That Kennywood Summer

this program is part of WQED s pittsburg history series it was the beautiful summer of 1988 it was a perfect summer to make a video documentary about an amusement park called Kennywood I remember I'd mentioned the idea of such a program when I came to WQED for my job interview in 1987 then a year later with a trusty crew of WQED regulars I got to give it a go we went to Kennywood Park a lot that summer of 88 maybe 24 or 25 days we weren't counting we put together an hour-long program called Kennywood memories that people seem to like a lot there are parts of it that have become iconic the wet greasy wood can be like ice but we also shot a lot more material than we could squeeze into that first hour and in the summer of 2018 we started thinking it might be interesting to look at those 30 year old tapes that we had in storage that's where all of these pictures come from all the moving images in this program were shot in 1988 I like to think of it as that Kennywood summer some of the characters may be familiar it's never the same twice you know as long as we've been here every day still somehow just a little bit different you know a little bit funnier than the day before some will be new I was too short when I was younger I could ride the Thunderbolt and it ruined my whole day and my parents said come on we're going home I said if we're going home I'm gonna cry right here I cried they don't care we've tried to include new angles new memories and new footage that wasn't used before this program in the nemi series is made possible in part by the Buell foundation serving southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927 by lewis anthony jewelers proud supporter of pittsburgh and its treasures by Huntington Bank serving communities since 1866 by levin furniture furnishing pittsburgh homes since 1920 also by the engineers Society of western Pennsylvania by henning Henninger by the Lincoln pharmacy in Millville by mancini's bread by Pamela's PG diners and by all 1411 backers of our Navy Kickstarter thanks to everybody [Applause] [Music] if you've never been to Kennywood if you grew up somewhere else it may be surprising to find out how people around Pittsburgh love this amusement park it is a beloved place you get me started on Kenny what I you could be yakety yakety yak you know this family is all around you people starting families people who are in love and they go out and they walk and they get thrills and eat fattening food and and just enjoy themselves out here it's beautiful out here this is a family establishment we think that it is a movement as much a part of growing up in Pittsburgh as the rivers because everybody alive remembers Kennywood being here all the time Kenny wants more to me than a business because it's not so much that there's a business here and you have management in the office and you have the machinery and there's people there's just a little something I Drive I don't know a word to define it it still is exciting to me even it's an older person the people have changed because after 30 years everybody's a different league you walk up and you say I know that person but I can't place the face but it's to the carcass just the same it's just gives you a good feeling really nice Kennywood is the kind of place where kids might like to show their loyalty by singing the parks latest TV commercial [Applause] [Music] of course there is prime people watching at Kennywood always but you have to remember everybody in these shots was much younger than they are now little kids in this footage are all in their 30s even the smallest may have kids of their own by now along with mortgages we don't want to cause any trouble you may recognize yourself or a loved one with an old boyfriend or girlfriend remember this was 1988 many folks we videotaped may no longer be with us we hope that seeing them may bring only good memories of course many of these people dress a bit differently Kennywood has long been a place where you could show off a favorite shirt or a new outfit back in 88 men's shorts were often very short and we human beings had different sorts of hairstyles and while you might occasionally see someone with a camera it's amazing that no one in any of this material has a cell phone no one is taking selfies or trying to document the excitement of being on the rides no one except us it doesn't matter how old you are once you get to Kenny with your six years old again you want to go on every ride and you want to do it often we took our big old camera on lots of rides sometimes several times we also liked seeing what goes on behind the scenes mostly in the early morning hours and the park is still quiet and oddly serene and back then Fred Weber was in charge of the maintenance crews we took this ride daily we have a small indication out here like a small crack so we figure it's not allowed to get bigger we do we take care of it and let it and we weld it up by the way I have 12 photos 12 mechanics and then there's three carpenters right now we reject our main objective strictly as ride maintenance in the summer and repair my duties to keep the park running and and keep it safe and that's my main criteria you know we check our rides and try to keep them as safe as possible we first met our favorite maintenance men Brian Bartley and Geno Chambord all one day when Brian was at the very top of the laser loops front Hill checking on the winch and safety apparatus and meanwhile down on the ground Gino was watching till things got serious and then he too had to climb up to help make sure that all was greased and working as planned we saw them again a week or two later on that beautiful Thunderbolt morning after a rain they were busy we go around we check the structure we check the track make sure there is nothing loose no broken track or cracked track any loose angles we checked the trains out real good last year was my first year working a coaster but I pretty much knew what was going on it's just a matter of doing it wasn't too bad we saw Gino slip but then we hiked to the top of the track ourselves to ask Brian was he ever frightened scariest thing that happened to me is why when we walking in the rain there's at one time I was going down coming up the last hill into the station I was going down that way I slipped and I bounced about like ten feet down the steps and sort of I got my blood rush just about every day can be scary if you don't know what you're doing like today after the rain still the coaster has to get checked every day we usually write it every morning we usually take turns that's another way we can listen for anything that's wrong just in case we've to some probably chance we've missed something like this right more down like the loop you know if you get to the park early enough there may be no line that the potato patch I don't think any place smells better in the morning that right in here when we first put the fries in I mean it's just it's a great smell really is Bob subsequent famous french fries that summer we use Idaho potatoes for the most part and those are the best potatoes really I mean you know grown right here and everything in the United States I mean excellent potatoes we buy potatoes that are actually baking potatoes so we're sure to get the largest potatoes possible we don't want you know just regular potatoes someone's gonna make mashed potatoes out of that makes the fries long people enjoy those a lot more than you know when you get fries at McDonald's they're really small or whatever they like them to be really long and thick thick here so you know I mean that's that's part of the product that's part of the attraction oh we were all so attracted to the old lucky concession stand not far away where they make deep-fried cheese on a stick and corndogs Amy winters taught us how to make them but we disrupted the normal routine and so for a few minutes our lighting guy Nick tallow stepped in to help serve customers most of them like ketchup and mustard on now we have cheese and they think that's a really good idea too so they usually either ketchup mustard or cheese whatever one they never had these great potatoes they had now but we used to try to eat hot dogs and pizza you know up there where the miniature golf used to be they said we used to stand there and people would bent how many hot dogs you could eat and if I ate more than six they would pay for him so I would always try to eat six or seven to get the so I would have to pay in 1988 the miniature golf course was right beside one of the most amazing old mechanical rides in the park the turtle we wrote it with the first great Kennywood historian Charles J Jack wise jr. and he taught us a lot the name used to be generically it was called a tumble-bug and it was manufactured in nearby Beaver Falls Pennsylvania and they put these all around the US and this is just one of the very few of them that's still remaining anywhere in America this is a great old heavy-duty ride throws you around the noise is never to be forgotten with those motors of those chains when you see the chains and the chain start that noise you know you're off are you gonna make it up and over it's also interesting at the very end is it gonna stop are you gonna get one more extra ride going around on this ride from 1927 the operator in 1988 still had to be familiar with vintage controls the old rides were a lot of gears and mechanisms and kicked a little something down below and you had to gauge distances was it ready to stop or wasn't it there are you gonna pull the brake on just put the brake on at a certain level those were the advantages of the old ride but you had to have somebody who knew what he was doing and that was the good ride operator a good operator or a good ride manager can make a big difference on our very first day of shooting in the park we spent most of the day at the raging Rapids welcome to the raging Rapids for your own safety please obey these simple rules don't stand up and always hold the center grab rail with both of your hands that day we interviewed Joey brand who was the manager of the raging Rapids that year what a manager does is make sure the operations of the ride is run as smoothly as possible without any problems or complications and if there is a problem to take it as smoothly as you can and make sure that everything runs properly I'm a giant water ride like this what could go wrong you have people to try to cut in line you have people that want to in a boat you can't have that what else you have you have people don't want to get wet come off swear at you it can be monotonous at time if you really got to make your own fun and almost entertain the people around you have fun and really motivate them I try to get more teenagers to scream they come off the ride upset it was what it was wild it was wonderful that summer we also spent some time at the log jammer which was already 13 years old at that point the manager was Craig boga for Munhall who was studying business at Pitt during the rest of the year he knew the stats on this get wet ride it's one of the busier eyes of the point we worked it out on a busy day and we have four or five votes about 24,000 ride of the day the reservoir over here is we have a $500,000 reservoir we can pump twenty three thousand gallons through this every minute at the blue at the bottom a lift one over here at the beginning I'll ride there's two pumps all right it pumps the water to the top of the hill right above here and ride has a continuous slope to the chock-full of the total $90,000 it's 1,500 plus feet long ride takes approximately three minutes three minutes ten seconds do any kind of friendly competition between this place and the raging Rapids I'm not really no we have a little bit of competition between us on the web for the evening it gets slow usually about 10 o'clock at night when it's not too many people ride arrive we'll try to get everyone that comes off our I have to get on there with because it's not too many people ride it at night it's just the noise and people are working just fine they set them back over to us [Applause] it was at the log jammer where we met the altar boys from st. Athanasius Church in West View we wandered around with them for a while they had to consider all the options for their next drive they ended up at the Grand Prix bumper cars but at Kennywood just walking between rides can be amazingly amusing [Music] [Music] it's always fun to watch people on the rides - in 1988 one of the new rides was the flying carpet welcome to the flying carpet please know your lap bars and secure all this articles such as hats and glasses we could take a rest due to the motion of the ride you must hold onto the bar directly in front of you the scary part glue [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] please move your hands away from the bars and exit the ride out the front have a great day here at Kennywood that'll be like the pirate ship with twice [Applause] if you couldn't keep the rides straight it might have helped to run into Henny Henning er who was vice president and general manager of the park back then he knew all the rides even the old mill the tunnel of love that has changed name several times well I probably shouldn't tell you this story by the first time I ever worked in Kennywood was in the old mill which is now the hard headed Harold's run - so humorous on a hideaway and my instructions were at the age of 14 to stand behind this little post and shine a flashlight on people as they came through to make sure that they weren't smoking or they weren't standing up or they weren't doing any things that could be injurious to themselves as a 14-year old that was quite an education I found out a lot of things after about three hours they called me to come out for lunch I told them I'd wait for dinner when you're an executive in the park you inevitably know a lot about the people who work there in the summer ninety percent are students of that about fifty fifty fifty percent of high school papers but you aren't usually about 1214 hours a day so this is your life in some ways I consider it an educational experience because you learn to deal with all kinds of people and all kinds of situation on a daily basis it's basically a summer job only because it starts in the end of July and ends in September Labor Day yeah it's just basically a summer job the hours are real long it gets hot get to meet a lot of people sometimes people will say things you know that are nice that's kind of make your day especially when you're real busy and there's people running around if I'd like to be busy that's when the reasons I'm here we met a lot of people who worked there that summer but Beth Snodgrass at the wave swinger was one of our favorites little kids will be up there crying and you watch them all the time and if they start to cry and their parents will stand down there and go you know they're so you turn the ride off and the ride comes down like normal and if it's only been up there for like 30 seconds then you say please remain seated and you've removed the little kid that's crying or if it just comes down you say thanks for riding and people get off and they think cool that's kind of short but you know they don't they don't wander we just sit here and smile and I think one time I remember that it was going around this little kid was crying and screaming it huh so I made them stop the ride and I ran over to my sitter you have Katie said yeah and everyone was staring eyes felt really stupid you know and they ride went back up but he was on it he didn't want to get off do you better get off he said no I'm fine I smell cheese the rad woodpecker she taught us about people and weather okay when it rains if it's sprinkling we just keep running the ride and we try to watch people if they look like we're really getting wet then we'll turn it off bring it down but if it starts to pour like it did today then we get these puddles right there on the platform which have to be swept off and we tell people to be careful on the platform because it gets very slippy and we closed give it force we just closed the ride and we get to got there and sit and talk on a rainy day you can also slip into the Penny Arcade where you've been able to find games and weird machines and unexpected joys at least as far back as 1902 when the first Penny Arcade building opened in 1988 we got to go down to the basement of the arcade with Rob the Hal chick from Port Vue he gave us a tour and showed us some of those ancient paper reels that became motion pictures inside a muta scope movie machine and here's a cowboy western fightin we got her more wrestling and it's hard to say this isn't the lady taking her clothes off a lot of the stuff that's down here we just couldn't keep together or we couldn't find parts for or cards like for the magic pen the electric pen Rob offered to help dig out that old machine with all its old cryptic and tempting signs once upon a time it dispensed little cardboard cards that had a fortune like message on the back here goes nothing still works there she is an awful lot of Dustin's with the invention of video games and that sort of game children just don't want to put their money in something where they just get a card out of they want something we want something more out of what they're gonna put a quarter into and this one's only a dime but who knows if any of this stuff survives treasures of the 20th century well then magic rays are just frying me right now if you go behind the Penny Arcade there were old picnic groves where in 1988 we witnessed several nationality days with wonderful ethnic foods and proud people all the way from Johnstown II traveled to be here for Slovak day not terrific all the ethnic days were terrific but no question the best attended day that summer was Italian day we have the biggest picnic in the nation I remember coming here on Italian day with bushel vest not hot dogs or hamburgers my food started in the morning with vodka pork chop macaroni those for Sunday for here it was special nice Italian day it's a great tradition as something we've been doing for like 50 some years but we're very proud to be Italian Americans even though we have our polish in our Irish their English friends with us they're all Italian today right right we're all Italian today and everybody loves it Caillou yeah 20 years I've been doing I don't know how long anybody else's started about 36 years ago having seen athletes orphanage out for the day and it just evolved into as it is today we had 750 young people over here and it seems to me like they still have all the beautiful things that our kids would in your right now today and I hope they enjoy it as much as we did when we were kids the festivities went on all day long and into the night when there was what you call a baby doll dance with a giant puppet from the keys rocks dancing with anyone into the night at night I would say that it's more fantastic for the simple reason as you see all the light it's like one end of a city and seeing all the beautiful things you know what I mean and it shines up so much better and it's really a sight to see yes in one night you might have even run into wqe D's Chris Fenimore who hadn't started to make cooking programs yet so just move to Pittsburgh about three years ago I have two children they started when they were seven years old and ten years old and we brought them here and they thought they had died and gone to heaven and for that reason along we'd never be able to go back to Brooklyn New York we have to stay here in Pittsburgh to be close to the park whoa the park can be heavenly on a summer evening amazing and dazzling but it doesn't matter nighttime or daytime there's always something to look at another coaster to ride something else to eat maybe another game to play you never know when you'll be surprised by a passing kangaroo or by a parade maybe even one full of familiar faces and personalities from WTAE channel four while looking at all this old footage I was often reminded of how often we got hurt and frustrated by people waving at the camera one of the other TV stations in town had been encouraging people to do just that but we didn't want it we wanted people to act as if we weren't there we want a documentary footage but we captured a lot of waving nonetheless and now I kind of like it people waving from 1988 I kind of want to wave back [Music] lenses clean slick just clean it right to the end of the platform [Music]

Channel: WQED Pittsburgh

Views: 152,218

Keywords: Kennywood, Kennywood Park, That Kennywood Summer, 1988, amusement park, French fries, Potato Patch, Turtle ride, Tumble Bug, Charles J Jacques Jr., Raging Rapids, Log Jammer, Flying CArpet, Henny Henninger, Beth Snodgrass, Wave Swinger, Old Mill, Penny Arcade, Italian Day, Chris Fennimore

Id: 2fHkbRSRCTI

Length: 28min 0sec (1680 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019