Demolition!

The beginning of the end....

Truly a sad day for Rocky Point fans as demolition of the park began today. Liam and I were depressed and sunburned as we watched and filmed an evil-looking wrecking machine tear through the Roto-Jets and Gift Shop. Every form of Rhode Island media was in attendance and for a moment, I had a weird daydream that Mario Hilario and John Mone were going to fight Anchorman-style with tridents and nunchucks. No such luck.

More demolition will be coming and we'll have exclusive coverage of other buildings being ripped, torn, and thrown to the ground. Interesting story of the day: we found out that the Carousel building, which has been collapsed for awhile now, was actually torn down by some renegade old guy who took it upon himself to save us from the "danger" it posed. Unfortunately, he didn't know that every single proposal for the land included saving the Carousel. Whoops.

And for those who saw me on Channel 10 with Gene Valicenti...did he really make a Grateful Dead/Phish reference? Who knew he listened to that stuff? Valicenti the hippie?

Comments

[Chris Heaney]

Kind of end of an era. I grew up in Warwick and moved away after college, but as a kid I spent much time in the park. I was a Warwick patrol boy and one treat for doing that was they gave a us a day out of school where we were treated to a shore dinner then had free run of the park for the day.

During college, the summers of '76 & '77, I worked at the park for the company that had the games concession. I mostly worked the "Shoot out the Star" game where you would shoot one of those air-compressed powered rifles at a paper target that had a star in the middle. If the star was gone, you won a stuffed animal. We shared a building with the photo shop and next to that building was the miniature golf course. The skyline ride was nearby and the "gift shop" or what RP passed off as the "gift shop" was diagonally across the midway. Working the games I had a bird's eye view of all the acts on the stage.

[Christina]

In a flash My Past was gone, Every single moment working there is now barely a memory. Did I really work there Yes I did and it formatted My life. Shaped it to what it is today. I thought about Why i worked there, Was it for the Money? No Was it because Justin My Boy summer fling "I met him There" Well This is WHY I worked there, I worked there so I can Tell My kids as I do, That Some lady Puked In MY hair! They laugh That Some lady on The Enterprise And THAT is why I worked there!!!

[mod134]

It's a sad day for a lifelong Rhode Islander for myself. It might not had the grand rides of a Six Flags or Disneyland but Rocky Point was our own piece of paradise. It had a lot of heritage built into it and certainly a lot of value - financial, sentimental, etc.-invested into it through the many generations that attended it. Nevertheless, the park was the charming and quintessential old-tyme, classic park - a throwback to the parks before modernization and the quasi-monopoly of Six Flags, etc.

For nearly 150 years, it was a place to have fun. The flume and that corkscrew coaster are just a few of my favs over the years.

To paraphrase one person from the channel 10 broadcast, "We took it for granted that Rocky Point would always be here. ... (it's losing a) part of our childhood." It's been a sad and long goodbye to the park but the tides of progress via the demolition claw have begun to usher in the new era for the 123-acre site. What that future holds is anybody's guess. We are fortunate through projects like RockyPointMovie.com, that this state's entainment gem won't be soon forgotten.

[Crystabell]

I remember hot summer days at Rocky Point. I LOVED the flume, and the yo yo. I also remember how chilly it was inside the House of horrors. It was nice to get in there and out of the sun. I loved that place.It was all so much fun. It will live forever in my heart.