• Luna Park by Helen Pitt

Luna Park by Helen Pitt

$34.99

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Product Description

The extraordinary story of the showmen, shysters and schemers who built Sydney's famous fun park.

The dazzling, rollercoaster story of Australia's iconic amusement park on Sydney harbour.

'All the thrills, spills and tragedy behind that iconic grin, brought to life by a masterful storyteller.' Wendy Harmer

'A rollercoaster ride through some of Sydney's brightest and darkest stories. A compelling tale, vividly told, and history every Sydneysider should know.' Richard Glover

For decades, the young and the young at heart have loved the Luna Park face and its promise of laughs and thrills - and a whiff of danger.

Helen Pitt has uncovered Australia's intriguing Luna Park story. It's filled with con men and criminals, crooked cops, failed politicians and movie moguls. Like the circuses, from which amusement parks evolved, this is a tale with elephants, performing snakes and many ringmasters.

The story starts in late 19th-century America, and follows the eight fun parks that opened—and closed—across Australia. The most famous of them all, Sydney's Luna Park, has a history that's truly a roller-coaster ride like its trademark Big Dipper, which was shipped piece by piece from South Australia for its 1935 opening.

From the engineering feats of its construction in the dark days of the Depression to the tragic deaths of six boys and a father in the 1979 Ghost Train fire - one of Sydney's most heartbreaking unsolved mysteries - and despite financial disasters, legal battles and closures, Luna Park survives, glittering by the water.

Thanks to your support we can continue our mission to actively conserve and protect our natural, cultural, social and Indigenous heritage for future generations to enjoy.

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