This drawing depicts many of the rides during Coney Island's heyday.  The ride descriptions start at the carousel and work down the midway in a clockwise fashion.  Some of the rides include the carousel (the machine is P.T.C. #79, a three row machine from 1926 is now at King's Island), the Swiss Chalet entrance to the sky ride, the European Fountains, the Old Mill, the Flying Skooters, the Wild Mouse coaster, the Turtle, the Calypso and the Shooting Star coaster.

The Coney Island and Lake Como railroad, a miniature train ride, went out over the water on a long bridge.  It later passed an imaginary area where Native Americans "attacked" the passengers...but they returned safely each time.

The images in this series are discussed left to right.  The first shows the Top O' The Mall Restaurant and the Swiss Chalet Sky Ride entrance.  The second photo looks down the mall (with the carousel at the viewer's back) past the beautifully manicured bushes.  To the extreme right of this postcard the Wild Mouse station is barely visible.  The third photo shows the European fountain at night, an Eli Bridge ferris wheel and the flying skooters.  The next photo shows the Moonlite Gardens, a beautiful indoor ballroom.  The fifth photo shows a Coney Island tradition- families often brought picnic lunches and ate a relaxed meal along the Ohio River.  The last image shows one of the park's best-known attractions- The Sunlite Pool.  It is still in use today; in fact the park still uses the same advertising slogan "the World's largest outdoor recirculating pool." 

The left view shows the park from the air in the late 1920's or 1930's.  The two coasters shown are the Clipper and the Wildcat.  The Clipper started life as a fully enclosed roller coaster called the Twister in 1926.  It was re-vamped as the Clipper for the 1937 season and closed after the 1946 season.  More information on the coaster's fate is available in the caption below.  The other coaster featured on the bottom of the left-hand card and the back of the midway on the right is the Wildcat.  This coaster opened in 1926 and operated through the 1964 season.  It was a twister roller coaster that was very popular and gave a wild ride.  Both the Clipper and the Wildcat were designed by Herbert Schmeck of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and the Wildcat was later recreated as the Grizzly at Kings Dominion and the Wild Beast at Canada's Wonderland.  Note the lack of a sky ride in the second picture.

Coney Island hired Herb Schmeck to build a new coaster for the 1947 season.  He tore down the bulk of the Clipper, but kept the enclosed helix and part of the station.  The new Shooting Star roller coaster became an instant classic for the park.  It featured an out and back layout than ran along the edge of the park on the right side of the midway  The postcard on the right shows the Turtle and the Shooting Star's lift hill.  When he was planning the Racer for the new King's Island park designer John Allen kept the concept of the Shooting Star in the back of his mind.  In his book The Coasters of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company historian Charles J. Jacques, Jr. told of a 1969 exchange of letters between Ralph G. Wachs, the parks president, and John Allen, P.T.C.'s designer at the time, when they discussed the new Racer coaster and the success of the Shooting Star.  Wachs wrote, "It has always been my opinion that our Shooting Star is unmatched as a smooth, thrilling ride, and certainly the receipts over the years will bear out that opinion.  I am quite sure since that ride was built you would have many improvements to suggest, but the ride itself from the customer's standpoint is hard to beat."  

According to sky ride historian Steven Wilson the ride was built by the Van Roll company of Switzerland and moved to King's Island for the 1972 season.  The mall was one of Coney's best-known design features and a step forward in the conceptualization of the amusement park midway.  The left photo shows the Shooting Star, the European Fountain and the Sky Ride.  The other photo looks the opposite way down the midway & the Turtle, Calypso and carousel are visible on the left.  Few things were better than strolling down the midway on a beautiful summer day as the smells of fried food filled the air.

This view of the midways shows (L to R): a view of the Traver rocket ships, an Eli Bridge wheel and the Wildcat Roller Coaster.

The sky ride's loading station was a well-themed Swiss chalet.  The sky ride gave a beautiful view, not only of the midway but of the river and wooded area surrounding the park, too.

These older pictures are part of a collection of the Detroit Publishing Company at the Library of Congress.  Left the right the photos are: the front gate, two views of the midway and the shoot-the-chutes & canoes.