You paid the admission and the admission was the permission to be foolish. The amusement park was the only place in America where an adult could scream in public without consequences and the screaming without consequences was the freedom. The amusement park had a gate and the gate was the border between the world where you worked and the world where you did not and the not working was the product. The amusement park sold time without labor and the time without labor was the invention that the industrial revolution needed because the industrial revolution had created a class of people who worked six days a week and needed somewhere to go on the seventh.

Coney Island was the capital. The three great parks opened within a decade of each other and the opening within a decade was the competition and the competition was the spectacle. Sea Lion Park opened in eighteen ninety five and was the first enclosed amusement park in America and the enclosing was the invention because the enclosing meant you paid to enter and the paying to enter meant the park could invest in rides that cost more than a carousel. Steeplechase Park opened in eighteen ninety seven and George Tilyou charged twenty five cents for admission and the twenty five cents bought you unlimited rides and the unlimited was the democracy because the banker's child and the factory worker's child rode the same Steeplechase horses at the same speed. Luna Park opened in nineteen oh three and had two hundred and fifty thousand electric lights and the two hundred and fifty thousand lights were the most electric lights anyone had ever seen in one place and the most anyone had ever seen was the spectacle and the spectacle was the point. Dreamland opened in nineteen oh four and burned to the ground in nineteen eleven and the burning was the reminder that the amusement park was temporary and the temporary was the truth.

The midway was the democracy of the con. The barker stood outside the tent and promised you things that were not inside the tent and the promising things that were not inside was the contract and the contract was that you knew you were being lied to and you paid anyway because the lie was part of the entertainment. The ring toss was rigged. The milk bottles were weighted. The basketball hoop was an oval. And you played anyway because the stuffed animal was not the product. The playing was the product. The roller coaster was the machine that simulated danger without providing any and the simulating danger without providing any was the genius because the genius was that fear is pleasurable when you know you are safe and the knowing you are safe is the frame and the frame is what the amusement park built around every experience it sold.

The amusement park was where the classes mixed. The boardwalk at Coney Island on a Saturday in July was the most democratic place in America because the ocean does not check your income and the ocean not checking your income meant the millionaire from Manhattan and the garment worker from the Lower East Side stood in the same surf and the same surf was the equality. The amusement park had a dance hall and the dance hall was where the Irish boy danced with the Italian girl and the dancing was the integration that the neighborhood would not allow on the street. The Tunnel of Love was the dark ride where the couple sat in a boat and the boat entered the dark and the entering the dark was the privacy and the privacy was the permission and the permission was that in the amusement park the rules of the street did not apply and the not applying was the freedom.

The amusement park is not vanishing but the amusement park is consolidating. There were over two thousand amusement parks in America in nineteen twenty. There are fewer than five hundred today. The consolidating means the small park on the lake that served one town has been replaced by the theme park that serves a region and the serving a region means you drive three hours and you spend two hundred dollars and the spending two hundred dollars is not the twenty five cents that Tilyou charged and the not being twenty five cents means the amusement park is no longer the democracy it was when the factory worker could walk to Coney Island after work and ride until dark for a quarter. But the Ferris wheel still turns. George Washington Gale Ferris built the first one for the eighteen ninety three World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the wheel was two hundred and sixty four feet tall and carried two thousand one hundred and sixty passengers and the carrying two thousand one hundred and sixty passengers in a circle was the statement and the statement was that the purpose of the machine was the view and the view was the seeing of the world from a height that the world had never offered to ordinary people before and the offering of a height to ordinary people is still what the amusement park does and the doing is still the freedom and the freedom is still worth the admission.