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Park News - (5/1/2025) I’m not quite sure how this will work, but according to the local news, an “emergency order” has been issued by the local politicos to “expedite the opening of Playland Amusement Park” for the 2025 season. The emergency order is supposed to allow the County to hire someone to inspect the rides and “secure all necessary supplies” to operate and maintain the park and rides. Ironically, since there is no time for a ‘competitive bidding” process, they’ve also hired Zamperla to handle the emergency work on the rides to get things up and running.
   I say ironically, because back when the County was handling bids from operators to run Rye Playland for them, when they chose Standard Amusements, they passed over a bid from Central Amusement International, which was an affiliate of ride manufacturer Zamperla. Zamperla also owns and operates Luna Park at Coney Island, NY, so running a park like Playland would not have been out of character for Zamperla.
    Of course, while this will handle the hardware part of the equation to get Rye Playland up and running, there is likely to be a long difficult road ahead in terms of hiring and training all the necessary staff they will need to open the park as well, so stay tuned for more updates.
 
    (4/25/2025) As previously suspected, the actual opening for Rye Playland this season is still in Limbo after Standard Amusements used their exit clause to remove themselves from the operational contract to run the park for the county. They cited too many difficulties in the operating relationship with the county, including a lack of the county in keeping up their end of the deal on several projects for the park area.
    While Standard exited the picture months ago, the County claimed that they would get the park open themselves, one way or another, but as of yet, they have been unable to even set a opening date for the 2025 season. I believe previously that Playland was typically known to open the second Saturday in May, but so far everything is still kind of up in the air for the 2025 season.
 
    (1/31/2025) While Standard Amusements is exiting their role in running Playland Park, a local county official states that the park will still be ready to open on time for the 2025 season. However, since the whole reason Standard Amusements was brought in to run the park was because the county really had not been doing a very good job of it for the years they had control, many are hesitant to believe that they can launch the 2025 season without a hitch.
    So it may be best to limit your expectations until we get a bit closer to opening day, which the current website calendar has listed as May 17th, 2025. 
 
    (1/23/2025) All is not well between Rye Playland and Standard Amusements it seems. According to an article at Lohud, Standard Amusements has sent a letter to Westchester Country only 3 years into the 30-year deal for Standard to run the Playland amusement park stating that they want to bring the deal to an end.
    According to the article, Standard seems to terminate the contract on Feb. 20, 2025 (about 3 months before the 2025 season should start) and is now seeking $57 million in damages and repayment for their investment into the park. Much like a early divorce from a bad marriage, one way or another, Standard is leaving and if Playland is to operate at all for the 2025 season, it will be up to the county to run it once again.
    According to the letter from Standard Amusements, the county has failed to complete 70% of their promised capital improvements by an April 24, 2024 date that was required in the contract. As a result of this failure, apparently it entitled Standard Amusements “to $11 million in liquidated damages plus the repayment of funds invested by Standard, with 12% interest”.
    In total… $57 million.
    Even before the deal with signed, there was a lot of bad blood and arguments between various political groups about how the park should be run, who should be doing it, and go on. Once the deal was signed the political power struggles didn’t end, which briefly saw the park’s “tax exempt” status revoked for a time, and it was only restored by a ruling by the state supreme court, while an appeal is still waiting to be heard. So unfortunate that things couldn’t have worked out for the betterment of the park, so we’ll have to wait to see how things turn out next.
 
    (5/20/2024) Playland Park announced a couple of days ago that the park’s Gondola Wheel attraction is now “closed until further notice”, but you won’t believe why. This isn’t a maintenance issue, rather the park had come to notice that the top of one of the gondolas was being used as a Osprey next. So to protect the birds, they are leaving the ride closed for the time being.

 

2025 - Nothing is known at this time...