The Amusement Park From Big Faces Closure

Sad news 80s movies fans. The amusement park that was almost a mysterious character in itself in ‘Big’ is facing closure.

Playland, the 86-year-old Art Deco attraction has been losing millions in recent years, with local officials suggesting if business doesn’t pick up, it can ‘no longer go forward’.

Located in the town of Rye, just north of New York, it is the biggest government-run amusement park in the country.

But visitor numbers have been dropping from around one million in 2005 to just 390,000 last year, and losing a sturdy $4.3 million (£2.5 million) in 2013.

It’s most famous for being the location where David Moscow’s young character Josh Baskin first encounters the mysterious Zoltar Speaks machine at the carnival, which promises to make wishes come true.

Dropping in some coins, he wishes that he was big, and finds himself transformed the following morning into a 30-year-old Josh, played by Tom Hanks.

Run by Westchester County, it’s said that the current decline of visitors can’t continue if it’s to remain open. 

“Amusement parks aren’t an essential service of government,” Ned McCormack told Associated Press, a spokesperson for Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive who is running for New York State Governor. 

“If we can’t get it to a point where it’s financially viable, a day could come where it just can no longer go forward.”

Astorino has said that he hopes to be ‘the man who saved Playland’, with plans to preserve its older attractions, including a wooden dragon roller-coaster and carousel, and also the boardwalk where the Zoltar Speaks machine sat, ominously unplugged.

There was also potential for adding a water park feature and additional sports facilities with a $4 million investment planned in 2012, but planning issues and concerns over the environmental impact of changes have meant the plan was never implemented and the funds may now have been depleted by the delays.