Bowcraft Closed and It's Sad to Read

Bowcraft amusement park, the one-time amusement park not located at the shore closed in 2016. Actually it’s tough to decide which is sadder, the Yelp reviews that say the park was old, rusty, and out-dated in its final days or that it had to be put out of its misery. The games weren’t updated. I wish I had a chance to see it one last time. I wonder if I would’ve believed it even if I was there. How do you let an amusement park decline? 

In the 1980s, Bowcraft was a fun exciting place. New Jersey boasts Great Adventure which is miles of rides and games. There is of course, the shore. Bowcraft was a smaller place in North Jersey, but it had all the fun points. 

You had the fun carnival rides like Scrambler. You sit in a bench seat with a bar over your lap. The center of the ride spins and there are long arms from that center. The cars you sit in are at the end of the arms. These arms go out and retract and the whole thing spins. You in the car seat slide  and you go around in a circle. The seats reaches out almost to the fence around the ride and then it pulls back in. It’s dizzying and fast and so much fun. 

The swings are always popular. They raise up so your legs dangle and you go around in a circle. It’s not super thrills but it’s a fun ride.

They had the ever popular Merry-Go-Round.

It’s not just rides. The arcade had rows of games. I went in the arcade during the golden age of the early 1980s. I played PAC-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede and race cars. 

I once saw someone win a prize with that crane game. Some of the games gave you tickets when you play long enough and win enough. You play games like Skee-ball for hours and get a long length of tickets. There would be cases of prizes to cash in those tickets, everything from toys to televisions. You bring that long tape of tickets to the cashier and find that you have 50 points. The toasters were 50,000 points. What would you ultimately get? A really thick pencil that didn’t write well, a few plastic Army man figures, maybe some cards. Back then there were baseball cards, but also rock stars had card series, movies scene were available on cards. You played for fun, but the prizes sucked. When you’re a kid, it’s a prize so it’s awesome.

As you can read, I haven’t been there in 30 years and yet I remember how much fun Bowcraft was.