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Luna Park was an amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn in New York City that opened in 1903. Built partly on the grounds of Sea Lion Park (1895), it was one of the three original iconic large parks built on Coney Island, the other two being Steeplechase Park (1897) and Dreamland (1904).〔David Goldfield, Encyclopedia of American Urban History, SAGE Publications - 2006, page 185〕 Luna Park was located on the north side of Surf Avenue on a site between 8th street, 12th street and Neptune Avenue. The park was mostly destroyed by a fire in 1944. ==History== In 1901 the park's creators, Frederic Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy, had created a wildly successful ride called "A Trip To The Moon", as part of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York. The name of the fanciful "airship" (complete with flapping wings) that was the main part of the ride was ''Luna,'' the Latin word for the moon. The airship, and the later park built around it may have been named after Dundy's sister in Des Moines, Luna Dundy Newman.〔Pilat, Oliver and Jo Ranson, ''Sodom By the Sea: An Affectionate History of Coney Island, Garden City'': Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941, p. 146〕 At the invitation of Steeplechase owner Harry George Tilyou, Thompson and Dundy moved their show to Steeplechase Park, a Coney Island amusement park, for the 1902 season. The deal ended at the end of the summer after Thompson and Dundy rejected a Tilyou's contract renewal offer that cut their take of the profits by 20%. At the end of 1902 season Thompson and Dundy signed a long-term lease for Paul Boyton's Sea Lion Park. Sea Lion, the first large scale inclosed park at Coney island, had opened 7 years before. The park had several centerpiece rides but a bad summer season and competition with Steeplechase Park made Boyton decide to get out of the amusement park business. Besides the 16-acre Sea Lion Park Thompson and Dundy also leased the adjacent land where the Elephantine Colossus Hotel had stood until it burned down in 1896. This gave them 22 acres, all the land north of Surf Avenue and south of Neptune Avenue and between W. 8th and W. 12th Street, to build a much larger park. Thompson and Dundy spent $700,000 (although they advertised it as $1,000,000) totally rebuilding the park and expanding its attractions. The park's architectural style was an Oriental theme with buildings built on a grand scale and over 1,000 red and white painted spires, minarets and domes. At night all the domes, spires and towers were lit with over 250,000 electric lights. At the center of the park in the middle of a lake was the 200 foot tall Electric Tower that was decorated with twenty thousand incandescent lamps, a smaller version of the Electric Tower that was the crowning feature of the Pan-American Exposition two years earlier. At the base of the tower was a series of cascading fountains. Eventually two circus rings were suspended over the central lagoon to keep customers entertained between rides. Labeled with the slogan "The heart of Coney Island" Luna Park opened on May 16, 1903 at 8:00 pm with 60,000 people attending its first night. Admission to the park was ten cents with rides costing extra, up to 25 cents for the most elaborate rides. The park was accessible from the terminals of the West End and Sea Beach railroad lines.〔(Map at coneyislandhistory.org )〕 File:The Dragon's Gorge, Luna Park, Coney Island, NY.jpg|The Dragon's Gorge File:Main Lagoon at Foot of Chutes, Luna Park, Coney Island, NY.jpg|Main Lagoon File:Luna Park, Surf Avenue, Coney Island, NY.jpg|Entrance to Luna Park in 1913 Although Luna Park was a success, competition for visitors ramped up on Coney Island. The next year a third large-scale park called Dreamland opened up. Dreamland featured 4 times as many lights than Luna Park, an even bigger central Tower, and attractions such as "The End of the World", "Feast of Beshazzar and the Destruction of Babylon", and Lilliputia, a miniature village populated by little people. In 1907 Dundy died leaving Frederic Thompson to run Luna Park until 1912 when he went bankrupt and lost the park to creditors, although he continued as manager. Luna Park would continue under different management over the years with rides constantly being changed and updated. The Great Depression saw the park go into bankruptcy several times stating in 1933, owners came and went but none seemed to be able to make a profit. Many of the exhibits, rides and shows from the 1939 New York World's Fair moved to Luna Park after the Fair closed and Luna was billed as the ''New York World's Fair of 1941''. With the US entry into World War II Luna was allowed to stay open as a morale booster but had to keep its lights dimmed for wartime security. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Luna Park, Coney Island (1903)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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