nicely done
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
GONE IS THE FUN FOREST
Seattle Center's Fun Forest rides leaving the city
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010.
PREV of NEXT
ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMes.
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010.
A remnant of the 1962 World's Fair, the Fun Forest is a victim of declining revenue and a changing vision for Seattle Center. Steve Robertson, whose family owns the park, says he's sold five of the big rides and has offers for the remaining two. With names like Wild River, Orbiter and Tornado, expect the rides to pop up at carnivals and fairs in California, Texas and the Midwest — and, if Robertson pulls off one deal, as far as Argentina.
------------------------------------------
Comments: Seattle Center's Fun Forest rides leaving the city
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010. Read article You must be logged in to leave a comment.
2 comments December 19, 2009 at 4:56 PMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseI do miss the Enterprise, the red baron, Flight to Mars, and the Bonanza Shooting Gallery. I wish there is someway to get the city council to change their minds about replacing the Fun Forest. If you look at New York, they've agreed to buy seven acres in Coney Island. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/nyregion/12coney.html?_r=2
How come Seattle can't do the same?
grandpoobah
Redmond, WA
13 comments December 19, 2009 at 3:03 PMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseGrowing up, my sibling and I got to choose (within reason) what we wanted to do on our birthdays. With my birthday in early summer, for years I chose an outing to the fun forest, with a friend invited along with the family. Good memories. 'Course, the few times I walked through as an adult, it looked a bit seedy. Oh well.
Harlock_the_Bard
Lafayette, IN
509 comments December 19, 2009 at 11:14 AMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abusePart of the problem is that when the original owner died in the late '80s (I think), his son-in-law took over management of the place. Steve's a great guy, all in all, but he doesn't have cotton candy in his blood the way Bill did. He started trying to squeeze more profit out of the place, which meant the prizes got chintzier and the rides didn't get replaced until they were literally falling apart. Oh, and the advertising budget dropped through the floor.
The big building was his last-ditch effort to draw in crowds, but I don't think it was thought out all that well. They cleared the old mini-golf course (and the pink elephant with the martini in its trunk!) and a couple of the kiddy rides for...a warehouse full of arcade games, with the bumper cars in the middle of it to make sure nobody could hear a d*mn thing.
Throw in the tendency to purchase "bargain" rides and games (with their attendant maintenance problems), and yeah... the place has been slipping steadily away for almost two decades now.
On the other side of the coin, the city auditors who grumbled about low attendance never seemed to show up between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when the park was in full swing... They seemed to prefer, say, Tuesdays in February to make their visits.
Just in case anybody's curious, I used to work on the midway games there. Several summers while I was in college, then again after a stretch of unemployment got to be too much for me. I don't know which was more frustrating: management constantly encouraging me to "call them in" when there wasn't actually anybody in sight, or the customers who insisted that the games were rigged because they saw an expose on 20/20. Quick hint, folks: the traveling carnivals can sometimes get away with rigging their games, but stationary ones can't, or the state gaming commission would shut them down quick as a flash.
mooremountain
seattle, WA
52 comments December 19, 2009 at 9:01 AMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseIt may seem laughable and "histrionic" to people who have no heart connection to this good place, but when the Mighty Mouse was no more, when Jones Museum was no more, when Ivar Haglund died ... those things had meaning to us and their passing hurts.
Thank you rraven for your thoughts- As a kid in the 60's there are so many memories I wish I could really grab on to from time to time- Yes, I have a few JP Patches videos, haven't actually looked at them for a very long time but it's nice to know I have a peice of nostalgia in my cabinet-
Oh, the Jones Museum- THE BEST!! I remember the vampire that was in the back that would lay sleeping and then wake up, bend the bars and do his thing- Scared me to death when I was little but loved the Jonas museum and have asked many a time what happened to it and where was it al actually sitting?
Goodbye to a place where I had my first kiss on the Rock-O-Plane in 1968 and though I would love to say how much I miss the easeir, more family oriented Seattle- I must say I just miss the entire planet being easier, slower, kinder and much more family-minded.
fanofoldseattle
seattle, WA
286 comments December 19, 2009 at 8:13 AMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abuseHey moorse,
I agree that master plan is just peachy! All it's gonna cost us is $550 million! Too bad we shoo'd away our 41 year old basketball team, which could have been the cornerstone for all this AND would have had private investors foot a SIGNIFICANT portion of the bill! Oh well we'll just raise more taxes......Thanks Nick Licatta and 'Citizens for More Important Things' for brainwashing all the liberal 'lemings' in this city that the Sonics add "No value to this city"! I will never forget!!
mrroper
Kirkland, WA
214 comments December 19, 2009 at 5:02 AMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abuseObviously the folks who decided to tear it down are not from Seattle, true Seattleites would never have made that decision. .....I've lived here all my life (born in 1963) and my family came here almost 100 years before that. Losing the Fun Forest is like losing a part of my heritage. Just because a piece of history isn't profitable doesn't mean it needs to be torn down. What happens if the Space Needle starts losing money? Do we take it down too? In the future we need to be more careful who we put in office, not one member of the current City Council, nor the mayor, were born in Seattle, and it's really a sad day when outsiders start tearing down our icons just to make a buck.
jj12
Woodinville, WA
3 comments December 19, 2009 at 1:49 AMRating: (1) (4) Log in to
report abuseAre people seriously upset about this? I'm not surprised this place is broke...those rides are ghetto and overpriced.
The sense of nostalgia for crappy things is just human nature I guess...in 20 years people are going to look back to 2009 and talk about the "good ol' days" of music when Hanna Montana was big.
Shattah206
Fall City, WA
31 comments December 19, 2009 at 12:46 AMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseLOL @ StartingAllOver. Hope that doesn't cause further deviance :)
I have taken my nieces there every year since my own sons got to be too old to hang w/mom (23 nd 21 now). We will sorely miss the Fun Forest. Someone mentioned the place in Tukwila . . . that does nothing to instill in them love for the City. That's not important to the people making decisions, because they obviously don't love Seattle either.
turndownthemusicnow
Seattle, WA
24 comments December 18, 2009 at 10:33 PMRating: (3) (1) Log in to
report abuseMayor McCheese can go to hell he is a first class piece of S**t. Him and his plastic bags.
bluebird41
Lynnwood, WA
5 comments December 18, 2009 at 8:09 PMRating: (5) (0) Log in to
report abuseAnachronism or not, this was still good fun; I didn't grow up around here, but I've taken my 5 year old for a couple of years and, with the Children's Museum and Pacific Science Center, it was part of the experience. She loved it and my whole family is lamenting its disappearance.
Where else are you going to find a ferris wheel, carousel and small roller coaster other than driving down to Federal Way?
Replacing the Fun Forest rides with a Starbucks or yet another pavilion doesn't cut it for us (perhaps they should just change the name of Seattle Center to "Millions of Pavilions"...)
Hoax
Seattle, WA
28 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:59 PMRating: (1) (1) Log in to
report abuseI'm still getting over the loss of the amusement park rides at the Woodland Park Zoo (especially the little train that toodled around the animals). And now this!
malibu dave
bellevue, WA
886 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:20 PMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abusewhen ever i think of the fun forest i think of my friend who did the wild thing with his girlfriend in the glass gondola ride that used to run over it.
now that's a fun forest!
Untouchable
Seattle, WA
180 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:04 PMRating: (2) (2) Log in to
report abuseGosh Seattle. Maybe we could ask Disney to lend a hand???? What does Disney know about rides??? My sarcasm is short-circuiting my brainwaves.
Imagine something like Space Mountain or The Matterhorn here. Here in Seattle!!!!! That would be something!!!!!
dportjoe
Seattle, WA
175 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:33 PMRating: (1) (4) Log in to
report abuseSadly higher and higher rent for the private sector operator squeezed too tight. But hey losing the single largest tenant (Sonics) had nothing to do with any of this (wink wink) no cultural impact at all.
bmi2000
snohomish, WA
41 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:21 PMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abusetom-renton I remember that thousands of kids from safety patrol i was there, I remember the haunted house burnt down right after all the kids left. and the wild mouse.i remember thinking what if one of those cars came off and one friday night it did. it was a fun place then but things have changed and it definatley isnt the same
ckc123
seattle, WA
45 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:16 PMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abuseLove hearing the 'school patrol' trip memories. We did the same thing in the 70's and I'm feeling very nostalgic about the Fun Forest shuting down. But come on folks - it really hasn't been the same since "Flight To Mars" was taken out and replaced with the EMP, right?
StartingAllOver
Seattle, WA
1398 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:41 PMRating: (4) (0) Log in to
report abuse"i am completely deviated to hear about this..."
I'm with you there, Penguin, but then a lot of things deviate me... fairly often, too.
RabidPenguin
Lynnwood, WA
3 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:30 PMRating: (6) (0) Log in to
report abusei am completely deviated to hear about this, i have been going there since i was a child and been taking my 3 children there since my oldest, whom is now 15, was a toddler and my youngest, whom is now four has only been there once this past summer. this is a devastating blow to the seattle area, there is nothing like this around the area for families unless you count Enchanted Village, but they charge an arm and a leg for admission, at least with the fun forest you also had the rest of the center to explore and a thriving downtown area to explore with the family. again devastating blow the seattle area!! good bye fun forest, me and my family will miss you!!!
turndownthemusicnow
Seattle, WA
24 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:26 PMRating: (7) (3) Log in to
report abuseWow..........another way to make Seattle a little less fun. I guess this is Mayor McCheese's way of getting back at Seattle for not electing him again and passing his stupid bag tax. Yeah the rides are kinda ghetto now but can we replace it with something fun????
tom_renton
Renton, WA
3 comments December 18, 2009 at 3:56 PMRating: (12) (0) Log in to
report abuseVery sad. I'm one of those kids that went there in spring after doing the "school patrol" thing where we had those vests with badges, a cool sign, and a helmet! Our reward was an afternoon at the Fun Forest.
I remember going on the Round Up where you had nothing but centrifugal force holding you against the wall as you were 50 feet in the air looking down. The roller coaster was fun, but a bit short. Mission to Mars wasn't that scary but, kind of cool. You wouldn't get me on the Zipper for anything!
I'm glad I grew up in the 70s when playing outside was cool. Biking without helmets, falling out of trees, taking bigwheels off jumps, sledding through intersections, and playing hide and seek in the rain after dark and coming home filthy.
Now what do kids do? Texting, video games, getting fat and diabetic from sugary drinks in the basement. Too dangerous outside.
Tom - kid from the 70s and dammit - we liked it!
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010.
PREV of NEXT
ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMes.
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010.
A remnant of the 1962 World's Fair, the Fun Forest is a victim of declining revenue and a changing vision for Seattle Center. Steve Robertson, whose family owns the park, says he's sold five of the big rides and has offers for the remaining two. With names like Wild River, Orbiter and Tornado, expect the rides to pop up at carnivals and fairs in California, Texas and the Midwest — and, if Robertson pulls off one deal, as far as Argentina.
------------------------------------------
Comments: Seattle Center's Fun Forest rides leaving the city
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, including the pavilion with the bumper cars and kiddieland, will remain open through Labor Day 2010. Read article You must be logged in to leave a comment.
2 comments December 19, 2009 at 4:56 PMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseI do miss the Enterprise, the red baron, Flight to Mars, and the Bonanza Shooting Gallery. I wish there is someway to get the city council to change their minds about replacing the Fun Forest. If you look at New York, they've agreed to buy seven acres in Coney Island. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/nyregion/12coney.html?_r=2
How come Seattle can't do the same?
grandpoobah
Redmond, WA
13 comments December 19, 2009 at 3:03 PMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseGrowing up, my sibling and I got to choose (within reason) what we wanted to do on our birthdays. With my birthday in early summer, for years I chose an outing to the fun forest, with a friend invited along with the family. Good memories. 'Course, the few times I walked through as an adult, it looked a bit seedy. Oh well.
Harlock_the_Bard
Lafayette, IN
509 comments December 19, 2009 at 11:14 AMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abusePart of the problem is that when the original owner died in the late '80s (I think), his son-in-law took over management of the place. Steve's a great guy, all in all, but he doesn't have cotton candy in his blood the way Bill did. He started trying to squeeze more profit out of the place, which meant the prizes got chintzier and the rides didn't get replaced until they were literally falling apart. Oh, and the advertising budget dropped through the floor.
The big building was his last-ditch effort to draw in crowds, but I don't think it was thought out all that well. They cleared the old mini-golf course (and the pink elephant with the martini in its trunk!) and a couple of the kiddy rides for...a warehouse full of arcade games, with the bumper cars in the middle of it to make sure nobody could hear a d*mn thing.
Throw in the tendency to purchase "bargain" rides and games (with their attendant maintenance problems), and yeah... the place has been slipping steadily away for almost two decades now.
On the other side of the coin, the city auditors who grumbled about low attendance never seemed to show up between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when the park was in full swing... They seemed to prefer, say, Tuesdays in February to make their visits.
Just in case anybody's curious, I used to work on the midway games there. Several summers while I was in college, then again after a stretch of unemployment got to be too much for me. I don't know which was more frustrating: management constantly encouraging me to "call them in" when there wasn't actually anybody in sight, or the customers who insisted that the games were rigged because they saw an expose on 20/20. Quick hint, folks: the traveling carnivals can sometimes get away with rigging their games, but stationary ones can't, or the state gaming commission would shut them down quick as a flash.
mooremountain
seattle, WA
52 comments December 19, 2009 at 9:01 AMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseIt may seem laughable and "histrionic" to people who have no heart connection to this good place, but when the Mighty Mouse was no more, when Jones Museum was no more, when Ivar Haglund died ... those things had meaning to us and their passing hurts.
Thank you rraven for your thoughts- As a kid in the 60's there are so many memories I wish I could really grab on to from time to time- Yes, I have a few JP Patches videos, haven't actually looked at them for a very long time but it's nice to know I have a peice of nostalgia in my cabinet-
Oh, the Jones Museum- THE BEST!! I remember the vampire that was in the back that would lay sleeping and then wake up, bend the bars and do his thing- Scared me to death when I was little but loved the Jonas museum and have asked many a time what happened to it and where was it al actually sitting?
Goodbye to a place where I had my first kiss on the Rock-O-Plane in 1968 and though I would love to say how much I miss the easeir, more family oriented Seattle- I must say I just miss the entire planet being easier, slower, kinder and much more family-minded.
fanofoldseattle
seattle, WA
286 comments December 19, 2009 at 8:13 AMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abuseHey moorse,
I agree that master plan is just peachy! All it's gonna cost us is $550 million! Too bad we shoo'd away our 41 year old basketball team, which could have been the cornerstone for all this AND would have had private investors foot a SIGNIFICANT portion of the bill! Oh well we'll just raise more taxes......Thanks Nick Licatta and 'Citizens for More Important Things' for brainwashing all the liberal 'lemings' in this city that the Sonics add "No value to this city"! I will never forget!!
mrroper
Kirkland, WA
214 comments December 19, 2009 at 5:02 AMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abuseObviously the folks who decided to tear it down are not from Seattle, true Seattleites would never have made that decision. .....I've lived here all my life (born in 1963) and my family came here almost 100 years before that. Losing the Fun Forest is like losing a part of my heritage. Just because a piece of history isn't profitable doesn't mean it needs to be torn down. What happens if the Space Needle starts losing money? Do we take it down too? In the future we need to be more careful who we put in office, not one member of the current City Council, nor the mayor, were born in Seattle, and it's really a sad day when outsiders start tearing down our icons just to make a buck.
jj12
Woodinville, WA
3 comments December 19, 2009 at 1:49 AMRating: (1) (4) Log in to
report abuseAre people seriously upset about this? I'm not surprised this place is broke...those rides are ghetto and overpriced.
The sense of nostalgia for crappy things is just human nature I guess...in 20 years people are going to look back to 2009 and talk about the "good ol' days" of music when Hanna Montana was big.
Shattah206
Fall City, WA
31 comments December 19, 2009 at 12:46 AMRating: (0) (0) Log in to
report abuseLOL @ StartingAllOver. Hope that doesn't cause further deviance :)
I have taken my nieces there every year since my own sons got to be too old to hang w/mom (23 nd 21 now). We will sorely miss the Fun Forest. Someone mentioned the place in Tukwila . . . that does nothing to instill in them love for the City. That's not important to the people making decisions, because they obviously don't love Seattle either.
turndownthemusicnow
Seattle, WA
24 comments December 18, 2009 at 10:33 PMRating: (3) (1) Log in to
report abuseMayor McCheese can go to hell he is a first class piece of S**t. Him and his plastic bags.
bluebird41
Lynnwood, WA
5 comments December 18, 2009 at 8:09 PMRating: (5) (0) Log in to
report abuseAnachronism or not, this was still good fun; I didn't grow up around here, but I've taken my 5 year old for a couple of years and, with the Children's Museum and Pacific Science Center, it was part of the experience. She loved it and my whole family is lamenting its disappearance.
Where else are you going to find a ferris wheel, carousel and small roller coaster other than driving down to Federal Way?
Replacing the Fun Forest rides with a Starbucks or yet another pavilion doesn't cut it for us (perhaps they should just change the name of Seattle Center to "Millions of Pavilions"...)
Hoax
Seattle, WA
28 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:59 PMRating: (1) (1) Log in to
report abuseI'm still getting over the loss of the amusement park rides at the Woodland Park Zoo (especially the little train that toodled around the animals). And now this!
malibu dave
bellevue, WA
886 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:20 PMRating: (1) (0) Log in to
report abusewhen ever i think of the fun forest i think of my friend who did the wild thing with his girlfriend in the glass gondola ride that used to run over it.
now that's a fun forest!
Untouchable
Seattle, WA
180 comments December 18, 2009 at 7:04 PMRating: (2) (2) Log in to
report abuseGosh Seattle. Maybe we could ask Disney to lend a hand???? What does Disney know about rides??? My sarcasm is short-circuiting my brainwaves.
Imagine something like Space Mountain or The Matterhorn here. Here in Seattle!!!!! That would be something!!!!!
dportjoe
Seattle, WA
175 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:33 PMRating: (1) (4) Log in to
report abuseSadly higher and higher rent for the private sector operator squeezed too tight. But hey losing the single largest tenant (Sonics) had nothing to do with any of this (wink wink) no cultural impact at all.
bmi2000
snohomish, WA
41 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:21 PMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abusetom-renton I remember that thousands of kids from safety patrol i was there, I remember the haunted house burnt down right after all the kids left. and the wild mouse.i remember thinking what if one of those cars came off and one friday night it did. it was a fun place then but things have changed and it definatley isnt the same
ckc123
seattle, WA
45 comments December 18, 2009 at 5:16 PMRating: (2) (0) Log in to
report abuseLove hearing the 'school patrol' trip memories. We did the same thing in the 70's and I'm feeling very nostalgic about the Fun Forest shuting down. But come on folks - it really hasn't been the same since "Flight To Mars" was taken out and replaced with the EMP, right?
StartingAllOver
Seattle, WA
1398 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:41 PMRating: (4) (0) Log in to
report abuse"i am completely deviated to hear about this..."
I'm with you there, Penguin, but then a lot of things deviate me... fairly often, too.
RabidPenguin
Lynnwood, WA
3 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:30 PMRating: (6) (0) Log in to
report abusei am completely deviated to hear about this, i have been going there since i was a child and been taking my 3 children there since my oldest, whom is now 15, was a toddler and my youngest, whom is now four has only been there once this past summer. this is a devastating blow to the seattle area, there is nothing like this around the area for families unless you count Enchanted Village, but they charge an arm and a leg for admission, at least with the fun forest you also had the rest of the center to explore and a thriving downtown area to explore with the family. again devastating blow the seattle area!! good bye fun forest, me and my family will miss you!!!
turndownthemusicnow
Seattle, WA
24 comments December 18, 2009 at 4:26 PMRating: (7) (3) Log in to
report abuseWow..........another way to make Seattle a little less fun. I guess this is Mayor McCheese's way of getting back at Seattle for not electing him again and passing his stupid bag tax. Yeah the rides are kinda ghetto now but can we replace it with something fun????
tom_renton
Renton, WA
3 comments December 18, 2009 at 3:56 PMRating: (12) (0) Log in to
report abuseVery sad. I'm one of those kids that went there in spring after doing the "school patrol" thing where we had those vests with badges, a cool sign, and a helmet! Our reward was an afternoon at the Fun Forest.
I remember going on the Round Up where you had nothing but centrifugal force holding you against the wall as you were 50 feet in the air looking down. The roller coaster was fun, but a bit short. Mission to Mars wasn't that scary but, kind of cool. You wouldn't get me on the Zipper for anything!
I'm glad I grew up in the 70s when playing outside was cool. Biking without helmets, falling out of trees, taking bigwheels off jumps, sledding through intersections, and playing hide and seek in the rain after dark and coming home filthy.
Now what do kids do? Texting, video games, getting fat and diabetic from sugary drinks in the basement. Too dangerous outside.
Tom - kid from the 70s and dammit - we liked it!
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