Marvin Gold - Playland's 'Heart of GOLD'

 

Intro

Marvin was one of my original inspirations for staring the 'San Francisco Playland at the Beach' Facebook group and the 'Playland at the Beach' web site.

 

Our first contact was when I joined his Playland Yahoo Group. The group started back in 2003. They had some photos that Marv had collected along with a Forum for others to ask questions or tell their Playland stories. I had contacted Marvin a few times asking questions about Playland. His answers were always very detailed and generous. The 'yahoo group' is/was kind of clunky to use, it would frequently NOT let me connect to the group or so I thought. I'd email Marv quite often, asking, “Am I still on this group?!” He would always answer me back, “Yes, Mike, you are...”

 

Once I started the Facebook Playland group, Marvin was one the first to join. He frequently would tell the group his Playland Stories and supply us with detailed history. Marv was one of our GO TO Historians... Our INSIDE man. ;-)

 

In February of 2015, I approached Marvin with the idea of doing his Playland Oral History. Marvin always wanted to meet with me to hash out some stories, but since I live in Oregon, it never happened. We talked, question and answer dialog via email, sometimes even personal messaging and live Chat through Facebook. Over a few months, we managed to put together Marvin’s basic Playland timeline. I always had tons of questions trying to fill in blanks or expand on certain concepts or stories.

 

At one point, Marvin was in the hospital. He would email or message me from the hospital telling me he wanted to finish his Playland History. I'd always say, “Don't Worry, Marv! Wait till you feel better, don't worry about this stuff..” Marvin's dedication to maintaining Playland's history was nothing less than heroic. We never got back to Marv's Playland History, but he still interacted with our Facebook group, commenting on current subjects. His last comments were literally only days before he passed... Marvin truly had a 'Heart of Gold' when it came to giving his time and generosity to Playland's memory.

 

In putting together Marvin's Playland oral history, I've decided to use Marvin Voice instead of my own. I've merely put his words together to tell his story. My words just fill in to create a storyline flow.

 

-Mike Winslow

 

 

 

 

 

Here are Marvin’s Playland memories....

 

I was born in San Francisco in 1953 and grew up one block from Laffin’ Sal and the Fun House at Playland-at-the-Beach. In January of 1955, my family purchased the house at 794 48th Avenue.

 

I attended Lafayette Elementary School (37 Ave. @ Anza), Presidio Middle School (30th @ Clement) and I graduated from Lowell High School (class of '71).

My first memories of Playland started around 1958, I was about five. Like most kids, I remember riding the rides and going to the Fun House. Almost without exception, I always went to the Fun House.

 

Between 1959 and 1961, my Dad (Saul Gold) worked Playland's Gaming Wheels on the weekend, part time. Some of the guys who he worked with got to know me over the years, so I would often play some of the games for free, like Skee-Ball and Pok-A-Rol. But not Fascination, it was an ADULT ONLY game back then.

 

I grew up eating many different foods at Playland, but the Pie Shops Chicken Turnovers with its thick creamy gravy was my favorite.

 

Playland was part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. Since I lived only one block from Playland, I would often go to bed with the sound of Laffin Sal cackling.

 

Working at Playland

I started working at Playland as a teenager in 1968 and worked there until the park closed on September 4th, 1972. During those years I held every job you could have at Playland. I ran various games like Fascination and worked on most of the rides including the Merry-Go-Round, Dodger, and Fun House. I was the fry cook in the Merry-Go-Round Restaurant one summer and worked on maintenance/repair when needed.

 

In 1968, I started running the Gaucho Rack (a Cat Rack with HINGED dolls, the operator pulled one rope to reset them all at once). By the late summer of 68', I moved to the Basketball game as a regular game employee. Within one month, I had been offered "ownership" of the three games in that building (behind the Cabrillo Street Arcade), the Tick-Tac-Toe Whiffle Ball Game, The Gaucho Rack and the Basketball. The Tic-Tac-Toe was in the building that formerly housed the Greyhound Races.

 

By Sept 1968, I had people working for me running those games. My “Ownership”Lasted less than three months, when Marty Davis attempted to charge me for plush stock (stuffed animals) ifor games that did not exist! I left “games” and started running the Kiddie Rides across from the Mad Mine. Later, I Took over the Twister and shortly thereafter became a ticket seller and lead cashier for a while. (The dates all ran together after 1968)

 

From 1969-1972, I had dozens of jobs all over the park. I took over as Dodger as foreman and mechanic. Then, I ran the Popcorn Wagon in the middle of the south midway. After that, it was back to games and I ran Fascination for a while.

Merry-Go-Round restaurant (Kookie Kabob) Courtesy of Dennis O'Rorke

I went from running the Merry-Go-Round to fry cook and manager of the Merry-Go-Round Restaurant. I worked my way over to the Fun House and became the Pit guy and foreman. By 1972, I was the “break guy,” running everything as needed. Often opening and closing the park day.

The “BAD” Rides

 

I would never operate the Fly-o-plane or Diving Bell, I thought they were dangerous. (If NOT ran properly) I almost got stuck in the Diving Bell when being trained and I saw a ride supervisor mishandle the controls of the Fly-O-Plane when training someone else. All the planes came crashing down; thankfully no one was on it.

 

 

Fun House “Pit” Man Marvin

The "PIT" at the Fun House had controls for “all” the attractions inside, powering the platform for the rocking horses, barrel of fun, moving sidewalks (the click-clacks in front of the rest rooms) and moving bridges (whacky Walkways) by the Cabrillo St. windows. The Pit also ran all four sets of moving stairs. There were two rows of big handles that controlled the air jets, each jet had its own handle. The Joy Wheel entry Turnstile was ran with a foot pedal. The power and speed settings for the Joy Wheel could all be controlled from the Pit.... All these attractions were run by one man, the Pit man.

I have a funny memory of my friend since kindergarten, Tracey.... I remember him riding a cake of wax down the big slide and FLYING over the last two humps. The Big Slide was not polished.... It was WAXED! I walked up it to wax it with chucks of hobby wax (candle making wax).

 

Playland People

I have many memories of people I've met and/or worked with over the years.

Guy and Charlie were two older gentleman that I knew due to my dad working the gaming wheels in '59, '60 and '61 part time. They worked together in the Fascination building on the Pok-A-Roll tables across from the five penny pitched.

 

 

George worked at Playland a number of years and ended up a Muni Driver. He ran the Blanket Wheel in the Fascination Building across from Pok-A-Rol, this later became the Participation Race Game and the Bump Racer gambling game. George also ran the Skee-Ball games.

 

Participation was operated around a horse race track style table with eight colored marbles acting as the horses. You bet chips on one or more horses and then you tried to help them win with little jets of air that you could control with buttons at you playing area. Winning horses gave winning players “point tickets” based on certain somewhat random odds. I have three of the colored balls and a couple of the chips stowed away.

 

The Bump Racers was a large chrome race cars that the players would chose. You would push a spring at either end of the counter, the car would bounce back off the spring. Where it stopped was the winning number. The Bump Racer was the last attempt to resurrect the old gambling games. The gambling games (which were NOT supposed to be related to gambling) had been a major revenue back in the day, but all Betting (Gambling) games were shut down in 1964.

 

 

Bill Smit Jr. and Bill Smit Sr.

(This is Robert Smit's Dad and Grandfather)

Bill Smit Jr., I knew because of my mom always played Fascination and that was his game for years. His dad, Bill Smit Sr, was the man who would yell at all the local kids for playing in the empty lot next to his home on 48th Ave, between Cabrillo and Fulton. He was the cranky old man of the neighborhood. But once I took over the Merry-Go-Round, he saw how genuinely I loved and cared for it. We quickly became close friends.

 

Before the band organs were sold off, he would change their paper music roles and we would talk while he worked. He had saved half of a wooden barrel of merry-go-round “Brass rings.” The brass ring machine was removed in 1948. Bill had stored the rings in a back room. In 1969, he gave me the barrel with a 1000 rusty rings! They stayed in my garage for another 25 years. I met Robert Smit at John Wickett's Playland Party which was held at his museum of the exotica. Sal and other Playland artifacts were stored there, like Laffin Sal (#4). Robert and I became friends. A friend of his cleaned all the rings for us and I game him half. The remainder of his half he sold to Playland-NOT-at-the-Beach so that we have a supply of REAL Playland Carousel rings in our Playland NOT at the Beach gift shop.

 

 

Management

Marty (Davis) was a showman before Playland, but mostly a crook (shyster) at Playland. Cookie was OK but thought too much of himself. Tommy (Pop) Deavers was great, very knowledgeable about every aspect of the rides and a good friend. Al Rodin GM and his wife Marilyn ran the office were great and kept in touch after Playland.

 

Cookie (Karoush Sahame) a proud Persian who could be a real pain as the ride supervisor. He was always hiring Iranian and Iraqi students to work at Playland and some of them did not speak any English, making it hard on the public.

 

Tommy "Pop" Deavers and his family came in with West Coast Shows and stayed pretty much to the end. He was really like a second dad. He took me under his wing, taught me a lot about the rides and maintenance. He had a son about my age, Larry, that everyone call "Dinkie" (he was short for his age), but he had no fear. He would climb the rides while they were running.

 

Chutes Tunnel

*Ed Note: The story of the Chutes Tunnel came about during me questioning Marvin about the Chutes Ride. I had asked what ever happened to the underground tunnel. Well.... of course Marv not only knew the answer, but sent me a map! These were the type of stories we were starting to expand on... during our chat sessions for the oral history.... - MW

 

I walked thru it a number of times to get to the power vault under the midway. The Chutes tunnel ran from under a trap door in the floor of the Cat Rack parallel to the midway, under the Fascination Building, to the grating next to the Cabrillo Street Arcade. The west tunnel was kept accessible because it had a PG&E power room off it. Before the main gift shop was built behind Pok-A-Rol in the Fascination Building there was another access point. Steel sidewalk grates that were covered by the Gift Shop construction (would have been approx. where the North West corner of the Bashmobile foundation ended). I walked it a couple of times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four arrows, one points to the black line I put in to indicate the hard wall, closing off the east side of the tunnel. The other three show approx. the 3 tunnel access locations. The northern most was further up the midway in the Cat Rack. The middle was the two door side-walk type access that you'd see in front of many businesses that had lower floor storage. The south most was next to the side of my basketball game just passed the Cabrillo Street Arcade.

 

 

Playland Riots (?)

Both started at the Skating Rink and were basically protests that turned nasty after the session would not leave the rink. Papers blamed Playland, but when you have a crowd of young folks crowding down the midway swinging the skates overhead at anyone in the way, it looks like a riot. I know other have different memories of both I was there for one of them and at home for the other. (Windows were broken and people were injured)

 

Marvin and the Looff Merry-Go-Round

I was recently involved in the mechanical restoration of Playland’s historic 1906 Looff Merry-Go-Round which reopened May 17th 2014 after extensive work was complete. The ride is the only major attraction to survive the demise of Playland intact and has been operating daily at 4th and Howard Streets in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Garden since October 17th, 1998. *Ed Note: Marvin is the only person to have run the Merry-Go-Round at both the Playland and Yerba Buena Garden locations.

 

Playland NOT at the Beach

I moved to the East Bay community of San Pablo in 2000 and immediately became involved in helping build Playland-NOT-at-the-Beach in El Cerrito. I give a presentation on their behalf. I volunteer there regularly and am considered the in-house historian. I lead discussions of the history of the park and give tours of our facility. We are a (501) (C) (3) non-profit community based organization and have been open weekends since May 31st, 2008. We have 35 pinball machines of all ages all set on free play, exhibits, midway games and party rooms. We keep the fun alive by preserving the history of Playland and the atmosphere of the amusement park. We have hundreds of photos and artifacts from Playland and form other amusement parks and have TWO Laffin’ Sals inside. We are Pay-One-Price at the door and all of the antique nickelodeon machines, pinballs and midway game are free to play and to win tickets for prizes.

 

Playland-NOT-at-the-Beach has supported the local community with donations to schools and organizations of parties and gifts that those organizations either use as prizes at their affairs, or auction off as fundraising comes around each year.

For more information on Playland-NOT-at-the-Beach, please go to the website at:

www.Playland-not-at-the-beach.org

 

*Ed Note: This was all the info we have for Marvin's oral History. Marvin had tons of stories, history and info to share. If you want more of Marvin's Playland memories, I would suggest James R Smith's book, Playland: the Golden Years. Also, the Remembering Playland DVD, where you can see and hear Marvin talk about Playland. The Gold family has requested any donations for Marvin to go to Playland Not at the Beach, where his memories and our live on.... - MW

 

Donations in honor of Marvin be made to

Playland-Not-at-the-Beach: P.O. Box 894, El Cerrito, CA 94530

 

Thanks for the memories Marvin!