Following Standard Amusements notifying Westchester County that it would not be managing the Playland Amusement Park for the 2025 Season and with the contract dispute between Standard and the county on-going, the county on May 24 opened the iconic amusement park for the 2025 season. To celebrae the opening, the county offered free admission, free rides and free parking for the Memorial Day Weekend.
With the county having comparatively little time to get the park ready, eight of the 21 rides at the park’s Kiddyland were operating, as were five of the park’s major attractions. The Dragon Coaster roller coaster, the Ferris Wheel and the Derby Racer steeplechase rides were among those not ready for Memorial Day.
A large crowd attended opening day ceremonies at the park. The master of ceremonies at the event was radio personality Jimmy Fink of station 107.1 The Peak. The Rivertowns Young Marines, Westchester County Youth Poet Laureate Harmony Hopwood, and the Rye High School Drumline were among those participating in the ceremonies.
Just after the park mascot Coaster the Dragon and Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins cut the ribbon to formally open the park to the public, confetti cannons were fired sending a shower of confetti into the air as members of the public began to flow through the newly-opened gates.
Jenkins said, “Even though we’re not fully open yet, what you see here today is a $150 million investment in you, in our history, in our children and grandchildren. Playland, as it stands today, is a testament to what’s possible when people care deeply about this place and the families who come here. And let me tell you — we are just getting started.”
Congressman George Latimer, who formerly was Westchester County executive and was an advocate for county management of the amusement park, noted that park was created in part to offer ordinary citizens an entertainment experience that typically was only available to the wealthy. He said that the creators of the park in the 1920s believed in the value of public recreation.
“There are public services that should be under the public domain,” Latimer said. “The bus transit system is another example of it so that people have the mobility to go from Yonkers or Mount Vernon of the Bronx to come to this beautiful community and be able to afford to do it. The vision of those people in the 1920s is validated again today.”
County Parks Commissioner Kathleen O’Connor said that she first had an egg roll on the boardwalk at Playland many years ago and her husband was at one time a lifeguard at the park.
“Please take a minute as you walk through; the capital work that has been done here is phenomenal,” O’Connor said. “It looks like when it was built many years ago, so that’s something that should be recognized.”
First Deputy Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia pointed out that the park is a National Historic Landmark.
“Most importantly it’s the peoples’ park,” Tartaglia said.”
