It is the story of the early breed of showmen: the visionaries, trailblazers, showmen, and perhaps the shysters who followed their dreams of creating the most fun imaginable, for as many ticket holders as possible. It eventually led to Sydney’s Luna Park, where it continues to this day.

Helen Pitt is a ridiculously talented journalist and Walkley Award winner whose astute research and writing have appeared in newspapers, magazines, television, and the longest and hardest of long-form storytelling: books.

It is from this investigative background that Helen goes down every rabbit hole possible in her search for the roots of Australia’s most treasured fun palace.

She reaches back to the 1800s to Chicago and the barely heard of (in this country anyway) World’s Columbian Exposition. Opening in 1893, it featured, among other mind-boggling exhibits and products, the first Ferris Wheel, named after American inventor George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.. See? Details.

From here Pitt tirelessly brings together a myriad of storylines to weave a mesmerising tale of entrepreneurship and bravado that can only be admired. Amusement parks had begun appearing in Australia in the early 1900s, with the trailblazing Wonderland City to be found at Sydney’s Tamarama beach. The extraordinary range of spectacles included an aquarium, an open-air ice rink, a miniature railway, artificial lakes, merry-go-rounds, the Airem Scarem cable car ride, and Alice the Elephant, who was known, at one stage, to take an evening stroll through suburban streets. The list is very impressive and was the vision of the Bendigo-born William Anderson. Pitt reports “around 26,000 people are said to have attended opening day, with Anderson lamenting that ‘there weren’t sufficient trams in Sydney to transport the crowds’ that day.”

The Luna Park Australia leg begins in 1912, when the Melbourne Luna Park was conceived (Pitt draws yet another fascinating line between there and current-day Event Cinemas), and, by all accounts, it was a world-class thrill-a-minute success, ushered into the St Kilda limelight by a group of never-say-die Americans.

More cities, more garish brilliance. We are led to Sydney’s White City—indeed, this is from whence the suburbs' name originated. From abandoned Chinese market gardens, Pitt says T.H. Eslick had a vision of an “electrically lit, stucco-built White City in Sydney. Dozens of amusement parks across America had already appeared with that name.”

Again, attention to detail makes even the smallest note more interesting: The carousel cost an astounding US$14,657 and was shipped by steamer from America in October 1912.

Tales of enthusiasm over caution are plenty—Pitt describes an era where derring-do was the name of the game. Her story is of a snake charmer called Cleopatra who, in January 1928, was bitten by one of her charges and died. There were (surely not surprisingly) several more deaths before the state government decreed an amusement park was no place for venomous snakes.

Inevitably, though, the Harbour Bridge-adjacent Sydney iteration sees the book delve even deeper into a history that is at once exciting, a little salacious, and sometimes sad but always intriguing.

Did you know that soldiers’ boots caused a splinter issue in the original hardwood dipper? Or that prostitutes frequented the Luna Park fish and chip shop, looking for a quick meal in between Harbour Bridge assignments?

What you do know is the horror story of the Ghost Ride fire, but this is far from the focus of this publication—not ignored, but not the crux of the book.

The slings and arrows of adversity have, in the long run, barely scarred that moon-faced façade. Current attractions are linked to mega hits such as the Netflix Stranger Things franchise, and the property is a popular “event’ location. Luna Park is protected; the whole site is recognised by the law as truly worth saving, under the 1990 Luna Park Site Act which, quotes Pitt, “ ‘returns Luna Park site to the people of NSW along with its associated foreshores; it must remain available and accessible for the enjoyment of the people of NSW.”

Tickets, once sixpence for entry, are now $75 for unlimited rides—the early showman must be wringing their bowties in the afterlife, thinking of the profits.

From Coney Island to Chicago, from Glenelg to Milsons Point, this book follows the classic who, what, where, and why of storytelling, with a curiosity that can only be highly respected, with names and ties that will often surprise the reader.

Image: Supplied

Book Review - Prue Miller

Luna Park

Author: Helen Pitt

Paperback, Allen and Unwin

Prue Miller

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