Thursday, December 10, 2015
WPA abides
Now that I'm on a Manhattan history kick again, I started looking for web refs. Unsurprisingly the Kansas State Historical Society is still the best source of heavy documents and articles. The Riley County Museum has a moderately active page with occasional articles.
Sunset Zoo is highly active. The zoo has used social media to create a serious fanbase that knows all the animals by name. Smart! Built-in lobby for city funding.
Sunset Park, like most of Manhattan's visible infrastructure, was built by WPA. When I lived near there in the '60s, the zoo was badly maintained and deteriorating. Nobody would have bothered to name those raggedy animals. A family lived in a cottage on the grounds, taking care of the park and feeding the animals, with occasional intervention by the K-State vet med school. In the '70s K-State took more control, turning the zoo into more of a practicum site, and the city modernized the rest of the park. Even after lots of remodeling, the original WPA cages are still in use, unchanged since the '30s.
Probably for litigious reasons, the cleanup also removed the part of the zoo that was most interesting to kids:
The rides!
Kiwanis maintained this little amusement park and ran the rides on weekends in summer. There was no fence around the area, so I was always wandering and climbing when it wasn't in use. Mysteriously, I somehow survived and didn't feel the need to sue anyone. Obviously this was impossible. No kid could survive such a horrible experience.
The rides!
Kiwanis maintained this little amusement park and ran the rides on weekends in summer. There was no fence around the area, so I was always wandering and climbing when it wasn't in use. Mysteriously, I somehow survived and didn't feel the need to sue anyone. Obviously this was impossible. No kid could survive such a horrible experience.Labels: Danbo
¶ 5:22 AM
