Coney Island (Cincinnati)

Coney Island was an amusement park and water park on the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio, next to Riverbend Music Center. It closed permanently at the end of 2023.

History

The site began in 1870 as Parker's Grove, a picnic ground on an apple farmer's land. The Ohio Grove Corporation bought it and opened it on June 21, 1886, as Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West, and the name was shortened to Coney Island in 1887. Rides were added over the following decades, including the Wildcat and Twister wooden roller coasters in 1926. Sunlite Pool opened in 1925 and was at one time the largest recirculating pool in the world.

Because the riverside park flooded often, Taft Broadcasting bought it in 1969 to build a new park on higher ground. Coney Island closed its rides on September 6, 1971, and most of them moved to Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, which opened in 1972. The old park reopened in 1973 on a smaller scale built around Sunlite Pool, later brought back flat rides, and gave land for Riverbend, which opened in 1984.

In September 2019 the park announced it would remove all of its amusement rides and continue as a water park. In December 2023 it announced its sale to Music and Event Management Inc., a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and it closed at the end of that year. Demolition began in 2024.