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PLAYLAND PARK SCHEDULED TO OPEN IN MAY

 

Meet us at the Dragon Coaster!

[Rye, NY] – The countdown is on! Playland Park is preparing to welcome guests back for another unforgettable summer filled with classic thrills, family fun and the unmistakable magic that has defined generations of Westchester memories. Visitors can once again soar above the shoreline on the iconic Gondola Wheel, take a spin on the historic Grand Carousel, and enjoy the timeless charm of Kiddyland rides – while savoring favorite park treats and new food offerings throughout the grounds.

•         Preseason Opening Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17

•         Grand Opening Saturday, May 23

This year marks Playland’s 98th season, and with it comes the highly anticipated return of the beloved Dragon Coaster. The reopening of this historic landmark signals a major milestone and underscores the County’s continued commitment to preserving and revitalizing one of Westchester’s most treasured attractions.

Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said: “Playland is one of Westchester’s most cherished destinations and a place where many fond childhood memories are made. As we welcome the 2026 season, I’m excited for visitors to experience everything Playland has to offer, including rides and games, treats, and Friday night fireworks. It is sure to be a memorable summer for all. I’ll meet you at the Dragon Coaster!”

Commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation, Kathy O’Connor said: “Playland is synonymous with summer in Westchester and has been a source of pride for our community for nearly a century. Opening the park every year is special, but this year guests will experience the full Playland tradition they know and love.”

Fourth of July Fireworks will return this year, along with weekly Friday night fireworks thereafter.

Following Memorial Day Weekend from Saturday, May 23 through Monday, May 25, the park will follow a Wednesday through Sunday schedule for the remainder of the season, through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7. The park will also be open Saturday and Sunday Sept. 12 and 13. The beach will open on a preseason basis beginning Saturday, May 23 at 11 a.m., then will open on a full-summer schedule with the pool on Friday, June 26 and will be open daily, weather permitting, through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7. The park’s full schedule and operating hours are available here. Parking is $15 per car and $20 on holidays, park admission is always free, and rider wristbands are available and listed on the website.

For group sales, please call: (914) 813-7021. Season pass information will be announced soon.

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to say up-to-date on all information as it becomes available.

 

 

 

WPCNR TURNING BACK THE HANDS OF TIME. By John F. Bailey. March 8, 2026:

I walked back into New York City’s past Saturday.

I walked UP all 4 narrow  steep red-carpeted stairs all 72 steps past a kitchen where Irish immigrant girls of the past cooked 8 course meals on a cast iron stove, responded to bells at all hours to the Joseph Brewster Family whims, three plush original Empire couch furnished parlors with cast iron fireplaces and feather-bed canopy bedrooms of the Brewster and Treadway families.

It is the 1832 Brewster House on East 4^th Street.

As seen in 1936.

The  narrow home built in 1832 as it looks today before scaffolding (now surrounding it) to repair the exterior

Perhaps the oldest home in New York City, now threatened by a developer who wants to build next to it.   It is now at the mercy of the City Landmarks Commission. If anything is worth preserving it is this step  (72 of them on the staircases) back in the early 19^thCentury.

I like to think this is the first walk-up before the tenements of the Lower East Side, yet it is the first walkup where Jacob Brewster a hardware merchant built this house.

It was a mansion for its time. A house with servants, cooks, and a center of the social whirl of the high society of its time. Where ladies called on the ladies of the Brewster House presented personal cards and socialized with the mistress of the home in the posh parlors where Mrs. Brewster spend her day because her skirts were too wide to go up and down her stair 4 steps of stairs.

Where entertainments were held and eight-course dinners served out of a surprisingly efficient kitchen run by cooks and  serving girls of the time who after immigrating from Ireland were able to find jobs as cooks and servants for 2 dollars to 7 dollars a day, and free lodging in the attic.

The Brewster exterior is being renovated at the present time, and you enter through the small park next to it on East 4^th Street. If you are fascinated by the past it is a trip  you must take to see.

The television and streaming programs that glamorize the past and make us long for the simpler days of this Hollywood-imagined elegance are put to shame by the realities of what life was like. Candlelight at night until gaslights came to the home in about the 1850s then electric lights in the late 19^th century. One ancestor lived her entire life in the house (she died in 1933). The house is the first Designated Landmark building  to be recognized in 1965 by the Landmark Commission.

THE KITCHEN ON FIRST FLOOR

 

THE FAMILY ROOM WHERE FAMILY ROOM ATE

The extremely knowledgeable guide taking the 10 person group on the kitchen to attic tour told the colorful history of the house with detailed vignette tales of  parties, servant life, a homemaker’s  routine and the advantages of rainwater water supply as opposed to city well water and how bathing was done, hotwater was not favored at that time. Showers were not available. I came away with the feeling that the glamorized past of Hollywood westerns and costume dramas paint a sanitized version of what it was like living distant times.

The Parlor for Receiving Visitors.

 

The Upstairs PARLORS RESERVED FOR ENTERTAINING

THE ENTRANCE TO THE SECOND PARLOR UPSTAIRS AND BELOW THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD HIDING PLACE BUILT INTO THE WALLS OF THE HOUSE COMPLETE WITH LADDER LEADING TO STREET

PROOF of The underground railroad –hiding place on the fourth floor 

Your guide explains the abolitionist movement of which Jacob Brewster was very much a supporter. You see the tunnel Brewster had built into the walls of his new home to hide runaway slaves to New York as they moved on in the Underground Railroad on their ways to Massachusetts and New England where slavery was abolished.

It is five-story tunnel  with a latter for descending. Details on what runaway slaves from the South before the Civil War researched by the society running the Brewster House were sobering. ( Slavery was not, and is not  the  wholesome existence portrayed in the novel/movie Gone With the Wind.)

From Westchester The Brewster House is accessible by train to Grand Central $29 from White Plains and the Number 6  on the world’s greatest electric train set (the subway)  to Astor Place and a short walk to 4^th Street in Greenwich Village. All pictures from the Joseph Brewster organization.