In 1895, on the same spot where George Washington and his band of Revolutionaries defended a British assault after the Battle of Brooklyn, a glorious and magnificent amusement park rivaling Coney Island opened near the northeastern end of Manhattan. The Fort George Amusement park was located in what is now Highbridge Park between 190th and 192nd Streets and Amsterdam Avenue.

Fort George Amusement Park in 1909

During its heyday this Gotham wonderland would boast two Ferris wheels, three roller coasters, nine saloons, a pony track, several hotels, a casino, five shooting galleries, a tunnel boat ride, two music halls called the Star and the Trocadero, fortune tellers and more frankfurters, peanuts and pretzels than you can imagine.

Fort George Amusement Park, 197th Street and Amsterdam, 1906.

Located at the end of the Third Avenue Trolley line, the park was a natural and popular destination for locals and residents throughout the city. While the children rode the massive Ferris wheel or took to the Toboggan slide adults could gamble the night away before renting a room in the Fort George Hotel and Casino to celebrate their winnings, or more likely, mourn their losses. There were even areas in the park where, for a fee, Mom and Dad could drop the kids off in a supervised playground setting, while they went off to enjoy “The Human Ostrich” or “The Cave of Winds.” Initially a loose and disorganized strip of sideshows the park became something truly spectacular under the leadership of Joseph Schenck (left) and his brother Nicholas. The brothers, Russian Jews who immigrated to New York from the ancient Slavic settlement of Rybinsk in 1893, first came to the park as curious visitors. Realizing the fortunes to be made they quickly invested in a beer hall called The Old Barrel.

The Old Barrel bar once located in Fort George.

It was in the Old Barrel that the Schnecks likely met another entrepreneur named Marcus Loew (right) , a park regular who had already amassed a small fortune with a string of theaters and penny arcades. (Loew would later become a Hollywood power-broker heading a theater chain that still bears his name.) Borrowing money from Loew, the brothers Schneck were soon able to open several thrill rides in an area of the park known as Paradise Park.

In a June, 1941  edition of Liberty Magazine, found by New York Wanderer Ben Feldman while rummaging around in a Tennessee junk shop, details of the early days of the park begin to emerge:

“One hot Saturday afternoon in 1905, Joe Schenck, then about twenty-six, took a trolley ride up to Fort George, the highest point on Manhattan Island. That was quite the thing to do in those days–ride to the end of the car line up there to cool off. When Joe arrived he found more than a thousand other New Yorkers strolling about enjoying the breezes. He noticed that there were a beer parlor or two, a couple of shooting galleries, and some tintype stands, and he quickly concluded that this was insufficient entertainment for all those people. He began to talk to some of them, inquiring if they would come up nights, as well as Sundays, if Fort George offered a dance hall, a merry go-round, and other attractions like those at Coney Island. Everybody he questioned said “You bet!” or words to that effect.

Joe took a lease on a small one-story building at Fort George that could be reached only through an alley. He constructed a cheap dance floor in the rear and turned the building into a saloon. He hired an orchestra and an unknown singer named Nora Bayes, put tables around the dance floor, and then waited. But the people just wouldn’t go through the alley, not even through a big sign that proclaimed: “Beer and Dancing in Rear.”

What would be most likely to entice the public? It was brother Nick who suggested that a picture would be better than printed words. Joe hired a man who painted scenes on mirrors behind the bars to make a garish-colored wooden cutout of a huge beer schooner with the foam on the amber contents. The schooner, lighted up at night, could be seen from a distance, and it drew the thirsty in droves. The result was that by summer’s end Joe Schenck had cleaned up several thousand dollars.

Fort George circa 1900.

Early in the spring of 1906 Joe and Nick began construction of what they called Paradise Park. On a Saturday afternoon in May, they were all set for the opening. They weren’t as enthusiastic as they might have been. After the merry-go-round and the other equipment had been installed, mostly on credit, they had realized, to their horror, that it would be necessary for the public to climb fifty-six steps to get to the park after leaving the trolley cars. They had been so engrossed in building the park on a high, cool spot that they had entirely overlooked that seeming drawback.

The brothers held their breath as the first of the Saturday-afternoon crowd began to spill out of their cars. When the visitors saw thhe amusements up there ahead of them, many were so eager that they took the fifty-six steps two at a time. The next day, Sunday, the same thing happened, and the Schencks knew that their fears about the steps had been unfounded. “And so,” Joe told me, “when we found the public didn’t mind the steps, we put a turnstile in–quick–right at the fifty-sixth step, and charged them ten cents admission. We hadn’t dared do that before.”

Fort George Amusement Park in 1911 postcard

Some New Yorkers had such fond feelings for the park that it became a popular spot for wedding proposals. In fact, in June of 1907 nineteen-year-old Susan Pierce and Raymond Barrett went so far as to tie the knot on the skating rink where they met. The bride, bridegroom and minister all donned roller skates for the nuptials.

It was a first for the park and likely a first for New York. After exchanging vows some 500 couples joined Susan and Raymond on the rink to skate to the popular “Love Me and the World is Mine,” before the happy couple skated off to Atlantic City for their honeymoon.

But as the years passed, neighborhood sentiment towards the park soured.

Initially a boon for the local economy, local residents and real estate developers grew tired of the noise, the drunken crowds and the crime that came to be associated with the park.

Then, on December 10th, 1911, an arsonist took public sentiment into his own hands and attempted to burn the park to the ground. According to news accounts high winds fanned the firebug’s torch destroying the Star Music Hall, the old Fort George Hotel, the dance hall of Paradise Park, a popular tavern and several smaller buildings. The damage, estimated at $25,000, could have been much worse if not for the daughter of truck farmer Nicholas Ceramer whose cries of “Papa, look at the fire,” allowed her father to sound the alarm. Ceramer emerged from his cottage across from the park just in time to “see a Man about 5 feet 9 inches tall, of stocky build, wearing a black hat and overcoat, run out of the lower floor of the music hall to the south. He gave chase, but failed to overtake the man.” Two years later, still healing from the scars of the arson attack the park suffered a fatal blow at the hands of another suspicious fire. On June 9th, 1913, a fire described as “the most spectacular ever seen,” engulfed the Fort George Amusement Park. At around two in the morning, Dominick Barnot, the night watchmen for Paradise Park saw that the dance hall was on fire. Barnot ran for help, but within ten minutes the fire, fueled by a strong westerly wind, had become an inferno. One-hundred foot flames seen as far south as 42nd Street were reported that night. Firemen and concerned volunteers descended on Fort George, but “the firemen quickly saw that it was their duty to save the property near by and let the park burn…One by one the play places were consumed. The roller coaster was quick to go, and then the Ferris wheel. And after the wheel the merry-go-rounds, the roller skating rink, and all the other things the Schneck Brothers had installed for the entertainment of the public.”

Fort George Amusement Park, 1900

Fort George Amusement Park circa 1900.

Down, but not defeated, the Schencks moved their act across the Hudson River, where they soon opened the wildly popular Palisades Park in New Jersey.

Fort George Amusement Park, 197th Street and Amsterdam, 1906.

And, while Paradise Park was never rebuilt, a generation would remember the glory days and smile knowing they had witnessed a now forgotten piece of New York history. Click here to read more Inwood history.

New York Times, September 16, 1904.

Shortly after the turn of the century a small group of investors, led by real estate “wheeler-dealer” Andrew J. Cobe, made a land grab in northern Manhattan.  Their vision—a sprawling thirty-one acre amusement park to be built on the current site of Columbia University’s Baker Field.

Cobe was a shameless self-promoter who had been kicked out of  Cuba in the late 1890’s for his role in a souvenir peso scheme. Now, surveying the open pastures, rail access and nearby waterways of Inwood, the P.T. Barnum side of Cobe instinctively kicked in.

The self appointed president of the newly formed Corporation Liquidating Company had recently made  a major acquisition.  In a move that likely caused Jan Dyckman to spin furiously in his  grave, Cobe, and his newly formed syndicate of private investors, bought all the property alongside the Spuyten Duyvil they could get their hands on.  The purchase included one of the Dyckman family’s ancestral homes.

Artists rendering of "Wonderland," New York Tribune September 13, 1904.

Now, as the chilly autumn winds bore down on shoreline, Cobe knew he could actually sell this idea.  A few plugs from the press couldn’t hurt either.

Coney Island's "Dreamland", 1905 designed by Kirby Petit and Green.

In an article published in the New York Tribune on September 13, 1904, one of  Cobe’s representatives first described the future Wonderland, “Kirby , Pettit & Green, who designed Dreamland (on Coney Island), are the architects.  Their preliminary drawings show a massive entrance, opening on a main concourse, which will stretch diagonally from end to end of the property.

New York Tribune detail of Wonderland.

This concourse will be 180 feet wide and 1,800 feet in length.  In the center of this boulevard will be a lagoon, bridged at convenient points. No two buildings will be alike, and every possible order of architecture will be introduced.  A variegated color scheme, introducing some brand new effects, is promised.

There will be a large open air amphitheatre for the production of a new fire fighting show on lines larger than have yet been attempted.  Then there will be a theatre for spectacles after the type of ‘The Storming of Port Arthur.’  A famous magician is to have his own theatre, with a stage which will make possible a new line of magic.  There will be gardens typical of different parts of the world, and several foreign villages.  An English tea garden on the banks of a miniature Thames, an old Italian town and an Alpine pass and village are among the features arranged.

1904 New York Tribune sketch of Wonderland.

An enormous swimming pool will be erected near the river front.  Part of it will be enclosed and the water kept at even temperatures, making bathing possible from May until the end of September, in water of the same temperature found in August.  Outside there will be a large pool in the open for use in the warmer months.  It is possible that the famous Sutro baths in San Francisco will be reproduced.”

Cobe expected to have the two million dollar project up and running by March of 1905, he explained in a November, 1904 New York Times article.  He also provided Times readers with more spectacular details on the park, which was, at the time, really just a just a cow pasture.

Cows grazing along the Spuyten Duyvil near turn of the century.

According to the Times, the park’s designers “have striven to make Wonderland a place very different from all other recreation parks, although the familiar ‘chutes’ will not be left out”.

Cobe’s description included not only rides, but enchanting foreign micro-cities so popular at world expositions.  “There are to be a German village, a Japanese village, a sixteenth century German castle and gaily colored pagodas.”

The old Dyckman mansion which Wonderland promoters planned on turning into a casino.

The article went on: “Within Wonderland’s boundaries is the old Dyckman mansion, which will be turned into a mammoth ballroom and casino. Between the mansion and the esplanade walk, where now is a thick grove of trees, will be gardens laid out with curving paths and rustic benches.  The natural characteristics of the grove will be interfered with as little as possible.”

In just a few short years the subway would reach Inwood and the park would become a goldmine.  That was the pitch anyway.  In the meantime workers would have all winter to build Wonderland from the ground up.

Winter wasn’t the ideal season to embark on a major construction project, but no one seemed to question Cobe’s judgment.

By the spring of 1905 Wonderland was still relatively undeveloped, but Cobe and new park director Thomas Riego Hart assured New Yorkers of a July 1^st opening.

Hart provided more tantalizing details on the layout of the park to a New York Herald reporter on April 2^nd.

“Wonderland”, the Herald scribe told readers, “will strive to be what its name implies.  It will embrace some of the leading features of Earls Court, in London; Willow Grove Park, in Philadelphia, and several of the successes which have made Luna Park and Dreamland, at Coney Island, famous.  In addition, it will have Italian gardens, lakes, Venetian canals and deep shaded rambles.”

The park would also now include, thirty-two different amusements, including “a reproduction of the storming and taking of 203 Metre Hill, at Port Arthur” to be directed by Bolossy Kiralfy.

1883 Kiralfy Brothers expo poster.

Beginning the 1880’s, the Hungarian born Brother’s Kiralfy dazzled world audiences with their theatrical extravaganzas involving a then primitive form of electricity.  They were especially renowned for their riverfront spectaculars—the bright lights dancing on the water’s surface.  Wonderland offered just such a backdrop.

Composer Walter Damroach was to be a headliner at the opening of Wonderland.

If the promoter’s claims were to be believed, the venue would also attract some of the most popular musicians of 1905.   “Wonderland”, the Herald reported,  “is scheduled to have Walter Damroach, if possible, open the season and to engage Sousa and Victor Herbert for some time in the summer.”

Six days after the Herald article, the real estate section of the New York Times announced: “Wonderland Sold for $1,000,000.”

1904 New York Tribune sketch of Wonderland.

According to the article, “The tract, which consists of nearly all the land included between Broadway, Two Hundred and Eighteenth Street and the Harlem Ship Canal, was bought last fall by Andrew J. Cobe from the Dyckman estate and has since been headed by Thomas Reigo Hart as the site for an amusement park. It is said that the purchase means that the amusement enterprise will be carried out.”

Despite such promising reports, the grand July 1^st opening never took place. Cows continued to graze where Venetian canals and Japanese gardens had been so excitedly promised just months before.

Amusement Park Abandoned, New York Times, Nov. 23, 1905.

In November of 1905, the death knell sounded on Wonderland.  Wrote the New York Times, “Andrew J. Cobe has sold, through David Stewart, a one half interest in the ‘Wonderland’ property at Broadway and the Harlem Ship Canal.  It was said yesterday that all projects had been abandoned for converting this property into an amusement park, and that it would be developed for resale.”

Wonderland had been but an illusion.

Columbia University Baker Field at 218th and Broadway, 1927.

In 1921, Columbia University, using money donated by Park Avenue banker George Fisher Baker, Jr., purchased the abandoned Wonderland site.  Today Columbia’s athletic center, including Baker Field, occupies what could have been the Coney Island of Northern Manhattan.

When Wonderland’s “wheeler dealer” promoter died in December of 1924, the Times noted his passing with two simple sentences, “Andrew J. Cobe, real estate and theatrical broker, with offices at 233 West Forty-second Street, died yesterday of heart disease at his residence, 76 West Eighty-sixth Street, age 59.  His wife, two sons, a daughter and two brothers survive.”

A bit of Inwood trivia: Jason, the owner of the Indian Road Cafe considered naming his establishment “Wonderland.”

Click here for more Inwood history.