The Bronx’s Failed Answer to Disneyland, Freedomland, Opened 60 Years Ago Today

On June 19, 1960 The Bronx’s premiere amusement park opened its doors in the northeast section of the borough.

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.

During its short life, millions of visitors enjoyed this fabled theme park now buried deep in our history and the memories of Bronxites who went there.