"The Fastest and Most Thrilling Ride Ever Offered the Public": Flying Turns at Steeplechase Park

It's January in Brooklyn, but one can always take a journey into summer through the collections at the Center for Brooklyn History (CBH). CBH holds many archival collections and digitized photographs on our digital collections portal and online image gallery that document Coney Island and its fantastic amusement parks, such as Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park.  

The beginning of the 20th century marked the rise of extravagant, mechanized amusement parks and attractions at Coney Island. As wages and leisure time increased, more people were able to visit the beaches and boardwalk (Frank 2015, 30-31). And in 1920, the subway was extended to reach Coney Island, making it accessible to visitors who could only afford to spend the day (Frank 2015, 44). Brooklyn newspapers (searchable via Brooklyn Newsstand) ran amusement park advertisements, and reporters covered activities and new attractions that drew an incredible number of people to the area. 

Many amusement park rides from this period may sound funny, or even terrifying, to today’s thrill-seeking audiences. While answering a recent reference question, I learned about the Flopper, a ride at the center of the 1929 lawsuit Murphy v. Steeplechase Amusement Co., Inc. The Flopper consisted of a “narrow leather belt that ran for fifty feet along an incline” and “moved at approximately seven miles an hour.” Riders standing or sitting on the belt would either “flop” around on the belt when knocked off balance, or onto the padding around the ride (Strassfeld 2004, 2194).  

Another curious attraction at Steeplechase was the Human Roulette Wheel, which was invented by proprietor George C. Tilyou and debuted for the 1907 summer season. The Human Roulette Wheel was a popular ride in the Pavilion of Fun, even though the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described it as: “that curious twirling table that takes every atom of starch and dignity out of anyone who attempts to make its acquaintance.” Adults and children alike couldn’t get enough of the tricky device according to an article in the Brooklyn Citizen: “Those who have successfully clung to its glossy surface... become infatuated with the sport, and devote a great deal of time to it.” 

One roller coaster at Steeplechase Park seems to have stood the test of time. Flying Turns, which opened for the summer season in 1934, was unlike other coasters: “Tracks are not used in the construction... and the cars are not regulated by cables, but flash along at hair-raising speed through a winding cylindrical... trough. As the car makes sudden turns and twists it is continuously airplane banking from one side to the other.” (Times Union May 27, 1934, 13). 

Inventors first presented Flying Turns at the Century of Progress Exposition (also known as the Chicago World’s Fair) in 1933. Amusement park owners across the United States then brought the ride to their own parks, a practice that was not unheard of after World’s Fairs. In an interview with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle after Steeplechase acquired the iconic Parachute Jump from the 1939 World’s Fair, Edward Tilyou (George C. Tilyou’s son) confirmed that several of Steeplechase’s rides had come from World’s Fairs.  

Fortunately, it seems Flying Turns delivered the thrills that it promised at Steeplechase. According to a July 15, 1934 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle titled “Flying Turn Wins”: “Although operating a little over seven weeks the ‘Turns’ to date have thrilled approximately 180,000 people.” 

Unfortunately, the ride did not last long at Coney Island; it was one of many losses in the September 1939 Steeplechase Park fire. In the image below, you can see the devastated Flying Turns in the upper background as firefighters and Coney Island visitors work to extinguish the flames.

One newspaper described the scene as the “most spectacular blaze in Coney Island in seven years...” The fire grew with the help of wind from the ocean and “swept speedily through the tinder-box structures lining the boardwalk...” Steeplechase still profited from the hundreds of thousands of curious Coney Island visitors who came for the Mardi Gras celebration the next day, crowding “the side streets and the boardwalk to look at the smouldering ruins and twisted debris.” But Flying Turns was not rebuilt. 

If you have not had the opportunity to take a spin on a Flying Turns ride, there’s still time as Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, PA resurrected the ride in 2013. But in case thrill rides aren’t your thing, here is reporter Mary K. Dickson’s experience at Steeplechase Park published in the July 7, 1935 Times Union:  

The shape of the vehicle that we got into reminded us of a Dutch shoe, though its [sic] made of an alloy and painted brightly. Only two can ride in each ‘shoe.’ And we had to sit tight. All hats, pocketbooks, gloves and so forth had to be put in the bottom of the cart.  

Then, when the siren blew, we were off. We began whizzing up a spiral with stars all around us. We know they were all around us because the ‘shoe’ turned round and round while it was going over and over, and everywhere there were stars—at least during the moments that we ventured to keep our eyes open. 

All of this was too soon over.  

Of course, with any good research journey one finds some contradictions among sources. I noticed that our catalog records for the digitized photographs of the Steeplechase Flying Turns were dated from the 1950s. From the newspaper articles I found, these photographs could not have been taken after 1939, the date of the Steeplechase fire. With this information, our Special Collections Cataloger was able to update the Date field in these records to provide a more accurate approximate date for researchers. 

Another mystery I encountered while researching Flying Turns was from a Wikipedia article that lists a Flying Turns ride at Coney Island from 1940 until the 1970s. While the article does correctly list the Steeplechase Flying Turns dates (1935-1939) and that it was destroyed in a fire, I can’t find any mention of a subsequent Flying Turns ride at Coney Island in Brooklyn newspapers from that time period. I wonder if this later Flying Turns may actually be the Coney Bob Sled. According to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article published on May 30, 1941, Coney Island entrepreneur Joseph Bonsignore bought the Bob Sled from the 1939 World’s Fair. The Bob Sled resembled Flying Turns and thus may be the source of this confusion. 

In any case, the history of Flying Turns gives us a peek into forms of entertainment and fun that Brooklynites and New Yorkers at large enjoyed in the early to mid-1900s. And perhaps these secondhand thrills will have to do until we can once again enjoy Coney Island’s attractions in the warm summer weather. Visit our Brooklynology Blog Collection for more posts about Coney Island written by CBH staff and guest contributors.  

References: 

Strassfeld, Robert N. "Taking Another Ride on Flopper: Benjamin Cardozo, Safe Space, and the Cultural Significance of Coney Island." Cardozo Law Review 25, no. 6 (2004): 2189-2240.  

Frank, Robin Jaffee. Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008 (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2015), 791.06874 F. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.