel Phantom was on the near horizon and international accolades not far behind. The first new area since 1927’s relocation of Kiddieland would come in 1995 with Lost Kennywood, an elaborate expansion based on the dearly departed Luna Park. Exterminator, one of the most heavily themed roller coaster dark rides outside of Disney and Universal, anchored it a few years later in 1999.
The things lost are harder to spot.
The Old Mill, surviving mostly unchanged since 1901, is shown off in its Hardheaded Harold’s Horrendously Humorous Haunted Hideaway incarnation. It would revert to its original name in 1992 and later spend 15 years as Garfield’s Nightmare. Le Cachot, one of the last great Laffs in the Dark, turned the lights off for good in 1998. Weather eyes will spot the miniature golf course under what would soon become the Steel Phantom queue. It’s still there today among the shrubs, but significantly less green.
“We feel that Kennywood is America’s Tivoli,” says then-president Carl Hughes. The Copenhagen park, 50 years its senior, is an apt comparison. Both are as much about entertainment as environment. Both are as much museums as amusement parks. Both have very out-of-place pagodas. Both have aged out of traditional competition to become shorthand for an old-fashioned, maybe even endangered kind of fun.
Walt Disney stole his best line from Tivoli founder Georg Carstensen, who promised his park would, “never, so to speak, be finished.” Neither will Kennywood.
“Kennywood’s here and it’s probably always going to be here,” says Charlie Lyons during his daily inspection of the bumper cars. “It’s just something that exists.”
Kennywood Memories is a time capsule of a time capsule.
For all its changes, the park never does. Just last year, The Old Mill came back sillier than ever. The last decade saw two massive roller coasters added to the hill over the Monongahela, but Italian Day is still one of the biggest draws of the year, not to mention Irish, Greek, Serbian, Croatian, Polish, Slovak, and Hungarian Days.
The oldest commercials call it “The Nation’s Greatest Picnic Park.” As any recent visitor can confirm, it still is. And proud of it.
Kennywood Memories is available to stream in its entirety on WQED.org. It’s the audio-visual equivalent of warm corndogs and ice-cold lemonade. Anyone so intrigued or enchanted should spring for the $15 DVD from the WQED store. The documentary is the same, but it comes packaged with unedited archival material and mid-90s featurettes looking back on the production. It may also be the only DVD menu in existence that uses little yellow arrows for buttons.
As “Waltzing in Dreamland” forlornly plays and the neon lights of Kennywood blink out one by one, you’ll be left with a unique feeling among home video vacations.
Most of them are designed to make you call your travel agent within the hour. They’re gussied-up commercials built to sell.
But Kennywood Memories is different.
By the end, you won’t feel like you need to visit.
By the end, you’ll feel like you already have and just can’t wait to go back.
Comments
Comment written by Nicole, apologies it was accidentally deleted but I managed to copy the text:
Hi Jeremy! I loved your article! It seems you can really feel what all of us Pittsburgh natives feel, or used to feel, about Kennywood. Many of us are quite unhappy about it's changes that have come after the founding family sold the park to a commercial, multi-park, owner that's isn't based in PA, or America for that matter, and doesn't know the history of the park. As you might know, some of the rides there are also National Historic Landmarks inside the Historic Landmark itself. The Racer was one that was mentioned in your article. Finally to my point, Kennywood announced late last year that one such landmark, The Kangaroo, was being torn down and taken away forever. I was always told that tearing down a National Historical Landmark was illegal, and to top that, The Kangaroo was the last operating ride of its kind in the world. Sorry for the long post, I am just curious if you had heard this and what your take on it was. Thank you for your time!!