Park Review
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West Nyack, New York September, 2001 Due to the "circumstances," last week we took the Tappan Zee instead of the GW, affording us the opportunity to stop at the new Palisades Center mall. I had heard a rumor that there was a coaster inside it. Inside, the mall has an industrial look, with exposed infrastructure and concrete floors stenciled here and there with stores' logos. Pretty ugly already, I can't imagine what an eyesore this'll be when it's twenty years old. After some window shopping, followed by more intentional searching, we finally found the food court, which is decorated overhead with a beautiful roller coaster track highlighted in spots with neon tubing. This track, which is purely decorative, looks like a pretty good layout, except for the impossibly steep lift hill. Nevertheless, I was hoping for a real coaster. What the mall does have, though, is an indoor carousel and Ferris wheel. The carousel is a beauty: PTC #15. Signs around it briefly detail its history (it's been moved a lot), and point out some facts such as this is the first PTC four-row carousel where all the horses go up and down. At first glance, it seemed to be in marvelous shape. The deep brown wooden-planked platform shone in the sun streaming in from the windows and the brass poles gleamed. There was no organ; they were piping sound from a cassette tape into PA speakers placed on the ground. It was the horses, though, that disappointed me. They were the cheap plastic or fiberglass bodies. While they were nicely colored with variety, shading, and decorations (even a PTC logo on one horse), I thought it was a shame that such shiny crap was put on such an otherwise beautifully maintained carousel. Here and there, there was a horse missing, or an entire row didn't gallop, but overall it was a shame that the horses themselves had been replaced. And then I noticed the signs. In several places were signs cautioning riders that the wooden horses were easily damaged so please be careful about scratching them. I had to look more than twice. The horses were so fabulously painted, shellacked, and waxed, that I was fooled into thinking they were plastic! They were, indeed, wood with a great, shiny finish. Ah, much better. There was no indication of whether or not further restoration work would take place, but even in it's current state, this is a gorgeous carousel. Over on the other side of the food court was the Ferris wheel. 68 feet, rising nearly to the ceiling. Nothing special about it, but interesting to be up so high indoors, up where the birds have their nests. While waiting our turn on the carousel, we heard the noise of a real roller coaster, and eventually found Jeepers on the fourth floor of the mall (above the food court). Essentially a mini-boardwalk for mini-people, Jeepers is pretty much a self-contained amusement park. Skee-ball, pinball and video games (at reasonable prices), a few rides, all geared for little folks. Various ticket packages are available, but I only wanted to ride the coaster -- $3. After confirming with the operator that adults were allowed to ride, I bought my tickets for Python Pit, a steel coaster that looks somewhat like a miniature roller skater. This is the best kiddie coaster I've ever been on. By a mile. I rode in the middle of the 5-car train, and we climbed the lift hill, all of about nine feet. This was followed by a real drop. It was steep and smooth all the way down to the ground, followed by a second hill almost as tall as the lift. So the train lost most of its momentum before entering a downward spiral and was able to traverse the rest of the layout without the usual roughness and bumping I experience on other kiddie coasters. It was also a nice way to pace the ride -- anticipation of lift, fast drop, pause, pick up speed again for the rest of the ride. After the downward spiral, the track flattens out and enters a tunnel decorated with blacklit spooky goblins or ghosts or something. The track turns 180 degrees in the tunnel and has a short series of bumps (too small to be bunny hops or provide any air) before returning to the station. The operator ran the train four times through this circuit. Also, the operator refused to take my tickets. I'm not sure what the regular policy is, but maybe they don't charge adults, or maybe they don't charge adults riding with children (I was alone, though). Instead of asking for my money back, my wife used the tickets to ride the tilt-a-whirl. This coaster is great. It's a great introduction to "real" coasters because it has the feel of a real coaster. It has pacing, hills, and turns that physically feel like those on a full-size coaster, only of shorter duration. Jon Zucker
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