See: Rare, Color Photos of Freedomland

Before Co-op City, the world’s largest cooperative development that over 50,000 residents call home was built, there was Freedomland.

Built in the marshlands and coastal area along the Hutchinson River, Freedomland was a short lived amusement park with America as its theme.

It billed itself as the world’s largest entertainment center before changing that to world’s largest outdoor family entertainment center but regardless of what it called itself, some say it was doomed from the day it opened its doors on June 19, 1960.

From lawsuits due to accidents and conspiracy theories that it was never meant to last long and just simply serve as a test that the marshlands could sustain large structures that would pave the way for Co-op City’s construction, the park closed its doors in 1964 and demolished.

At any rate, this left us with the gem that is Co-op City home to thousands of families in the largest and truly most affordable housing in NYC especially the middle class.

Tell us what you think about the pictures and your memories of Freedomland. Sadly, I never got to go as a child. I was born over a decade later after it was demolished.

Check out the full article over at Untapped Cities by Jeff Reubens.