Lincoln Park Comet Fan Site

We’ve continued our quest in search of information and data to make this “the” site to go to, and find out about Lincoln Park. We will also be following the transformation as the development begins, to a lesser extent.

This week I opened yet another major page,The Comet, Anatomy of a Coaster. This page and others in the works explore the intimate details of what made up the Comet, with lots of pictures and explanatory description. As we all know nothing is ever really finished, and this section is not exception, yet is fairly complete. We will be doing some additional anatomy pages detailing the mechanics (brakes, station, track wwitching and other things) in the near future.

I changed the wrecking ball countdown timer and pushed it out another month, as there appears to be little in terms of actual construction happening on the site. We’ve attempted to contact the developers for a more concrete (no pun intended) date on construction start, and the Open House they are planning. So far no word, but as you guessed, it will be announced here as soon as we know.

The picture collection continues to grow, and we have litterally hundreds of ‘current’ photos to go through. The important highlights have already been added to the galleries, and sorted in with their existing counterparts where appropriate. Most are in the Overgrown and forgotten gallery, and some are in the Chronological Diary, The Comets Last Days section (most are in the overgrown section though)

-Pete

Well I’ve been busy working on sections of the site in the last week or so. I’ve been busy collecting pictures, and finishing up content.

In case you were not aware the roof to the Comets station collapsed onto the platform, I wrote up an article, and posted a picture of its current condition (in the news section)

So what’s new:
A section called ‘About the Designer” which is an attempt to collect information about Vernon Keenan and fill in some of the blanks about this amazing coaster designer.

Another section with some pictures of the comet in it’s glory. This section is not finished, and there are several more pictures to come. But we have made special arrangements with the photographer, to use these amazing pictures (so don’t mind the shameless plugs for you to get your own). There is only one up at the moment, personally I call it “First Drop”.

Whats to come:
Just about any section on the site can be updated, as information becomes available. I believe the new Vernon Keenan article could stand a little more info, but that is all I was currently able to find, so stay tuned. There will be more photos from coasterpix, in the hayday sections. Finally I’m currently working on a ‘Technical Details” section for the comet, where I will be exploring all the physical aspects of how the coaster was constructed.

Thats it for the moment, so stay tuned, keep visiting, and explore what we’ve put together

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 !

Used with permission: Buy your own full size 8 x 10 Visit coasterpix ebay store

First Drop

Used with permission: Buy your own full size 8 x 10 Visit coasterpix ebay store

The Begining of the End

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

May 2008 – lpcomet staff

Well there is good news and there is, of course some bad news.

The good, The park is still there, and standing intact, such as it is.

The Bad, Well The roof to the Comets station collapsed down onto the platform, so there really is no station per-se anymore. More like a stack of pancakes with the queue line railings being about the only thing separating the roof from the floor …. ah well New England weather and 20+ years of no attention these things are bound to happen. Amazingly the majority of the coasters structure still stands (it creaks and moans even in a light breeze). There are a few sections that have escaped the weather pretty well, but these are few indeed.

Photo: LPComet staff

By in larget the park as a whole has been picked over, like vultures at a roadkill. There is little if anything of value left, and even less in the way of little things.
24-May-08

Fresh angle added from Ray DiPirro ( additional photos in the Diary Gallery)

Just to let everybody know. There are plans in the works by the owners to do an Open House BEFORE the heavy Construction/destruction begins.
This will be open to the public. Currently due to insurance reasons there are no unsupervised visits allowed

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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Well Here is a place for our not so happy pictures, most are taken by friends-with-cellphones and the quality may suffer, but here they are

and this is the overview of the process from aerials

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 ….

Videos The park the rides the people

WOW Opening day footage and lots of coaster video !

A nice Happy video . a flashback from yesteryear

My feeble attempt to show several hundred of my own LP Photos

Awesome Video by one of our members!

Keep the Park in Lincoln Park …

Boulevard of Broken Dreams … aint it the truth

Lincoln Park: From Yesterday

Lincoln Park Amusement Park Dartmouth MA

Here are some Videos of a ride on the Comet, one real One Virtual

The real deal, thanks coasterdad !

Or a Simulation

And the Tribute Video

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More Pictures from Jarad of everything else left ( early 2008)