Little New Yorker Dances Among the Ruins of Astroland

Hot dogs, nice carnies, and other thrills on Coney Island

I don’t remember going to many carnivals as a child, but I do remember riding on Dumbo. We went to Disney World when I was three, and all I really wanted to do was ride the Dumbo ride—a bog standard, slow twirling ride on one of a herd of Dumbos that you could raise or lower at your whim. My Dad stood in line for the Dumbo ride for hours in the hot Florida sun, as I presumably drank some juice in the shade and slowly decided I didn’t need to ride Dumbo. I remember riding in an elephant, though, so I was, at the end, convinced. I remember other rides pretty vaguely—tea cups, haunted roller coasters, small worlds—but that visit to Disney World stands out as one of the most carnivalesque days of my entire life. I’m not sure I ever rode as many rides as I did that day until I became an adult. I think I now know why.

There are two things I did not fully understand about being a parent at a carnival until yesterday:

1. It is tremendously fun to watch your kid have fun on a ride.

2. It is incredibly draining to stand in the direct summer sun while your child enjoys several carnival rides.

Since the weather yesterday was “walk-around beautiful”, rather than “beach beautiful”, we visited Coney Island for some hot dogs and motion-induced nausea. I won’t go into the hot dog experience, other that to say that it is always underwhelming and I don’t know why we do it.

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The rides, however, were a real gas. I bought a bundle of credits on a boopable card that the ride operators

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would tap against a chip reader, each time informing how close I was to buying more credits—and buy more credits I did, until Kina had ridden nearly every ride in the park and I was on the verge of heatstroke. Here is the list of rides at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park that we rode, personally rated by me, a father, who did not ride any of them (save one):

Carousel (6/10)

Must be 42” tall to ride, Laurea tagged along

This carousel is not nearly as swanky as Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, but it is significantly faster and all the horsies go up and down. A puzzlingly random subset of the horses were off-limits for social distancing. It is a perfectly fine carousel and costs five credits.

Pony Carts (2/10)

Must be 30” to ride

The pony carts are pointless and unshaded. You hold the reins, but have no control at all. This is a baby ride and costs five credits.

Jump Around Dune Buggy (4/10)

Must be 36” to ride

The very first thing that happens after you strap your child into what appears to be a very normal spinny ride is the hiss of hydraulic lifts and a total shift in your kid’s demeanor. This innocuous miniature SUV caravan is actually a bouncing nightmare. Your child will like it enough, because she knows there’s nothing that can be done about it. When it stops, she will say, “I’m glad it’s finished.” Five credits.

Jets (8/10)

Must be 36” to ride

Kina really dug this one, because it flew (an experience for which she was now fully prepared) but did not bounce (an experience she had come to dread). It has unparalleled views of the tops of your parents’ heads and is very whooshy. It costs five credits.

Rio Grande Train (1/10)

Must be 30” to ride

This is by far the most boring example of the most boring category of carnival rides. Five credits.

Boats (8/10)

Must be 30” to ride

It is not at all clear how frequently they clean or change the water in this spinny ride, but the boats are reminiscent of the Italian luxury speedboats that ply Lake Como in the summertime, which kept me distracted from the question of sanitation. Kina has never looked more hilarious or regal, and she steadfastly refused to address our distant pleas for a smile. This is her favorite ride at every amusement park, which she noted several times before we even arrived at Coney Island. A steal at five credits.

Jumping Motorcycles (7/10)

Must be 36” to ride

I really liked the operator of this ride. Strong teacher vibes. Kina dug the extremely slow jump about halfway around the circle, and she enjoyed watching the other kids, who did not at all know how to pretend to ride a very fast motorcycle. It was also the only ride with a recorded announcement and zooming sounds. Five credits.

Unnamed Roller Coaster (10/10)

Must be ??? to ride. I went with her.

This tiny coaster, which I cannot find on the Deno’s website, is exactly sixty feet long. It has one little drop and one hard right turn. When you ride it with your father, which is required if you are only forty inches tall, he tells you to put your arms in the air on the drop, and you do so with gusto. Every time you hit the right turn, you squeal and whack your head into your dad’s armpit. All in all, I think you go around six times. “This is the very first roller coaster we ever went on, Daddy,” you will say. Your mommy will take a hilarious picture of you and your daddy going down the drop.

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The best ride ever costs five credits.

Wonder Wheel (12/10)

Must ride with your parents, forever

I once smoked weed on the Wonder Wheel. Now I take my kid on it. It is amazing that one ride can accommodate both use cases. We chose to ride in one of the white cars, which do not swing back and forth along the steel scrolls that connect the outer ring of this ferris wheel from its inner rings, but the white cars go much higher—offering amazing views of the beach, the parachute drop, and both New Jersey and Manhattan. Kina would want me to say that you can feel the wind on your legs through the cage that surrounds you. Your parents will insist on taking pictures the entire time, and you will not be having it. You will ask about all the rides that you, a forty-inch-tall person, cannot yet go on but are clearly excited to someday ride. Your parents will hold you close and suggest you stick to the kiddie rides. In their heads, they mean that they wish you would stick to the kiddie rides forever. In all likelihood, you will someday smoke weed on this very ride. Ten credits.

Today’s Parade has nothing at all to do with Coney Island. It is a baby rainbow unicorn and every life-affirming sticker in Kina’s book of stickers. Kina colored the horn.

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1. We will one hundred percent do it again next time

2. I should say about the ride operators that they were the most authentically friendly carnival workers I have ever met. In all likelihood criminally underpaid, they were nonetheless amazing with Kina in an entirely not-zoned-out way, and I now include them among the list of people I would trust to keep Kina from rolling into a busy street—or falling off a carousel.

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