New York City - a photo on Flickriver

New York City

The iconic Coney Island Cyclone Roller Coaster or simply the Cyclone, is one of the oldest roller coasters in the United States still in operation and opened on June 26, 1927 owned by Jack and Irving Rosenthal just adjacent to the New York Aquarium. The Rosenthal’s saw an opportunity as two other roller coasters had recently opened in Coney Island and were having great success, the Thunderbolt in 1925 and the Tornado in 1926. Kentucky native Vernon Keenan was pegged to design the Rosenthal’s coaster and Harry C. Baker led the construction which was done and supplied by local companies. When it was finished the 2,640 foot track featured a total of 12 drops, multiple fan turns with its highest drop at 85 feet and a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour.
As I’ve chronicled before about the Coney Island area in Brooklyn, in the 1960’s a great decline began and in the 1970’s after purchasing the Cyclone for 1 million dollars New York City sought to expand the adjacent New York Aquarium and the wrecking ball was the plan for the Cyclone using eminent domain. The “Save the Cyclone” civil campaign put a stop to the Cyclone’s destruction, and Astroland Amusement Park next door took over running the coaster for the City of New York. It remains a symbol and anchor of the Coney Island community’s effort to rise from the ashes of its past and at the same time links the area back to when it was a summer resort area for New York City. It’s often referred to as the ‘Mother of American Roller Coaster Culture’ or the ‘Big Momma’ of Coney Island, and many coaster connoisseurs trek to Coney Island to experience the thrill of the old wooden coaster, which was declared a New York City Landmark in 1988 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Astroland sadly shuttered it doors, but the Cyclone being that it is a landmark owned by New York City continued its operation. Most of Astroland has been reincarnated as Luna Park ( re-using the name of an old Coney Island amusement park from the early 20th century ) and have taken over the management of the Cyclone. This was shot on Kodachrome 200 film with Minolta X-700 SLR with Minolta MD 35-70mm F3.5-4.5 Lens, scanned on a Plustek 7500i scanner using Silverfast, processed in Adobe Photoshop Elements taken in August 2007 during that summer’s AVP tournament at Coney Island.

Reposting this capture originally posted on this photostream March 26th, 2013

lunaparknyc.com/attractions/cyclone/

Taken in: United States / New York / New York / West Brighton (show map)

Taken on: August 24, 2007

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NEWYORKCITY

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CONEYISLAND

CYCLONE

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MINOLTAMD3570MMF3.54.5

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Camera: Plustek OpticFilm 7500i (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Plustek OpticFilm 7500i
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0
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