Retroist Podcast

I start this podcast episode by talking about my own trips to Action Park. I was so excited to go as a kid when I visited and got to go because it was close to where my uncle lived in Northern New Jersey. My mother was not a big fan of amusement parks unless they were connected to Disney, and she had started reading enough about Action Park to be worried. My uncle did not have the same concerns, so he took me there and I had a great time. I rode what I could, brought home brochures, talked about it all summer, and assumed I would keep going back. That didn’t happen. Then I talk about how Action Park came to be. The story starts with Gene Mulvihill, Great Gorge, Vernon Valley, and the problem of what a ski resort is supposed to do when the weather gets warm. The Alpine Slide came first, and from there the place kept growing into something much larger. Action Park was built around participation, which meant you were not simply strapped into a ride and moved along. You had some control, or at least the feeling o