THE
AMERICAN ARCHITECT
FOUNDED 1876
“PLAYLAND” — AN AMUSEMENT PARK AT RYE,
WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N. Y.
Walker & Gillette, Architects, Gilmore D. Clarke, Landscape Architect
By LEON N. GILLETTE and GILMORE D. CLARKE
TRAVEL where you will the world over and, except for one particular park to be described here, amusement areas are devoid of architectural treatment. The designers of “Coney Island Architecture” may take exception to what we have to say of their sometimes tawdry, but always cheap, uninspiring and even depressing looking buildings and amusement device structures. From observation it is safe to say that the large majority of amusement parks are unplanned; like Topsy they just grew. From a carrousel located near an entrance gate, they expanded in a more or less haphazard way, year by year, until they became a jumble of heterogeneous structures having little or no relation to one another. For the landscape architect and the architect
to collaborate in the design of an amusement park has been a rare and unique opportunity, one never before presented to the professions of the arts, at least within the writer’s knowledge.
It is not the intention to describe the buildings; the illustrations will accomplish that end. The writers believe that it would be more interesting if they described how some of the many problems which arose were met and how ˮPlayland” at Rye, N. Y., a park in the Westchester County Park System, was constructed by a public board in nine months with most creditable results.
In 1923 the Westchester County Park Commission purchased 160 acres of Long Island Sound shore front at Manursing Island in Rye. Adjacent
SKETCH OF THE BATH HOUSE GROUP WALKER & GILLETTE, ARCHITECTS
Copyright, 1928, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.
AMERICAN ARCHITECT
FOUNDED 1876
“PLAYLAND” — AN AMUSEMENT PARK AT RYE,
WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N. Y.
Walker & Gillette, Architects, Gilmore D. Clarke, Landscape Architect
By LEON N. GILLETTE and GILMORE D. CLARKE
TRAVEL where you will the world over and, except for one particular park to be described here, amusement areas are devoid of architectural treatment. The designers of “Coney Island Architecture” may take exception to what we have to say of their sometimes tawdry, but always cheap, uninspiring and even depressing looking buildings and amusement device structures. From observation it is safe to say that the large majority of amusement parks are unplanned; like Topsy they just grew. From a carrousel located near an entrance gate, they expanded in a more or less haphazard way, year by year, until they became a jumble of heterogeneous structures having little or no relation to one another. For the landscape architect and the architect
to collaborate in the design of an amusement park has been a rare and unique opportunity, one never before presented to the professions of the arts, at least within the writer’s knowledge.
It is not the intention to describe the buildings; the illustrations will accomplish that end. The writers believe that it would be more interesting if they described how some of the many problems which arose were met and how ˮPlayland” at Rye, N. Y., a park in the Westchester County Park System, was constructed by a public board in nine months with most creditable results.
In 1923 the Westchester County Park Commission purchased 160 acres of Long Island Sound shore front at Manursing Island in Rye. Adjacent
SKETCH OF THE BATH HOUSE GROUP WALKER & GILLETTE, ARCHITECTS
Copyright, 1928, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.