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"Ocean
City Nights - 1965" by Paul McGehee. The southern end of the Boardwalk
in Ocean City, Maryland was THE place to be back in 1965. After a day
on the beach, what better way to spend an evening than enjoying the
amusements, arcade attractions, carnival rides and food. If you didn't
want to walk all the way to the end of the boards, you could take the
Boardwalk Train...fare 25 cents, one way. In this scene the train is
approaching the turnaround to let passengers off, and following that,
take on new passengers heading back to their hotel and motel rooms up
the Boardwalk. As you can see, in this time period of the mid-1960's
the extreme southern end of the Boardwalk was concrete at the train
turnaround, arcades and amusements area, whereas the remainder of the
3-mile long Boardwalk was wooden. Today at this spot it is a
combination; wood for foot traffic and concrete for the train. The
Trimper's Haunted House is visible in the center of the scene, then in
its second season as it had just opened its creaking doors in 1964.
Designed by the legendary dark ride artist Bill Tracy, The Haunted
House in this time period had not yet opened its upper level and
balcony to the coffin-cars...that came with the expansion in 1988. In
1965, the cost of taking a coffin-car through the spooky dark ride was
only 25 cents! Families loved to come down to the amusements at night
back in the '60's when cares were few and a few dollars went far. The
sights and sounds of the rides, the children's laughter, the
Wurlitzer-style band organ music at the antique Merry-go-Round and
kiddie rides, the arcades where you could win prizes if you were
skilled at throwing darts at balloons, or fishing for rubber ducks, or
shooting basketballs, or tossing a ring over the neck of a bottle, or
hitting the target at the bb-gun shooting range. Happy times. The
smells of french fries from Thrasher's, or fried chicken from Dayton's,
or sugary confections from Dolle's Candyland, or buttery kettle corn
from Fisher's, or fresh pizzas spun by hand at Tony's...all become
memories that stick with you for the rest of your life. Although built
up a little more in modern times, Ocean City still retains much of the
spirit of the old days...a simply great family beach with fun times to
be had for all ages.
"Ocean City Nights - 1965" is faithfully reproduced as an
archival-quality print from McGehee's original color pencil and acrylic
artwork, in a limited edition of only 2,000 pieces each hand-signed by
the artist. Print image size 10 1/2" x 16 1/2".
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