A Walk Through Thompson & Dundy’s Luna Park, Coney Island

We made it to a third of our Kickstarter goal yesterday! Keep if coming folks! Coney Island Scan-A-Rama won’t happen without YOU! A huge round of thanks to everyone who’s backed so far and please keep telling your friends! We’re still looking for big ticket backers who want to throw the party of the 21st century and have 3D figurines made of all their guests. If you know party planners, someone putting on Bar or Bat Mitzvas, corporate event organizers or sports team owners who might be interested in our big reward, please let us know or send them on over to our Kickstarter page today!

Scan-A-Rama is starting to get picked up by a bunch of news sources- both in the mainstream media and in the 3D printing circles. A few notable pieces of press this weekend:

• Brooklyn’s News 12 came out and did a piece yesterday: Coney Island business owner making action figures of residents using 3D printer
  http://brooklyn.news12.com/news/coney-island-business-owner-making-action-figures-of-residents-using-3d-printer-1.5734193
• 3D Printer World: 3D Printing Becomes A Coney Island Sideshow Act
  http://www.3dprinter-world.com/article/3d-printing-becomes-coney-island-sideshow-act
• 3D Printing Industry: The Great Fredini’s Scan-A-Rama 3D Portrait Booth
  http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/07/22/the-great-fredinis-scan-a-rama-3d-portrait-booth/

So far during the campaign, I’ve spent a lot of my time talking about the 3D scanned portraits, but I wanted to spend some time today talking about the other half of this project: recreating Thompson & Dundy’s Luna Park as it stood a hundred years ago. I’ve always been fascinated by the fantasy architecture that Frederic Thompson created for Luna Park. I always think of him as the original postmodern architect- the way he mixed and matched contrasting architectural styles to evoke an other worldy experience. Elements he included drew from a range of inspirations; eastern minarets, pagodas, hindu temples, mediaval fortresses, Venetian palazzos, futuristic warships, renaissance grandeur and fairy tale castles were all part of his artist’s palette. The eyes were kept constantly moving and entertained by the fantasy lunar landscape he created. As night fell the entire city was transformed again as it was lit with over 100, 000 of Edison’s newly invented lightbulbs. Nothing was meant to last- it was all plaster and lath, and the landscape changed every year the park was open.

I’ve been collecting photos and postcards of Luna Park for over 25 years now. In support of Coney Island Scan-A-Rama I’ve begun building a Flickr set of imagery that I’ve gathered over the years. I’ve seeded it with a bunch of photos and postcards, but I’ve got a lot more that are in the process of being scanned and uploaded. I’ve included a map and have attempted to organize them as a walkthrough from the entrance on back to Shoot the Chutes.  See my Flickr set of Thompson & Dundy’s Luna Park here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredini/sets/72157634730208487