Traditions, community and memories
As someone who grew up less than a mile away from an amusement park, I will probably never understand the intense dedication Brownsville residents have to their annual Kennywood Day.
For more than 100 years, the residents of Brownsville have been going to Kennywood on the first Thursday of August as a benefit for the town’s volunteer fire departments. Thirty years ago, the firefighters dressed in drag to promote ticket sales.
As a reporter, I have written numerous articles about Brownsville’s Kennywood Day and have spoken to countless residents about the tradition and its importance to them. One local man boasts that he was only a month old the first time he went to Kennywood. Another friend lamented that she missed her first possible Kennywood Day when she was just a week old and her mother left her at home. Her mother had once gone to Kennywood while nine months pregnant, going with a doctor and nurse who lived in the community and “would have been going anyhow.”
That is a level of commitment I can appreciate, but will never totally understand.
I grew up within walking distance of West View Park, just north of Pittsburgh. In fact, the park was the furthest point to the north of the city for the trolley lines at one time. Folks from all areas of the city flocked to West View not only for the amusement rides, but for concerts at the outdoor amphitheater and dances at Danceland, most of which occurred before I was aware of more than Kiddyland and the pony rides with real ponies.
My brother, who is six years older than I am, worked as a busboy in the park’s cafeteria. Mothers would threaten their children that he would take their food away if they didn’t settle down and eat, making it one of the worst jobs he ever had. Years later when it was time for me to look for a summer job, he paid me to type bills for his gardening business to keep me from working at the park. Of course, since many of my friends worked there, I still hung out at the park that summer, one of the last that it was open before being sold and turned into a strip mall.
Discount ride tickets were readily available at grocery stores and schools handed out complimentary tickets for the annual school picnic, but you didn’t see firefighters dressed in drag hawking tickets like you did in Brownsville 30 years ago on “Old Battle Ax” night.
West View Park was just down the street, a fixture that was always there. It was the place to watch Fourth of July fireworks and to ice skate in the winter. It wasn’t a once a year treat, it was part of the community, where local kids had their first date or just hung out with friends on a summer evening.
West View Park closed just after I left for college. It will always be a part of my childhood memories. The Brownsville residents may not have that proximity, but they have one benefit I don’t have — they get to actively live their childhood memories with their children and grandchildren.
Wishing everyone a happy 103rd Brownsville Kennywood Day!