Brooklyn : the Coney Island Cyclone

Brooklyn : the Coney Island Cyclone

The Coney Island Cyclone is a well known roller coaster in Coney Island, New York City.

After seeing the success of 1925's Thunderbolt and 1926's Tornado, Jack and Irving Rosenthal bought land at the intersection of Surf Avenue and West 10th Street. A coaster called the Giant Racer was already on the site, but the Rosenthals had it torn down. With a $100,000 investment, they hired Vernan Keenan1 to design a new coaster. A man named Harry C. Baker supervised the construction, which was done by area companies including National Bridge Company (which supplied the steel) and Cross, Austin, & Ireland (which supplied the lumber); the final cost of the Cyclone has been reported as both $146,000 and $175,000. When the Cyclone opened on June 26, 1927, a single ride cost twenty-five cents (thirty-five on Sundays). Lines were down the street and hours long.
In 1935, the Rosenthals took over management of Palisades Park and the Cyclone was put under the watchful eye of Christopher Feucht, a Coney Island veteran who had built a ride called Drop the Dips in 1907, and then did some minor retracking work on the Cyclone. The ride continued to be extremely popular, and one of its many stories is from 1948, when a coal miner with aphonia visited Coney Island. According to legend, he had not spoken in years but screamed while going down the Cyclone's first drop and said "I feel sick" as his train returned to the station—then prompty fainted after realizing he had just spoken

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