WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — When a new attraction opens at Playland, anticipation is an important part of the experience. In the case of the iconic theme park’s newest limited-time attraction, it’s been centuries in the making.
Other amusement parks offer the opportunity to travel through time, usually by riding a rail past dioramas while a recorded soundtrack narrates humanity’s journey through history. But anyone standing in line for the ferry ride along the Long Island Sound shore in Westchester was sure this was something else entirely.
As Playland shrinks behind the Admiral Richard E. Bennis’s wake and the world’s largest rubber duck shrinks to the size of its bathtub-sized counterpart, something magical and completely unexpected happens.
Most of us on this boat spend our days and nights on the pieces of land that roll past the boat’s gunwales, but this change of perspective gives us a new sense of wonder at the sights and sounds of our daily lives on land.
And then things get really interesting.
Barbara Davis, co-director of the Westchester County Historical Society, city historian for New Rochelle and former owner of Waterfront Tours, tells the story of how we got to this moment. From our distant seaside locations, our eyes are opened to evidence of early indigenous camps, the first European settlements, the excesses of the Gilded Age, an era of cinematic dreams built in Mamaroneck, not Hollywood, and the still-standing mansions of Industrial Revolution heroes and railroad barons alike.
As Davis narrates our journey from the present to the past and back again, we can feel the weight of history, for the Sound Shore played a crucial role in the creation of a new nation. And we can almost see how our ancestors earned a reputation as shipbuilders that put Westchester County on the map in a way that isn’t tied to our big sister to the south.
She also talked a little about the tragedies that earned Long Island Sound the ominous nickname “Devil’s Belt.”
“When someone tells me they learned something new about the place they’ve lived their whole life, it’s worth it,” Davis told Patch. “I really enjoy hearing that, and I think it inspires people to learn more about their world.”
The hour-long tour along the Sound Shore climaxes as the boat circles around and Glenn Island comes into view. Davis leads us to a place that sounds more like legend than history.
Starins Resort, on what is now Glen Island, was pretty much the predecessor of Playland. Starins, also known as “America’s Amusement Park,” was the country’s first theme park, and its scale has not been matched since.
And then we’re soon back on the Playland Pier as if we’d never left (despite the stilt walkers who greeted us at the aisle). Even though we’ve driven along most of the Westchester coast, it somehow feels like we’ve never been farther away than the top of the Playland Ferris wheel.
As with any exciting ride, after cruising Long Island Sound, we wanted to get back in line and do it all again. Unfortunately, the cruises, operated by NY Waterway, will run twice on August 17 and 31, with departures from Playland Pier at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. each day. Tickets cost $15 and can be purchased here. Each ferry has a capacity of 240 passengers.
Hopefully Playland’s biggest attraction will return every season. But for now, I need to find the Dragon Coaster before I leave the park.
