Posted with permission from the Hamilton Magazine.
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From the summer issue of the Hamilton Magazine.
The Beach Amusement Park was here for a good time, not a long time
It lacked the cultural pizzazz of the jazzy Brant Inn, but the Beach Amusement Park still cast a spell over generations of locals. Like Brooklyn's legendary Coney Island, it got a natural boost from its location - on a spit of land by the water, along the sandbar at the mouth of the bay. But the idea of the Beach Strip as a hot leisure destination was nothing new. For decades, the area had been home to hotels, taverns and saloons too numerous to count. But the Beach Amusement Park promised a more wholesome brand of fun. And summer visitors swarmed to this lakeside attraction. (The park's site, along a popular Toronto-Niagara route, also lured more than a few travellers to stop.) Rides included a low-elevation roller coaster as well as a Tilt-A-Whirl, Scrambler and Octopus, as well as kid-friendly options like pony rides and a carousel. The most visible attraction was a ferris wheel older than Coney Island's iconic Wonder Wheel. Riders could get an unrivalled view from its peak. Unrivalled, that is, until the opening of the Burlington Skyway in 1958. As through traffic drained away, the strip grew sleepier. Caught between the lazy era of hotels and beachfront resorts and the high-velocity highway culture of the '50s and '60s, the park began to struggle. It managed to tough it out for another couple of decades. But when the park's lease expired in 1978,75 years after its first incarnation opened for business, the midway went silent for the last time. Its rides were auctioned off the following year.
http://www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/
_____________________________________
From the summer issue of the Hamilton Magazine.
The Beach Amusement Park was here for a good time, not a long time
It lacked the cultural pizzazz of the jazzy Brant Inn, but the Beach Amusement Park still cast a spell over generations of locals. Like Brooklyn's legendary Coney Island, it got a natural boost from its location - on a spit of land by the water, along the sandbar at the mouth of the bay. But the idea of the Beach Strip as a hot leisure destination was nothing new. For decades, the area had been home to hotels, taverns and saloons too numerous to count. But the Beach Amusement Park promised a more wholesome brand of fun. And summer visitors swarmed to this lakeside attraction. (The park's site, along a popular Toronto-Niagara route, also lured more than a few travellers to stop.) Rides included a low-elevation roller coaster as well as a Tilt-A-Whirl, Scrambler and Octopus, as well as kid-friendly options like pony rides and a carousel. The most visible attraction was a ferris wheel older than Coney Island's iconic Wonder Wheel. Riders could get an unrivalled view from its peak. Unrivalled, that is, until the opening of the Burlington Skyway in 1958. As through traffic drained away, the strip grew sleepier. Caught between the lazy era of hotels and beachfront resorts and the high-velocity highway culture of the '50s and '60s, the park began to struggle. It managed to tough it out for another couple of decades. But when the park's lease expired in 1978,75 years after its first incarnation opened for business, the midway went silent for the last time. Its rides were auctioned off the following year.
http://www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/
