TIME WARP : Boardwalk Recalls Era When Life Was a Beach

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —  Santa Cruz’s 85-year-old beach boardwalk is a time machine, a vintage warp.

There are touches of another era like the three Marinis at the Beach candy shops. Owner Joe Marini Sr. has been making saltwater taffy for 68 years on the same taffy machine at the boardwalk.

“My dad opened this candy shop in 1915. I came here five years later when I was 10. Dad bought the taffy machine new in 1921. I’ve been using it ever since,” explained the 79-year-old candy maker.

Marini has been using the same cotton candy machine more than 50 years. His candy showcases are filled with old favorites like red dollars, cola bottles, hot lips, juji fruit and jelly beans.

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the oldest amusement park in California, described by its owners as the last of the West Coast’s seaside amusement parks.

Its two oldest rides, the 1911 merry-go-round and the 1924 Giant Dipper wooden roller coaster are national and state historic landmarks.

Laser and Penny Games

Side by side with the latest laser video machines in the arcade are penny machines, some a century old, that still take only a penny to operate.

The Atlantic seaboard has nearly two dozen seaside amusement parks from Maine to Florida. Once there was a similar string of amusement parks along the Pacific Coast.

There was Belmont Park in San Diego, the Pike in Long Beach, Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica, Whitney’s Playland in San Francisco and many more. One by one they disappeared, replaced by condos and developments, leaving only the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz became famous for its mile-long, wide-wide beach in 1865 when John Leibrandt built the first public beach bathhouse here and launched Santa Cruz as a seaside resort.

Destroyed by Fire

In 1904, Fred Swanton opened the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, patterned after Coney Island. It was destroyed by fire two years later, rebuilt and reopened in 1907.

For 82 years the colorful Moorish-style Coconut Grove Ballroom with an array of domes, arches and flying flags has been a Santa Cruz landmark. It was renovated in 1981 at a cost of $10 million.

The boardwalk’s merry go-round is the work of famed Danish woodcarver Charles I. D. Looff, who carved 72 wooden horses and brought in a German-made, 342-pipe band organ in creating his Santa Cruz masterpiece. Looff also did the famous merry-go-round at Coney Island in 1875.

Looff’s horses with long, flowing manes, jewel-studded bridles, muscular legs and spirited expressions have been spinning in a circle ever since to the music of the antique organ.

In 1924, Looff’s son, Arthur, spent 47 days erecting the Giant Dipper at a cost of $50,000, one of 80 wooden roller coasters still running in the United States.

Two years ago, the park spent $145,000 for a pair of new trains for the Giant Dipper, rated as one of the 10 most exciting roller coasters in the country. More than 35 million riders have screamed in sheer bliss sailing down the 70-foot drop at 55 m.p.h.

Still a Thrill

“It’s still a thrill every time I ride the Giant Dipper,” confessed Charles Canfield, 49, president of the Santa Cruz Seaside Co., whose family has controlling interest in the private corporation that owns and operates the park.

Canfield’s father, Lawrence, joined the park’s board of directors in 1928 and served as president from 1952 until his death at 79 in 1984. “I started working here running kiddie rides when I was 16,” Canfield said.

The boardwalk is open seven days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, weekends and holidays the rest of the year. It employs 1,300 during the summer, 500 to 600 part-time the rest of the year and has an annual payroll of $5.5 million, according to general manager Ed Hutton, 49.

Each February there is a clam chowder cook-off with 90 booths featuring 90 different clam chowder recipes. Each October there is a Brussels sprouts festival (90% of the nation’s Brussels sprouts grow nearby) featuring such exotic dishes as Brussels sprout pizza and Brussels sprout ice cream.

This summer, to mark the 85th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the Santa Cruz County Octagon Museum is featuring a special exhibit on the history of the boardwalk called “Never A Dull Moment.”

“For 85 years Santa Cruz has had a love affair with the boardwalk,” said Miki Ryan who put the exhibit together with Nikki Silva. “The boardwalk is a very special place for our city.”