Lincoln Park Comet Fan Site

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Comet in its hayday

Here are some pictures of the Comet
These pages are dedicated to the good times and the images of days past

Time to Go to the Park

Lets Ride !

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First Drop

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The Begining of the End

Photo:Lincoln Park Comet 1946-1987 (SBNO 1988-2008)

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Strangely Enough

Through the years as all these wonderful parks have closed forever, many still have devoted fans. The volumes of information available on them is tremendous, wonderful, and yes sad too. The haydays of these parks are the things that memories are made of, and the kind you just don’t easily forget.

With all the noise made about and around the various closings I can’t help but paraphrase something I read. That is if these parks made noise about their fate, they knew the eventuality, and often there was great ‘news’ made. Lincoln park on the other hand seems to have quietly laid down to rest, no hoopla no fanfare, just quietly slipping into the past.

There are a lot of organized sites that list defunct parks, and oddly enough or perhaps not Lincoln is quite often not there. It’s as if it was our little secret, our place to go and we kept it close to us. This website is our attempt to rectify this, and bring to light the huge part it played in so many of our lives.

There is , however and fortunately, a lot of random bits scattered srond the net about our little secret place, and with some help from other kindred folk we can make this ‘the place’ to find out, explore and learn about the park.

The thing I stumbled on that prompted this post started off as simple as most thing are , was to find out more information about the Comets designer Vernon Keenan. This lead me, as so many web searches do along a winding path, from the creative talents of the Dark rides Edward Leis (who collaborated on the comet) all the way to the owner. Oddly many sources say it was John Colins others say Jay Colins, perhaps they were brothers ? or just an oddity in the records.

Anyways I found Lincoln Parks sibling that being Mountain Park in Holyoke. Both parks shared many of the same creative talents. From what I was reading these parks very much felt the same, and their patrons (us) have similar memories and passions. Coincidentally and oddly enough the inception of both Lincoln and Mountain are eerily similar from their humble beginnings as the Street Railway stops, both purchased and developed by the Collins family.

That all said I have added a new category in the Links page for ‘Other Collins Parks’ with several links to excellent articles and sites that clearly detail Mountain in its glory, to its closing and a few that show what has come of it. So take a look it certainly felt ‘familiar’ but different…..

-Pete

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Over 20 years later

It’s really amazing that even over 20 years after Lincoln Park closed and the Comet went silent people still remember. In my random searches for info about the park and the Comet, I’ve been consistantly seeing the comet rated by coaster enthusiasts in the top 100 of all time !

That say a lot about the ingenuity of the creators, the innovations and the sheer longevity the park and the Comet enjoyed. I’m sure the lineage of the comet, being akin to the Cyclone (Coney Islands Astroland) shows that the Idea was timeless and the design a classic. The years of neglect may have taken the Comet from us, but with luck, documentation and photographic detail, perhaps we can preserve the ideas that created the Comet.

My personal hope is that someone someday will create a clone of our old friend, and hopefully this site will show the details and help inspire that idea…

I know what you all will say, she was creaky, rough and somewhat violent. I say that is exactly what gave the Comet its character and thrill, it was all in the illusion (and a good slapping about the car) and that is what gave us all that rush of adrenaline and the euphoric feeling of surviving to do it again and again and ….

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