Playland’s Dragon Coaster Roars for Its 95th Birthday
The Dragon Coaster’s 95th birthday this past weekend marked an exciting historical benchmark for Rye residents and Playland fans. The 75-foot wooden coaster was designed by Frederick Church, an engineer most famous for his patented “bob” coasters (an innovative new type of coaster that coupled two-seater bobsled cars to the cars ahead via a ball and socket to allow for sharper turns).
The Dragon Coaster wasn’t always Playland’s main attraction. The Airplane Coaster, another Church design, was once the Dragon Coaster’s taller and more thrilling twin. Following safety and maintenance concerns, the Airplane Coaster was torn down in 1957, leaving the Dragon Coaster the lone Church design remaining on the east coast – and one of only three left in the U.S.
“Taking a ride on Dragon Coaster is a connection that riders today can have with history,” American Coaster Enthusiasts President Elizabeth Ringas told MyRye.com. “They are experiencing the same airtime moments and thrills that their parents or grandparents may have taken.”
At 4:00pm on both Saturday and Sunday, the theme park honored its seasoned ride with a parade, featuring a drumbeat blasting from loudspeakers and a man wearing a scaly green suit unicycling through the park. A series of people held up a long, dyed strip of green fabric with scales in a dragon shape decorated by children last weekend as part of Playland’s celebration prep.
Behind the dragon were more bizarre sights: an elderly man wearing red tights and a matching dyed mohawk; two women on stilts in red, vaguely dragon themed costumes; and a woman in a sparkly leotard waving rainbow flags. Parkgoers gathered to collect shiny beaded necklaces workers threw off a float of an old coaster car.
On the edge of the rectangular stretch of grass near the center of the park sat several pieces of children’s artwork depicting dragons or the coaster itself. Leaning against a table sat a poster styled in the way of a marvel movie. The park’s dragon mascot Coaster was surrounded by several characters in fighting stances – Mizz Muffette, the Fortune Teller, and more.
