Wow, Dear Readers. At long last, it finally feels like summer around here and that brings one great thing to mind…
Riverview!
Yeah, I know. Riverview Amusement Park is long gone. Sold to a developer in 1967 and vanished overnight without a trace.
But the warm memories linger on…
It all started – like so much neat stuff- with my father.
Once a year, he would take my brother Kenny and me on the summer adventure of our suburban lives.
(Taken in Eagle River, Wisconsin, but this is about how old Kenny- and our dad- would have been.)
We would drive from the North Shore ALL the way to Belmont and Western Avenues in Chicago. My mother would never go with us. She shunned Riverview because it was always crowded, dirty, noisy, smelly and filled with sketchy people.
But Kenny and I were rarin’ to get there.
We could hardly wait to meet up with the “Guess Your Weight” guy and the cotton candy machine- or any of these wonderful things.
Riverview was seedy and exciting and a little dangerous to our suburban minds.
And that made it even more appealing.
As a teenager in high school, Riverview really held me in its thrall.
It became an awesome date night destination, and if the boys wanted to impress me, they would take me there.
If it was a hot, sultry night, we always started on this.
This is the Shoot the Chutes. And the sloppy splashdown was guaranteed to get your clothes- and hair- drenched.
(Come to think of it, why didn’t we go on this ride last? That way we didn’t have to walk around in dripping madras Bermudas and wheat jeans all night. I never said we were street smart. Just suburban.)
The next stop was the Rotor.
OMG! This ride spun around- and the bottom of the floor dropped out as you were flattened against the wall.
All to the accompaniment of deafening screaming.
You’ll have to ask someone else to describe this monster. I hate centrifugal force. I can get seasick on this.
So I always gave the Rotor a wide berth. It wasn’t considered cool to get sick on your date back in those days.
(I wasn’t crazy about the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Wild Mouse or even the Carousel for the same nausea-inducing reasons.)
But as much as I hated getting dizzy, I hated being called “Chicken” more.
Hence I did my time on this.
That’s the fearsome Bobs roller coaster. The ultimate of clattering, super jet speed terror.
It was considered especially cool to ride it back-to-back.
Doing this was a badge of courage and I just couldn’t let the team down.
I would gulp, and fake smile and pray that it would soon be over.
(All the time trying to look cute and alluring to the poor sixteen year old Aramis-drenched swain who had just forked over his entire month’s allowance to show me a good Chicago time.)
In the exact same daredevil vein, I would always take on the Parachute Drop.
Before you and your fella got on (this was a ride you could do as a team) you had to take off your shoes.
This was ostensibly to protect the heads of passers-by.
Dutifully, we New Trier kids would kick off our Weejuns and penny loafers into a nice preppy pile and then manfully, with our hearts in our lily-livered mouths, we would make that looong, slooow ascent up the tower.
And then…
Whump!
We would be plunged to earth faster than the Mercury Astronauts.
And just at the last minute…
The chute would stop and sway about one foot from the ground.
I’d jump off laughing- all the time praying that my head and guts would eventually meet up and make friends again before the car ride home.
I was real good at faking it.
Ex Husband Alert: don’t even THINK about commenting.
What I did like -without faking it- was this.
That’s a swan boat and it was going through the Tunnel of Love at just my speed.
(For decorum’s sake, I will not be discussing the guys who got a little carried away in the dark and went for bases other than first. You know who you are.)
Now here’s a good look back at Riverview.
Save me some cotton candy and let me at that “Guess Your Age” geek.
I’ll let Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon have the last word.
Different state
Same state of mind.
Laugh your troubles away is what I remember Two-Ton Baker screaming in the commercials! I loved Riverview as well. The Bobs were the greatest and that giant Aladdin still comes to mind. My two most enduring memories are both less pleasant though:
One time in HS some of us from New Trier got goaded into a fight with those “seedy” type City high schoolers in the parking lot and a couple of them pulled out knives. We were VERY lucky the cops showed up. The other is simply gross (hilarious however, at the time, to my teenaged self) when someone directly across from my date and me on the Rotor lost their corn dogs, cotton candy and Coke and because of the speed of the thing the next 7-8 fellow passengers directly downwind were duly decorated in barf! What a great place- thanks, as always Ellen, for the memory.
Fights and barf. Yes, you’ve captured the essence of Riverview perfectly. And loved that Two Ton Baker reference. Those were great days, Gary. Thanks for the ride.
After all those years going to Kiddieland paying with milk bottle tops, I really thought I had hit the jackpot when we went to Riverview. I went on every ride with no fears (now I am nervous in a car that goes over 65 mph) & never worried about seedy looking people or dangerous rides. I never remember anyone getting hurt on a ride… Great America is nothing compared to Riverview. Thanks for those memories!!! You were very special, Ellen…. No date ever took me there!!! Just my Mom & Dad!
I forgot about Kiddieland and those bottle tops. That’s a great flashback. Thanks, neighbor. Nice your mother went. Mine? No way, Jose!
Thanks for the memories! The Rotor was my all time fave and the Parachute Drop was lots of fun! Would still love to go on those rides today.
I’ll meet you there! 💋
Thanks E for a great trip back in time. I had quite a few dates my junior and senior year going to riverview….between that and Old Town, we were so lucky to have been there in those times….I don’t ever remember telling anybody I was bored like the kids today. For a guy who hated heights I had to put on a good face with my dates…the only time I chickened out was when we were standing in line for the parachutes….the girl getting off the chutes in front of us had lost ability to hold it in (to put it mildly she pee’d). I turned to my date and said no way…..thanks to Kathy, wherever you are. for understanding.
So Riverview! Thanks, Steve.
ha! Riverview surely was the bomb. Thanks, Ellen
You can say that again, my friend. Thanks!
Nothing like the carny games at the far south end near the Parachute Jump. Rated by increasing degree of skill from alibis, to hanky-panks, to flat-cars — e.g., the ring toss (impossible). Forever trying to win me a huge stuffed panda so I could do a meet & greet with one of those really skanky ‘City Girls’ from Proviso East or wherever. Alas, the games were rigged and the girls probably worse. But, a boy could dream, no? ‘Let’s Ride Again!’
You’re so right, David. I’ll meet you at the Aladdin’s castle.
Came to Chicago in the Fall of 1966 and never got to Riverview. But I grew up in Englewood, NJ, not more than a few miles from Palisades Park. Though my parents told me “the scum of the earth” went there, it was always a fun place to visit.
And that’s what made it fun, David! Good memories. With thanks from Ellen “Boom Boom” Ross.
Did you know that Howie (Hershie) Carl, an all American B-Ball player from Ojibwa, Sullivan High and DePaul U., ran the basketball shooting attraction at Riverview?
Both his sons, Adam and Josh, went to Glenbrook North and Ojibwa….
I did not know that! Thanks, Bernie. A fascinating intersection between Riverview and Ojibwa. The buses leave today.
Stick with me, kid.
P.S. Buses leave this coming Monday
I will. And you’re right. My nephew, Matt, a counselor, left today. Oops!
The blog would be much more interesting if you let us x’s comment!
With all the things we did, I don’t recall Riverview being one of them, or is it just old age and I forgot.
You took me there once. Parachute drop and definitely the Tunnel of Love! I remember perfectly.