Historic 20th century seaside amusement parks like Coney Island in New York and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California are few and far between a century later. Seattle also had an Edwardian era seaside amusement park in West Seattle called ‘Luna Park.’ Located on the tide flats of Elliott Bay across from downtown Seattle near the tip of Alki Beach, the park was accessed by trolley, ferry or railway. Like most amusement parks of that era, the park featured a hand-carved carousel, a roller coaster and other rides. During the evenings the park’s buildings and rides were outlined with white lights and was visible from downtown across the bay. Built in 1907 (the year West Seattle was annexed into the city of Seattle) the park was only open until 1913 and then closed and dismantled.
These days the memory of Luna Park are all but forgotten and the name only lives on in a handful of shops and a cafe at the foot of the West Seattle Hill.
Update on painting the house: I discovered yesterday (after painting about 1/5 of the house) that the paint Home Depot tinted for us was interior paint not exterior. Sheesh, really? But I will give them credit for making it right and giving us a 15% discount on the five gallon bucket of the right paint. Needless to say, I’ll be starting over today, thankfully I hadn’t gotten very far before the error was discovered. We all make mistakes…
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crap on the paint! but at least it can be corrected!
and this is a neat bit of history.
I need to get out at night more often, do some of this great night-time photography!
Wonderful lights in this photo! Your night shots are always super. Hang in there with the painting….I’m always to enthused when I start a paint project until I get to about mid-way…then I just can’t wait to finish.
Awesome neon lights.
Great photo, Madge, love the neon and the string of colored lights.Great history lesson, too! xx
Those are some terrific neon signs Madge! Hopefully the paint works out for your house. A big job to be sure!
xo C
Madge, I agree with the others, your night time photography is pretty awesome!
Thanks for sharing a little piece of history.
Good luck with painting, hopefully it is smoothe sailing from here..
: )
These old parks are so neat to see…hope you get the painting done:)
did i tell you i am collecting neon sign photos? that’s a winner .. and we have a Luna Park here in NY too .. on Coney Island .. its an amusement park ..
Would love to visit this park someday. So sorry about the paint snafu — I don’t imagine you were too happy to discover it.
Neon signs are so intriguing…great photo and history.
(too bad about the paint; hope re-doing what you had already done went quickly)
I love the neon, it is so fitting on that building!