Celebrations for North Sydney’s iconic fun park have started early in honour of its 90th year. Tamara Spray looks at how Luna Park has made its way into community folklore.
Bringing together the generations in order to celebrate Luna Park’s long, significant and often controversial past is fitting for the amusement park, which has been on Sydney Harbour at Milson’s Point for 90 years this October.
Not only is it a place of both joy, freedom, and for some, heart-stopping thrills, but it is culturally significant from an art point of view. From the huge smiling face which greets you at the entrance of the park, to the historic artworks adorning the walls of Coney Island, itself a place of State heritage significance, Luna Park has served as a canvas for renowned artists over the years – some even helping to save the park when threatened with closure.
So when Lucy Keeler from Luna Park Sydney was looking for a way to honour the milestone, she saw it fitting to engage with the younger generation, teaming up with Bradfield College in St Leonards to create SMILE – an immersive, multi-sensory event paying tribute to the park.
“We’ve been collaborating with Bradfield College, a leader in creative arts education for senior college (students),” says Lucy, head of strategy and experiences. “Engaging with the community and the creatives of the future is a real focus for us. So fostering the diverse talent from Bradfield was a very natural fit for a collaboration to celebrate the 90th birthday.”
Bradfield College offers students pathways into creative industries, says Meredith Melville-Jones, the school’s director, and is jointly funded by TAFE NSW and the Department of Education. Students come to the school with a variety of creative talents from filmmaking, music and dance, to art, animation and coding, and graduate career-ready for the creative industries.
Year 11 students started the SMILE project in February, learning from professional cinematographers, sound engineers and artists. “It couldn’t have been a better marriage. Luna Park has such a rich history in art,” Meredith says, adding that the historic place is a ‘living canvas.’
Meredith says 150 students worked on the project, and the results, presented in a showcase at the school on 5 June, were ‘absolutely magical.’
The ‘happy’ Luna Park face, c.1960s
Coney Island slides in the 1950s
Fun at the ‘Dead or Alive’ attraction in the 1960s
Students presented Dream Ride, an immersive film exploring the park’s iconic attractions, alongside an exhibition of vibrant artworks and digital projections. Live music and dance performances added to the carnival atmosphere, while student-run merchandise stores offered their unique Luna Park-inspired products to attendees.
Student Pearl Pelaez, 16, a theatre performer, was part of a verbatim play, which is made from people’s real words. “(We) interviewed people who went to Luna Park the first couple of years of its opening in the 1930s to hear about their memories,” she says. Students then learned, through voice training, how to imitate their vocals, which ‘helped us make our characters come to life.’
Art has a rich history at the park, and fellow student Amalie Gomez, 17, was part of a team which worked on a collaborative mural, her art depicting the park from the 1930s to 1940s ‘creating a collage of images from that era,’ as well as a stop-motion animation of Coney Island. “Being able to… channel my own thoughts and experiences of the park into the project and see it reflected in the work I created was truly a special experience.”
Coney Island is of state heritage significance
For much of Luna Park’s history, art has played a major role in forming its identity, says Ian Hoskins, North Sydney Council historian. Particularly Arthur ‘Art’ Barton, who was the artist in residence from 1935 to 1970. “He influenced the nature and feel of the park through his cartoonish-like artworks, particularly in Coney Island,” Ian says, citing the skiing characters as an example. “And that became his canvas.”
Arthur also had a hand in reshaping the famous Luna Park face, creating what we now know as the ‘big, happy face’ in the 1950s, Ian explains. He says the two faces prior to this, both by Rupert Brown, were more a ‘scowling, scary face.’ “The park was an amusement park, yes, a place of fun. But it’s also a place of terror. People love being thrilled. They love being thrown around (on the rides). And that rather confronting face expressed that more clearly than anything else,” Ian says.
When Art retired in 1970, three artists, Martin Sharp, Peter Kingston and Richard Liney worked to give the park a facelift. “But they did so with great respect and homage to Arthur,” Ian adds.
After the Ghost Train ride fire tragically killed seven people in June 1979, the park closed and was eventually marked for redevelopment. Peter and Martin formed a community group, Friends of Luna Park, working hard ‘to try and stop it from being redeveloped for something else,’ Ian comments.
Year 11 students took part in the SMILE project
Their efforts were rewarded and the park was reopened in 1995, before another closure due to a legal battle over noise from the Big Dipper. It has now remained open since 2004.
Lucy Keeler says Luna Park’s history is a ‘complex, beautiful, tragic but magical story,’ and author Helen Pitt has been commissioned to write a book on its history for the birthday.
For those north of the Harbour Bridge, the birthday is quite special, North Shore MP Felicity Wilson says. “Luna Park is not just one of Sydney’s most beloved landmarks, it holds a deeply cherished place in the hearts of locals and visitors alike, and has done so for 90 unforgettable years,” she tells North Shore Living.
John Hughes, Luna Park Sydney chief executive officer, hopes that the local community will join the party. “We will be hosting a special event with the Museums of History NSW as part of the Sydney Open Series, and the park will be alive with multiple activations for the September school holidays to celebrate the birthday on 4 October,” John says.
“We hope Sydneysiders, particularly local residents on the North Shore, come and celebrate their Luna Park with pride as it’s one of the rarest of its kind in the world.”
Details on the September birthday celebrations will be confirmed in the coming month at lunaparksydney.com
