Bertrand Island Park

Bertrand Island Park sat on a finger of land jutting into Lake Hopatcong from Mount Arlington. Seventy-three summers. Opened in 1910 as a beachfront called Little Coney, then built into a full amusement park by Louis Kraus through the 1920s. The Wildcat wooden roller coaster, Philadelphia Toboggan Company #46, opened in 1925 and ran every season until the park closed. Bumper cars, the Lost River, the Whip, Skee-Ball, the June Rose Ballroom. Bette Cooper was crowned Miss Bertrand Island there in 1937, then went on to become Miss America that same year. The Illions Supreme carousel arrived the same summer. Nickel Nights started in 1950. Every Monday and Thursday, every ride was five cents. Generations of north Jersey kids spent their first parent-free nights chasing tickets, rattling down the Wildcat, eating fried dough until the lights went out. Woody Allen filmed scenes at the park for The Purple Rose of Cairo in the summer of 1983. That was the last summer. The park closed for good on Labor Day, 1983. The carousel was sold to Circus World in Florida. The Wildcat sign was salvaged out of a pile by a local 12-year-old who still has it. The land became condominiums. This shirt reproduces the artwork from a Bertrand Island Park souvenir pinback button sold at the park in its final years. Print color is a warm red, single-pass screen print. If you rode the Wildcat, you remember.

There's real structure to this one, 4.5 oz of 100% ring-spun cotton, double-stitched at the collar and sleeves for durability. It's quarter-turned rather than cut from a tube, so no crease sits down the front. On the white colorway, expect a faintly off-white cast.