Here's a great mini-arcticle regarding the Iron Lung at Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung

I was intrigued with the antique one they show that was in use from 1950s until the patient's death in 2003 - it was then donated to the Center for Disease Control Museum. I did not until this moment know that they had a museum!

What I'm not clear on is whether the patients used it only when sleeping (i.e. reduced respiratory function) or needed it 24x7 - or did it vary by patient?

...I just spotted that he has a forum and off topic/related topics are allowed. I'll start a topic in there to continue this discussion.

I certainly don't speak for this site. I'm simply cautious.

Sigh...I was too much asleep this morning when I wrote up my various posts. I should have said aceonline.org.

BTW, the posts regarding the graphic novel now really do exceed the scope of the purpose of this website as we are no longer talking about the history nor, more specifically, the photos of the park. As a courtesy to Motts we should probably move this discussion offline. If you wish to post an email address I'll contact you directly. Best wishes with your graphic novel pursuit.

Correction: I said it was unlikely that Emery P was the purchaser of the park. I meant to say that Emery P was unlikely to have been the purchaser of the House of Horrors ride.

He certainly was NOT the purchaser of the park.

Emery Picotte is a member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts. A group primarily focused on Roller Coaster rides, preservation and history. He is reachable through aceonline.com. He resides in CT. He was the organizer of the Halloween fests at RP subsequent to the parks closing. It is unlikely that he was the purchaser of the park.

The Halloween fests did not go well and he may very well be unwilling to talk to anyone about park related projects. He most likely suffered quite a bit of financial stress if not ruin in relation to these fests. I do not believe he had any connection to the park's heydey operations. Please do not that this particular paragraph falls into the category of speculation and opinion on my part.

Having now read the articles end to end myself I can now understand where the RISDE (Rhode Island School of Design for those non-familiar) connection may have come in. Vincent Crudelle's father repaired amusement park haunted house props. Vincent himself was a talented artist who did not work on Rocky Points house of horrors but did attend RI School of Design. The articles read like a gothic novel.

And this should certainly give you plenty of food for thought regarding graphic novel content...

http://www.sacreddarkness.com/interview.html

This article may be of interest to you. Knowing that you are graphic artist gives me an idea of where you may be coming from.

The gentleman discussed used to build and repair some of the props in the house.

http://www.slowart.com/articles/janello.htm

I also believe the ride evolved over time. The ride as it was in the 90s and the ride as it was in say the 50s/60s are two different things - as props broke/got replaced. I don't know anything about Bill Tracey - however because of your post I took a look at a few websites dealing with his work - conceptually I could see a visual relationship (i.e style) that is compatible with the Viking and the Dragon that were on the outside of the ride.

The owners of this park cared very little for its history. They owned this and a slew of night clubs (Narcissus/Lipstick in Boston for example) and saw it as a business only.

The shift from an exclusively family oreinted park to one featuring bands and cover bands such as Steppanwolf, Max Creek, Gloria Estefan, Level42, The Machine, Dread Zeppelin, Snap, Kenny Loggins, and others reflects the influence of owners with nightclub backgrounds.

In short, history preservation was not of paramount importance to them - they would not have broken up the carousel if it had been.

Park employees painted some of the stuff inside. Primarily the cars and the tombstones in the cemetary scene. The castle on the back wall of this room was there for as long as I could remember. When you passed through this room there was a little bit of strobe lighting effect (in another picture you can see one of the lights still remaining).

There was also blacklighting in variuos room in the house of horrors so that any white clothing you might be wearing would glow.

Someone else once said to me that some of the props were done by RISDE students - but that info is suspect. I had the impression they were speculating rather than approaching it with true knowledge.

Visual aspects - other props included a saw that cut 'through' a mannequin strapped to a table. Some sound effects created by a compressor and a scene with a 'doctor' working in a laboratory.

There was also a dragon like, or lizard like, monster located in an alcove with glowing red eyes.

You can't see it in this picture but there are two conveyors in this room. The one you can see takes the cars down. Further to the right out of sight is an identical one that took the cars up.

I'll give some thought to other visual aspect that may come back to me.

Clarification - behind where Motts is standing there is another small room where the sound system was kept.

Also, the small room on the left hand side at the far end of the picture is where the main power for the ride was kept. Behind where Motts was standing when this picture was taken is where the sound system was located for the 'scary' sounds that were piped to speakers inside the house.

1. I don't know when it got built. It was the 2nd Haunted House at the park though. Somewhere near where the Musik Express (yes Musik not Music) there was an earlier one.

2. I can remember the Viking - I think he got removed in the late eighties. As I dont think it got taken down during the open season my guess is that he got damaged in winter or perhaps Hurricane Gloria??

3. I was actually there the day of the auction (a rather dreary rainy day) but can't tell you who bought it. I can suggest that they may have bought it and then discovered that its not movable. It was a cinderblock building underneath its facade and as the ride went it was largely a conveyor system and electrical track consisting of a single guide track throughout the ride.

4. The rides were all sold integral (except the carousel which had had its original horses/animals sold separately a number of years before. Thats not to say that the purchasers may have paid their 1000 took what they wanted and left the rest.

5. If the ride was shut down for Halloween land then perhaps the purchaers took away the track and it was no longer able to run. Perhaps Motts would comment on whether there was steel track throughout the building. From the perspective of this picture the Reptile was completely off/away from any tracking and the car in the background is stopped where the electrical track would have begun (the conveyor was mechanical only).

6. When I said the cars were painted over I meant that the old pictures had become faded and needed to be redone. Fresh coats of paint of a single color were applied and the characters redrawn. However, the characters may not have ended up on their original cars! The artists probably painted a car over and then used the car behind it as the model for one they were working on. This might explain how Darth Vader got on the cars. When they got to the last car all the other cars would have been painted over already and they would not have had a model to look at - whereas locating a Darth Vader model would have been easy.

Other trivia that might be of interest to you - the cemetary scene used to have tombstones that had printed on them the names of various park employees. Mostly management and ride maintenance people

If he is still living a great source of historical information about the park could be obtained from a man named Jerry Combs. He was a park employee who started there as a ride op in I think the 1950s. He had gone away and come back to the park many times. When he was away from the park he was with traveling carnivals. He knows an awful lot about amusement park rides and his employment at the park probably predated the existence of the House Of Horrors. He tends towards having a suspicous (of other people) nature so he would probably be on his guard when you first talked to him. However, I don't know if he is still around. By now he would be at least 70.

The original seats, if they are still in the park are most likely stored in the tunnel. A narrow passageway that had train tracks inside it where the train and its cars were stored in the winters.

What sort of project? I'm not really up for a phone conversation or meeting. If you have a specific question feel free to post it here and if I know the answer I'll reply and then everyone can see. As Haunted House rides go this was not an impressive one. I'm surprised someone would be making a project out of it...

Planet of the Apes definitely. Darth Vader maybe - but I don't think he appeared until ~1992. In which case I wonder which monster/creature he replaced as they didn't buy any new cars for the ride.

Something else that just occurred to me. Something scary from Rocky Point history. A 15 year old serial killer (four murders without specific cause although he claimed botched robbery) worked there during the time he had already committed murder. You can google his name with the word killer to get more info...although none of the stories are likely to mention the park. He worked in the foods department and his name is Craig Price.

I don't think that either of the two men mentioned selected the subject. The cars had been painted with Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Reptile for years and years before either of them worked there. It would have been more accurate to say that they re-painted them. I don't mean to say that they traced an existing pattern or anything - they did actually paint them. They painted cars completely over and then drew new renditions of the creatures that had been on them before.

I never knew that it was from a Hammer film titled the Reptile though. Its kinda cool to know that. I used to wonder about that specific car because I recognized all the other creatures.

I concur with PEB. The building in the background is the Shore Dinner Hall. It served Clamcakes in the summer and operated as a flea market in the winters. There are probably still spare roller coaster cars from the Cyclone in the basement.

For those who commented on the it possibly being Windjammer/Palladium I would point out that you would not have been able to see the ocean on the right if you were facing the Windjammer/Palladium (ocean would have been behind you). From this perspective the Cliff House/Park Offices would be behind you. Incidently the Cliff House was reputed to be haunted. Several of the employees hated going into the old club section of the Cliff House which was no longer used as a club but was used as storage and was very poorly lit.

It was painted on the ride by one of two park employees of the time. Either Robert Cubellis or Robert Kemychek. The former a native of Warwick the latter from England who actually came over on an exchange program along with the college or gap year students (year off between HS and College in England) in the late 80s early 90s - although he was a few years older. Interesting guy. Was a member of a Heavy Metal band named Metallic Rose and was proficient in Kung Fu.

This carousel and an Eli Whitney Ferris wheel were the two oldest rides still operating until the park shutdown in the mid 90s. The wooden animals that made up the ride were actually sold separately several years before the park closed and were replaced with cheapy ones. I believe the collection of wooden creatures sold for more than 1 million. The carousel itself was from apprx 1895. (The Eli Whitney Ferris wheel was apprx 1920).

Someone commented that this carousel was being restored at Oakland beach. This is not so.The oakland beach carousel was a separate item that was gone many decades before the park closed. i.e. Its not the same carousel.

I know this park. The building pictured was a video arcade.