Clearly having the time of their lives
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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No shit, every kid looks fucking miserable
They're in a cage bolted to the ceiling
I was assuming it moves.
I'm dating myself a bit here, but I was on something very similar to this as a young kid and it fucking rocked! I still think about it to this day. Amazing memory.
That's a child cage with really good PR.
I want this in a dispensary.
Just kids, riding around the ceiling in a train, to really creep you out?
Yes.
When you want to get high but end up getting high
Wanamaker's, most of it passed over the toy department
ETA: that's according to my mom. I was looking through an old photo album and saw a photo of her and my uncle. They both look very happy, my uncle is pointing down at something.
Apparently we had relatives there and before Christmas they always visited and went to Wanamaker's. Mom said it was the highlight of the trip (as kids), all the newest toys and you got to ride a monorail. After that they went to the restaurant and had a 'snowball' which was vanilla ice cream, rolled in coconut, with a plastic sprig of holly on top.
My childhood did not involve monorails and it shows
Ha! Yes, put the kiddies in the holding cell trains and drive them by all the fun toys. I like it.
is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Kids weren't as fat as nowadays back then
There isn't even a chance it could propell itself forward, three way it's attached
I wonder how well those were maintained
Not well, those kids have hardly any mechanical engineering experience.
I laughed really good at that. Good one.
I call the big one Bitey.
There are some great videos on YouTube exploring the history of these. There were multiple department stores that invested in similar kiddie rail systems. For example, Rich’s in Atlanta had one called the “Pink Pig” (it was painted pink).
Yep, here is a great documentary about them:
I can really recommend this channel, it has videos about several interesting topics:
The history of barcodes
How the Spruce Goose was moved to Oregon
That time when Sweden and Germany sent over high speed trains to the US on a sales tour.
The strange bus that drove in the sky.
Modulex, Lego's grown up cousin.
And more.
There was one of these in Rochester NY at the Midtown Shoping Center until the early 00s, they would set it up during Christmas and it would go through a fake mountain. It was a blast I think it was the same exact design as this one.
Some wonderfully suited fellow must have sold them on it.
mini-monojail
This has got to be Peak Department Store Era, when it seems some made the effort to make visiting them an event.
Stores were in downtown, right? Among the skyscrapers.
As late as the 1970s, when I was a boy, I think I remember visiting the old Downtown of Los Angeles near Christmas and it still had at least one of its' old big chain stores, I remember walking down the street outside and looking at the Nativity and Santa Claus displays in the storefront windows.
They had also installed Christmas decorations and lights in Downtown, hanging overhead, that entire hazy memory is quite magical. Then in the blink of an eye, it seems, before my mind was fully developed, everything switched to malls near suburbs.
The thing is I can still glimpse a tiny bit that old era in my mind. Then I can clearly see the mall era when downtowns crumbled, and then the new re-emergence of this part of cities as a desirable place to be or visit.
Christmas has long since lost its magic to me, probably because they start it in July now.