cedar downs

I know that most of you are primarily interested in the more "thrilling" rides, but I noticed that Cedar Downs was closed on Thursday & Friday evenings. I thought it may be a mechanical issue, however my local bookie here in Cleveland tells me they took a hiatus to allow some of the horses to participate in todays "Belmont Stakes". They were looking for some competition to compete with California Chrome in his attempt at the Triple Crown. Place your bets early and often on "field".

I'll always chime in on a thread dedicated to one of my favorite rides at the park. Just because.

Cedar Downs is a ride experience you just can't have at a lot of places, and I hope it sticks around until I'm old and gray.

Cedar Downs was down ALL day yesterday. Absolutely no activity around it or obvious signs of work being done on it, even prior to park opening yesterday.

My Mom tells me that when it was the Racing Derby at Euclid Beach, it was the first amusement park ride I ever rode. That was back in 1969 when I was three.

So Cedar Downs does hold a sentimental place in my heart. My hope is that its just waiting for mechanical part to be fabricated at the very least.

Or maybe someone swiped the so so soundtrack used and they are looking for it or bring back the original sound track!

Sledge4cp said:
Or maybe someone swiped the so so soundtrack used and they are looking for it or bring back the original sound track!

Don't get my hopes up.

Sledge4cp said:
My Mom tells me that when it was the Racing Derby at Euclid Beach, it was the first amusement park ride I ever rode. That was back in 1969 when I was three.

Cedar Downs opened at Cedar Point in 1967.......

It was shut down today too. :)

It was? Come on, even Dragster was up today. ;)

Now that California Chrome has been denied the Triple Crown, look for Cedar Downs to be back in service soon as the horses will be back at their post positions.
Some have commented on CD having been at Euclid Beach in the 60's, I do not recall it as I was born in 61 and my memory skills are diminished from the decade of the 1970's. I came across a YouTube video from WEWS NewsChannel5 from March 22, 2013 titled "My Ohio: Euclid Beach Park and Humphrey Popcorn Co." At the 40 second mark there is a ride that is an exact duplicate of the new "Lake Erie Eagles" ride. At the 50 second mark there is a horse pulling a sulky with a mother and two children in it. I almost fainted when I realized it was my mother and my brother with me in the middle. I don't know how they got that footage, perhaps from my late grandpa who was a piano player and often played at the Euclid Beach bandstand. Looks like I ate good back then.

That's awesome. You should take a screen shot of that, print nice copies and give them as gifts to your family.
I have something similar, but unverified. In Cedar Point's Town Hall Museum there's a picture from the 60's of a couple of older gals on the Cadillacs. They look exactly like my grandmothers, the one in the front seat is a dead ringer for my dad's mom. She is blocking the child next to her, and if it's indeed us, would be me around 2nd or 3rd grade. Unfortunately all you can see is the kid's sock. (but they look like dead ringers for my little socks...) :-)
One thing is throwing me off. My family was from southern Ohio and I can't think of an occasion where both sides of the family would have been visiting us in Cleveland in horder to make a trp to CP. It's possible, though.

The Flying Scooters were a great ride at Euclid Beach. Did you know that Cedar Point's version is a Larson reproduction of a ride that was prolific at amusement parks from about the 1930's or 40's? The original rides were made by Bisch-Rocco and fans (like me) say the original versions are superior to the new ones. Many can still be found- Carowinds has Kings Island's original ride, and Kings Dominion and Holiday World have em, to name a few. But the holy grail is the ride at Knoebel's- they're fast and give the best ride ever. The new versions popping up now aren't quite as fun- the action has been tamed.

If you already knew all this I apologize for the lesson.

Euclid Beach was a great park, with classic rides and old fashioned values. I visited there in the late 60's after the Racing Derby had moved to CP. I doubt the place would hold up to today's standards, but would surely be a nostalgic trip down memory lane if we could see it now. The wooden coasters were great, they had an original Flying Turns, a fantastic fun house, Laff in the Dark, and Traver rocket ships. I loved my time there.

Thanks RCMAC. No, I did not know alot of the facts you mentioned and I certainly don't mind a lesson. Just for clarification, are the Euclid Beach Flying Scooters the ones that I think look like CP's Lake Erie Eagles?
Just a side note: I enjoy taking a nostalgic trip down memory lane, Euclid Beach and surrounding neighborhood was a bustling, vibrant area. Unfortunately, now it is not. The entrance "archway" is all that remains, there is a public housing apartment complex on the site and the surrounding area is crime-ridden. Water main breaks are the least of the areas' concerns.

Oh, sorry for not being clear, but yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Scooters

http://www.larsonintl.com/pages/flying-scooters/flying-scooters.html

The first link gives general information and a list of installations old and new. I'm not sure I agree with all the info on that list. The second is Larsons page and you can easily compare the older versions to the re-creations that we see now.

It's been years since I've been by the park, I live in Columbus, but I remember a McDonalds across the street from the site that was full of old photos and memorabilia from the park and was worth a stop. I don't know if it's still there or if it's a good stop anymore.

When Euclid Beach closed it was during an era that was racially charged and many Clevelanders believed the near east wasn't a place to go. Speculation was that it was the real reason the park decided to pack it up.

That is true. Also, that was before the era of the one price admission, so large groups of undesirables would loiter in the park without paying anything and frightening families away. I did tour the site a few years back and amongst the trees and near the beach you could see a few old foundations one of which appeared to be from a flat ride and the other might have been a pool or fountain

Crossing my fingers here....the old soundtrack that 'called the race' was so much better. -that's just my opinion.

Yes, totally agree. Not sure what warranted the change to the soundtrack, but I wish they'd go back to the original.

And on that note, let's get the organs on the carousels working!

^Agreed. They were in the process of working on the one down at KI too. It was great to hear a small snippet of it going.

Walt said:
And on that note, let's get the organs on the carousels working!

Hadn't thought of that....it would definitely add a lot of personality to the classic carousels.

If I had to guess, I'd say the old Cedar Downs soundtrack was probably recorded on an answering machine cassette, or *maybe* a Fidelipak cart. It would not surprise me to learn that the new track is some kind of solid state recording.

I know someone here probably knows for sure, but I have never bothered to ask. A more important question in my mind is why the High Striker game on the Gemini midway is assaulting the Eagles queue with those two horrible horn speakers.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Does anyone really use carts to feed amusement ride audio? I haven't seen a cart machine in at least a decade.

On the note of music in the park it was very cool to hear bluegrass music along Frontier Trail. It sounds a lot like the bluegrass "cover" songs that play at Knott's Ghost Town.

Along with the new Bluegrass Jamboree, the Barnyard, and the Trail Tavern there seems to be an effort to make the Trail a lively and pleasant place to be. Major kudos to the park for these little nice touches.

Jeff: That was kind of my point. And my suspicion is that it was an answering machine cassette with a timer on the player. I'm fairly certain that's what the Blue Streak announcement loop used.

I would hope that they have graduated to digital players by now.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.