Traction Park
Originally published June 30, 2016
- This waterslide looks fairly standard, doesn't it? Until you consider the fact that vertical loops are usually only seen on rollercoasters, and that there's a good reason for that. It's called physics.
- The Cannonball Loop was one of the attractions at Action Park amusement park, New Jersey. It's said that before the slide opened to the public in the mid-80s, park management had to pay their young employees $100 to persuade them to test it. Testing had little impact; this particular slide didn't remain open for long because people would smash their head as they went around the loop, or get stuck due to the predictable combination of a lack of momentum and a surplus of gravity.
- Over the last fifteen years or so the increased exposure of Action Park's poor design, dangerous attractions, lax security and ensuing injuries (and deaths) have seen it metamorphose from local curiosity to 'The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever'.
- When I first heard about Action Park there wasn't much to read about it online aside from its Wikipedia page, which details its failings at length. But what was once a somewhat mythical place now has a short documentary, several much-commented upon articles and, this month, an episode of a podcast devoted to it.
- What I find interesting about this is how the narrative of the place bounces around. Wikipedia's reliance on the stark facts (the reliability of Wiki notwithstanding) means Action Park at times reads like a deadly hellhole run by irresponsible, frequently-intoxicated adolescents. Not for nothing did it come to be known as 'Accident Park' and 'Traction Park'; people got hurt so often that the park owners bought extra ambulances for the town that had the nearest emergency room.
- But blog comments from people who lost the skin from their arms as they skidded down the Alpine Slide look back on it fondly, and lament the fact it's since been sanitised. And in the documentary, the current owner chuckles indulgently as he reflects on its reputation, presumably aware that its perceived danger will always be a draw for kids with no sense of their own mortality - even if today's iteration looks much less threatening
Otherings
- Here's a list of true crime podcasts for those of us who gave up on season 2 of Serial.
- 'The birth of virtual reality as an art form' is peak TED; but is nonetheless very inspiring.
- Enjoyable but deserving of a longer article: 'Startups can't explain what they do because they're addicted to meaningless jargon'.
- Once I went to Russia and found everyone there to be allergic to smiling. Invisibilia, back for its second season, explains why this is the case in 'The New Norm'.
- Stephen Tobowolsky is recognisable as an actor, but he's also a great storyteller in his own right. The Tobolowsky Files is his podcast, but a good 'way in' to his oevre would be to check him out discussing his role as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day on I Was There Too. Bing!