Kennywood’s kitschy Noah’s Ark funhouse survives floods and repeated rehabs

Like the story of its biblical namesake, the 81-year journey of the Noah’s Ark walk-through attraction at Pennsylvania’s Kennywood theme park is a tale of survival against seemingly insurmountable odds.

The last theme park ark ever built has survived repeated rehabs and misguided makeovers to emerge as the last-of-its-kind attraction in operation and an icon of the Pittsburgh-area park.

The fourth major rehab of the 1936 ark’s history is expected to be completed in time for Kennywood’s opening day on Saturday. A grand re-opening of the classic attraction is scheduled for May 25.

The West Mifflin, Pa., theme park dates to 1898, when the Kenny’s Grove picnic area was transformed into a trolley park with the addition of a carousel, casino and dance hall. Over the next few years, the park added an Old Mill dark ride and a figure eight toboggan coaster.

With more than a dozen pre-World War II rides, the quaint and nostalgic 92-acre park has been named to the National Register of Historic Places for its collection of “rare, exceptional and highly representative historic amusements.”

Kennywood boasts a long history of carnival funhouses dating back to 1902 when the first “pavilion of fun” opened with a crazy staircase and an earthquake floor. Over the first two decades of the 20th century, a string of funhouses operated at the park under names like House of Trouble, Laughing Gallery, Daffy Dilla Fun Factory and Hilarity Hall. The gags and stunts — including electric shockers, upside down rooms and a human roulette wheel — remained Kennywood mainstays until the funhouses fell out of favor in the 1950s. Noah’s Ark remains the last link to the park’s funhouse heritage.

Built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, the Kennywood ark underwent major overhauls in 1941, 1969 and 1996. The latest rehab seeks to restore the retro attraction to its 1969 state.

The world’s first Noah’s Ark attraction appeared at the Venice Beach pier in 1919. More than three dozen copies followed in the 1920s and ‘30s at places like New York’s Coney Island and Ohio’s Cedar Point as well as parks in the United Kingdom and Australia. The Kennywood ark was the last one built in 1936 and remains the last one in operation today after the closure in 2008 of the ark at the U.K.’s Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

All of the Noah’s Ark walk-through attractions were essentially carnival funhouses in the shape of the biblical boat from the Genesis flood story — complete with appearances by the prophet ark builder and pairs of animals. Visitors walked through a maze inside the boat filled with physical stunts and visual gags as the massive ark gently rocked back and forth on an inverted pendulum.

Over the decades, Kennywood’s ark changed with the times, usually for the worse. During World War II, an Adolf Hitler corpse filled a coffin prop. In the 1950s, a television antennae appeared on the roof of the ark. By the 1960s, Snoopy and a menagerie of other animals circled the ship on a motorized track.

The original 1936 Kennywood ark was built at a cost of $20,000 and featured hand-carved animals, according to Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts, a volunteer organization dedicated to the classic attractions. Construction of the Kennywood ark was delayed by the great St. Patrick’s Day flood, the worst flooding in Pittsburgh’s recorded history.

The first major revamp in 1941 added stunts like falling barrels, shaking floorboards and tilted rooms along with ghosts and skeletons. Air jets hidden in the ark’s entrance ramp were a favorite gag of delighted onlookers who watched the powerful blasts blow up women’s skirts and knock off men’s hats.

The 1969 renovation introduced new funhouse stunts as well as a ground-level entrance to the ark through a whale’s mouth along a squishy tongue.

As the ark entered its sixth decade of service, the attraction was beginning to show its age. As work crews embarked on the attraction’s third major overhaul, they made a startling discovery: The ark was on the verge of falling apart. Kennywood management had to make a choice: Tear down the old ark or completely rebuilt it.

Opting to save Noah’s Ark, the 1996 overhaul sought to modernize the aging attraction with a high-tech storyline that turned visitors into archaeologists touring the recently uncovered dig site of the ancient ark. As fate would have it, severe flooding in the Pittsburgh region once again accompanied construction on the ark.

Parkgoers were not pleased with the updated 4.0 version of the ark. Long-time fans bemoaned the passing of the quirky old attraction and longed nostalgically for the beloved whale mouth entrance — replaced by an Elevator of Doom in the modern makeover.

The latest rehab effectively guts the octogenarian ark of the storytelling inconsistencies introduced in past renovations and reintroduces 20-plus classic scenes from the attraction’s original Bible story. Returning to the roots of the attraction, the Mach V ark brings back the menagerie of 50 wild animals along with favorite funhouse gags and stunts.

“Ultimately, it was clear that our guests did not want a ‘high-tech’ Noah’s Ark,” said Kennywood spokesman Nick Paradise. “They wanted the kitschy, cheesy gags of the classic Noah’s Ark and the retro funhouse. So we are going back to the beginning in a lot of ways.”

After the latest rehab is complete, all that will remain of the original 1936 attraction will be the subterranean ark-rocking mechanism, the shaking floorboards and the cement foundation. Much to the delight of old-time fans of the classic ark, visitors will once again enter through the mouth of a blue whale along a squishy tongue made of rubbery playground flooring.

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