Pretty incredible video, yet sad. I was here once in '73 & 74, but only being 1,2 years old, I don't remember it. I only remember it as a closed fenced off place with trees - the "Alps" mountain in the late 70s..until it was demolished and cleared out to make way for the big mall - which is still currently there today. The area is so full of traffic now, SOME of the original buildings remain from the late 1800s, early 1900s, the hotel on Park Ave. Willow Inn. Very hard to imagine it once looked like this. Next to the park also had the Worlds largest Bowling Alley - Willow Grove Lanes. Vert art deco, retro...that closed in the mid 80s. The building is still there..although it looks nothing like the bowling alley. Typical shopping center with no "personality" (Old Navy, Petco, Michels Arts and Crafts) ____ Willow Grove Park was an amusement park located in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania (the part which is in Abington Township), United States, that operated for eighty years from 1896 until the 1975 season. The park operated under the name Six Gun Territory from 1972. After closure, announced in April 1976, the park sat vacant until the land was cleared for a large shopping mall known as Willow Grove Park Mall, which opened in August 1982. The mall pays homage to its predecessor by displaying banners and other objects which hark back to the land's days as an amusement park; a merry-go-round built and installed in 2001 operates within the mall. Willow Grove was one of the premier amusement parks in the United States for a long time, until it was eclipsed by the openings of Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, Disneyland and other more modern theme parks beginning in the 1950s. One of the biggest attractions in the park was the music pavilion, at which John Philip Sousa and his band played every year, but one, between 1901 and 1926. The pavilion was demolished in March 1959. - Willow Grove Mall info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Grove_Park_Mall

Comments

1. My grammar school in North Philly use to go there at the end of the school year in June. It was beautiful then and a lot of fun. We took the trolley car, that was such a beautiful ride. Thank you for posting this. Brought back many happy memories.
2. This is filmed like an Infomercial, where would one see this video back then? Did they show it as an intermission at a movie theater? Or before the movie? I just can't imagine where else a regular person would see this video back then. Unless on a local public channel but in 1956 did they have those?
3. Sadly it had to be demolished because it was in DEPLORABLE condition.
4. 3:05 there's my late Grandparents Werner and Vivian Gleiter and my Dad and Uncle!
5. That clown is horrifying! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfQedCO5izk&feature=youtu.be&t=29
6. Wow this was so awesome. As kids we came here yearly with the school. Was the best ever. So sad when they tore it down for a shopping center. They did use a lot of artifacts from the park. It is a beautiful mall. Thanks for sending this
7. What a charming video of a slice of Americana that's long gone. I'll take one of those old family run parks any day over the impersonal behemoths called theme parks.
8. We went up from the city in the 1960s and then later, when we moved to Hatboro, we would often go to the bowling alley. 116 lanes I believe, made it the world's largest. The bowling alley had many photos of John Philip Sousa when he performed there early in the 20th century. It was a great park and certainly had a longer life than the mall that replaced it. Malls everywhere are a dying breed. Thanks for posting this. Awesome video that brought back great memories and also a chance to see some of the rides (like the rocket ships) actually working. When we started going, they were already shuttered. Thanks again.
9. I nearly lost a tooth on The Whip, vomited on the Hell Hole centrifugal ride and was traumatized by the Freak Show. Still, I wanted to go back again!
10. WOW!  What a flood of memories came with this.  I could even smell the pop corn and cigar & cigarette odor that permeated the park.  We went a few times every year with my Aunt Catherine McQuillan on the trolley.  And we had our school picnic there every June.
11. My cousin and friends used to climb over the fence in the back of the Park near the picnic grove so we wouldn't have to pay the TWENTY FIVE CENTS TO GET IN.
12. I live around the corner from the current mall tht Replaced it
13. I cried through a lot of this. Sights I thought I would never see again after over 55 years come back to life, and I could almost feel my Pop-pop with me again! THANK YOU!!!!
14. I have a postcard of my great grandmother with a friend at Willow Grove Park (at least that's what is stated on the back of the postcard) from the early 1900's
15. THIS is awesome! Filmed five years before I was born . . . but was there many, many times thereafter and remember so many of the attractions even after modifications. Great job!
16. Wow! In 1956 I was 6 years old. I recall going to the park as a kid and teenager. Once my Dad took my sister & I on the Thunderbolt. He had such a tight grasp of us around the neck,I was afraid we'd never make it off alive.LOL! Remember the Swan Boat ride? They built the bowling alley over that area and the lanes warped because of it. I bowled there with the Upper Moreland High School varsity bowling team. They didn't say anything about the "Freak Show" tent. What fun we had at the Park!!
17. Awesome! I remember seeing the roller coast on my way to Crestmont Pool as a child.
18. Hah! My Dad's company- Alan Wood Steel had their company picnic there every year when was little...good times!
19. I grew up in Willow Grove, but, sadly, I was too young to enjoy Willow Grove Park. On January 3, 2013 (the date of this writing), I had my nearly-84-year-young mom (she easily passes for less than 60) watch this video, and she was amazed. I remember the Alps through the fence of the closed-down park in the late 1970s, the antenna over the parking kiosk and the sign at the entrance. My grandfather and great-grandfather, who were PRT/PTC employees, also doubled as park employees in the 1940s.