Too Low Rent to be a Low Rent Disneyland!

Greetings true believers!

So I took Friday off so that we could visit a local treasure here in the Chicagoland area. It's a tiny amusement park that was built specifically for young kids called, ironically, Kiddieland.

Kiddieland opened 80 years ago, and this summer will be its final season. It started as a patch of dusty land with a handful of ponies for little depression era tykes to ride. Today it is a barbed-wired city block loaded to the gills with the carnival rides that time forgot. You have your stand-by's like the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Scrambler, a carousel. They also have about a half-dozen incarnations of the same ride. All carousel like machines with once glittery cars, rocket ships, helicopters and airplanes, even boats all for little kids to ride around in circles til they're dizzy.

This summer Kiddieland takes its final bow. When the founder died, as I understand it he split the property between his kids. Half got the park, the other half got the land it sits on. The ones who own the park and collect admission, pay rent to the others for lease of the land. A nice little arrangement I guess, as long as there's never a rift in the family. Oops. So apparently the ones that own the land have decided the property is more valuable to sell to developers than as a the resting place of decrepit kiddy rides. They've more or less pulled the rug out from under their relatives and told them they won't be renewing the lease for 2010. And that, as they say, is that for Kiddieland.

I don't want to rip on it too harshly. Kiddieland is a piece of Chicago history. You ask any 40 or 50-something local and they nearly get misty reminiscing about the goold ol' days when the park was only 4 or 5 decades old and the rides were considered "like-new."
And the park still serves a purpose. It is affordable fun for families who can't afford that trip to Disney. Or even families who can't afford the trip to Six Flags. Sadly, you just get what you pay for. The rides are mostly kept up, though many are in dire need of a paint job (which they'll doubtful get given this is the final season.)

Even I, the king of cynics and iconoclasts (natch!) couldn't help but feel a sense of history walking the cracked, uneven asphalt grounds. Still whenever a whiff of nostalgia began to creep into my nostrils, it was quickly overpowered by the strange combination of hot garbage and old lady perfume that seem to permeate the air of Kiddieland.
It's hard to be an urban amusement park on its last legs, sitting in the shadow of a horse track and three different trucking schools.

I want to feel sympathy for the owners. I read a touching story about the grandson of the original owner, who is in the park 7 days a week, even when it's closed for the winter. The man who has given his life to that place and now knows its about to be ripped away.

Sadly things could have gone differently. One historically poor decision might have turned the course of fate indefinitely for Kiddieland.

The story goes that when a man named Walt Disney was planning his own little Keebler tree out in Anaheim, he made a trip to his native home Chicago. He stopped in at Kiddieland and walked the grounds and observed the kids and parents enjoying the day. Legend has it Walt met with the owner and told him of his own plans. He offered the gentleman a position as a consultant (maybe even a partnership of some kind) on what was to become Disneyland.
The guy basically told Walt to go scratch. He apparently answered Walt with something to the effect of "I've got my own park. What do I need to help you for?"

What indeed.

That aside, Kiddieland, I salute you for what you are. As I left, I swear I could hear Templeton singing in the background, preparing for a feast that evening with a thousand cousins.

Authors Note: I am drawing my "details" from a vague, alcohol hazed recollection of a recent Chicago Tribune article on Kiddieland. Hence the reason I haven't named any of the principle characters. And if my facts are a little off, strap me to the Tilt-a-Whirl til I puke!