Tuesday, March 29, 2011

So Long Fun Forest


So Long Fun Forest
Photo & Text © 2011 Kim- Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved; no use, alteration, reproduction or republishing in any media.
So long Fun Forest Amusements, hello new Chihuley permanent exhibit at the Needle come 2012. Kids and teens will miss your cheap thrills. Gone for good are photographer's chances of nabbing an iconic shot of the spinning Ferris wheel or carousel with the Space Needle in the background. There are so few places for Seattle kids to hang out that are safe, fun and cheap. Now there are fewer, and none with that cheesy kind of charm that is any closer than, say, the Puyallup Fair in spring and fall. Ah, well.
I met out of town friends at Seattle Center last week and noticed the remains of the south part of the  Fun Forrest rides, like this one, the Tornado, were being removed and trucked away. The Ferris wheel and carousel, long faves with photographers, were already history. The building housing the bumper cars and indoor kiddie rides didn't appear to have been touched yet. For information on what plans are afoot for this south area of Seattle Center, look here.
Big Doings Coming Soon:  The larger rides like the roller coaster in the north area had already been sold a year ago. The entire old Fun Forest area will get a major face lift for Seattle Center's 50th anniversary next year. Opening April 21, 2011 will be an 18 month long installation of the ginormous Seattle Observation Wheel, a custom built 196-feet-high Ferris wheel with enclosed gondolas (think London and Paris), the tallest year-round wheel in the USA. The cost per adult for a 15 minute ride will be $10 to $15, and I'm thinking some new photo ops are definitely on the horizon :-).

4 comments:

Stefan Jansson said...

Bummer for the kids, good news if you like the big Ferris wheels.

Bob Crowe said...

I'm sorry to hear about that. I've shot there, too, and it's always such fun. But what's the Ferris wheel going to show you that you can't see from the top of the Space Needle? The London Eye is fun but it is by far the tallest thing for some distance around.

Avocaken said...

I wonder if the Fun Forest had been put to a vote by the citizens? I always thought that the Center was too high-falootin' for those rides. Now, as you said, the kids have one less place to hang out. Seattle is a good place for toddlers & adults. The teenagers - zip, nada, nothing. So they'll build a big Ferris wheel and charge $10 - $15 a ride? Good grief!

j@makehappyblog.com said...

It's a little sad to see it go, but that park has looked like a ghost town for quite a while. It'll be nice to have a new area for folks to get excited about.

J via www.makehappyblog.com