Everything Southern Humboldt and more
I only got to visit Playland at the Breakers in SF a few times before it was closed (as I remember, a developer purchased the land, nixed the park, and then went bankrupt so that all we could see was the Playland ruins for years afterward before someone put condos up). My memories are fond, but this woman had a much different experience. I loved the disk of death!
It was also the first place It’s Its were sold. Remember them? I haven’t seen them in years.
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August 14, 2011 at 5:32 am
Fred Mangels
It was also the first place It’s Its were sold. Remember them? I haven’t seen them in years..
Yes. They’re not as easily found as Toll House Ice Cream Cookies, but they do still make them:
http://www.itsiticecream.com/
August 14, 2011 at 6:21 am
anon
I loved playland, especially the fun house and the slide. The rollercoaster was shut down before I got a chance to ride it. By that time, one had to get to santa cruz to ride a roller coaster.
The laughing lady was really fun after I started smoking pot.
August 14, 2011 at 6:52 am
gb
It’s Its can be found in the freezer section at the Arcata Co-op, been there for years.
August 14, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Michael Asher-Falk
On a trip to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk a few weeks ago I was telling my wife about the funhouse at Playland the beach. I then ran across the laughing clown robot which is now at the Boardwalk between the shops and the arcade.
A couple of other things I remember about the funhouse were the maze of mirrors that you had to go through to enter and just after that were nickel size holes in the floor which an operator somewhere could shoot a blast of air through which would be enough to blow a dress up.
August 14, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Eric Kirk
Thanks for the tip on It’s Its. I’m going to get one next time I’m up there!
Michael – you also had to walk though the spinning whatever-they-were-called that looked like they would crush you but were only made of foam. Loved that place. In fact, I haven’t been to as fun a funhouse since.
August 14, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Not A Native
At the time I was going, it was already a little run down but I didn’t know it. First there was a mirror maze to go through, then past those spinning cylinders to the main room. The rule was no shoes on the big slide so shoes were piled up at the slide base by the burlap box. Think I also remember a small slide that wasn’t very good. There were air jets in the floor around the moving walkways that the operator used to blow up girls skirts. I liked running back and forth on those walways. There were two(three?) of them that moved in different ways, up and down and rocking left and right. Also, coming in, the rocking horse ride was on the left. That was a tamest activity, I’d sit on it when tired. The guy who ran the turntable, spinning tunnel, and air jets sat above the turntable, he had a great job.
Playland is where I learned to play pinball, skee ball, shoot a .22, watch poker ball game players, eat pink popcorn bars(didn’t like it), cotton candy, and see the taffy pulling machine and corn dogs(didn’t dare ask for one). I always wanted to go on the diving bell ride, but never got to. Some people remember Red’s Tamales were first sold there.
August 14, 2011 at 7:48 pm
mresquan
Eric,Safeway in Fortuna carries them,and Murrish Market in Hydesville carries every variety of them.
August 14, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Thorstein Veblen
Slide, kinda remember, tube definitely, walkway that buckled in different directions for sure. But what sticks out in my mind was the blasts of air when you would least expect it. Made me jump every time. Yeah, it was zoo, then funhouse. Made for a great day.
August 14, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Eric Kirk
Eric,Safeway in Fortuna carries them,and Murrish Market in Hydesville carries every variety of them.
Every variety? Oh, don’t tell me they’ve made them with ice cream flavors other than vanilla! Is nothing sacred?
August 14, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Anonymous
Mint is the best, eating one right now
http://www.itsiticecream.com/history/
August 15, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Unk John
Eric,
Your grandfather and grandmother used to take your mother and I out to Playland somewhat regularly. I loved the old streetcar station. It was like a small train station.
Everything was still operating back then.The roller coaster, the bumper cars, the thing we called the “shoot the chute” or something like that, and they had a diving ride that went down into a pool they had there. The Funhouse was great. The “disc of death”, as you call it was really neat. The idea was to rush onto it and try to get to the dead-center before they started it. That way, you were reasonably assured of a long ride, as the force was not as strong.
That picture of the slide brought back memories to me. We went up there over and over. I think they must have gone through many, many burlap bags.
We also went to Sutro Baths, which was up the hill on the other side of the Cliff House. They had five pools in that place. One was huge, and was probably not heated very much. One was a diving pool and it was deeper than the others. I think the other three were all heated to different temperatures, from moderate to quite warm.
Sutro’s also had some of those machines where you could make a 78 rpm record. One time, around 1948, my father took us there and we made three records; one of me, one of your mother, and one of him. I still have those records.
There was a lot more than just that out there back then. The Elephant train to the zoo, all sorts of stuff. Of course, your mother can remember much more than I can, being so much older. I will speak with her about it in the morning, as she is here and we are going to the Lynden Fair tomorrow.
August 17, 2011 at 8:03 pm
podsnap
Oh boy… Playland at the Beach was like walking into the past when I was little. Did you eat at the Piehouse? Chicken was the best, and the beef ones had a brown sauce. How about that haunted house? Some of the monsters are at a house in San Rafael, a lady bought em. They’re on her porch.
The story that used to really scare me was that a guy died on the madmouse ride at Playland. But it was still going when I was there, whipping peoples heads sideways as it made those sharp turns. I wouldn’t go on it.
I thought the Laughing Lady was creepy, and remember those guys that circled around up above her? If you went upstairs at the fun house, you could see that those circling guys were just torsos on greasy metal rods. Also upstairs you could see that there was some powerful and sinister young guy that sat up in the corner and blew the wind up girls skirts (and we pretty much all wore skirts in those days), and cranked up the spin on the tube and the disc when someone got inside. Once, my friend and I were looking in the spinning tube and some guy got in and just walked through, it looked so easy. My friend decided to try it and got half way through before she fell down and was tossed around mercilessly, sort of grunting and crying out until she finally fell out the other side in a heap.
I liked the big slide, but if your arm touched the wooden rail that divided the slides, you’d get an abraisive burn. Playland seemed full of ghosts, all the people there looked like they were from some other time, the near past. You knew it was almost over, that other time.
August 17, 2011 at 9:07 pm
podsnap
And I am so glad that I got to see Sutro’s. It was truly an anachronism. There was an Egyptian mummy there! The building was huge, old and Edwardian, it had room after room of oddities.
The matchstick carnival wasn’t very interesting. There were these lifesize mechanical dioramas, and if you put a nickel in the slot, Maggie would hit Jiggs with a rolling pin. I remember crowds of people, huge rooms that went on and on, all filled with things from the past.It seems like there were some things like the skeleton of a two headed lamb or something. Maybe it was a snake. It felt like you were walking around in the depression era of your parents childhood, or through your grandparents experiences.
Then, this endless place opened out to the pools, an immense place with a cathedral size windows that faced the ocean. That was where the pools were, but when I was there, it was no longer swimming pools, alas, but instead an ice skating rink.
I am so glad that I saw Sutros. My father told me that they let it burn down. Where that huge area is now, can you imagine how big it was? The entrance was all the way at the top, by that little snack joint above Cliff House, and it went all the way across to the other side and all the way down to the ocean. So sad the building is gone. It was really beautiful and weird. Ghosts were there, too. If you were a kid you could see the past there.