The Indianapolis News from Indianapolis, Indiana • 16

Saturday. July 31, 1971 Pago 16 THE INDIANAPOLIS NEWS 4 II WWW 11 ft If fMilKil ft vaM I'M W'CBSKSEW 'III ,0 I A III atfvKi 1 gtftitAi. thai Riverside Amusement Park, once packed with visitors, is no more. Gone are the shrieks of excitement. It's silent now, except for the rustle of wind in the weeds.

de Shed A For Tear iversi mMh hi mi to the Fun House and stood in front of the curved mirrors and watched his body take on strange shapes. He threw back the tarpaulin covers of the merry-go-round and stared at the hand-carved animals. The oak and poplar horses, pigs, lions, tigers and elephants with finely detailed bodies are almost impossible to buy today, he said. "Once I needed some tails for the horses and I looked all over the nation but couldn't find any," he said. "Finally I came across a place right here in Indianapolis that had exactly what I was looking for." The auditorium smelled stale and closed up as Coleman opened the door and entered.

"We used to have hundreds of kids roller skating here every day." Last stop on the tour was the Flash. Coleman said it was the largest roller coaster in the state and took 1,400 gallons of paint to cover it. "Part of the reason for closing is what I call socialized entertainment," he said as he walked by the rotten railroad ties that once carried the 4 Riverside Railroad Victory Express. "Unless you're a tax free, philanthropic organization you can't make it these days. "I know it is an indictment but Indianapolis as a city has no pride.

They can't support any entertainment here. There is no new entertainment here for that reason," he continued. He said for years he had tried to get the city to clean up the area around Riverside Parkway but it never did until this summer. Coleman didn't want to see the park closed. He was offered a large sum for the land by a private group wanting to develop the area, but didn't agree to sell it immediately.

"I wrote the Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation and offered to sell the park to them for 40 per cent less than I had been offered," he said. "I wanted the city to tie it in with the entire Riverside Park recreational area." His offer was rejected by the city, so now where the center of the city's recreation once was an apartment complex will soon be built. "Riverside was always self-sustaining. I never lost money," Coleman said. "We usually had around 400,000 visitors each year." A man with his wife and three children walked up to Coleman and said they came from out of town to spend a day at Riverside.

Coleman said he was sorry but the park was closed. "We had between 40 and 150 employes, depending on the season. A lot of high school kids are out of jobs now," he said. The only workers now are the ones dismantling the rides that Coleman has already sold. He hopes to sell them all before demolition crews take over.

The 15-year-old Ferris wheel was sold back to the manufacturer. It was in good condition. "I hear it might be going to Las Vegas to operate on the roof of the Stardust Inn." The area that once had laughter echoing from all corners, where many kisses were stolen in the tunnel of love and cotton candy clung to the cheeks of little kids, now stands as the skeleton of a once proud amusement park. As he walked around the 20 acres covered with high grass and weeds Coleman looked up and said, "You know, this reminds me of going to see my best friend at the funeral home." By MAYER MALONEY JR. The excited screams of the kids, the calliope music of the merry-go-round and the china-faced kewpie dolls are gone.

Indianapolis has said farewell to an old friend. Riverside Amusement Park is closed and all that remains are memories. Like the park's opening night in 1903 when Paul Whiteman's band, suspended on a platform from the ceiling of the auditorium, played to a crowd dancing below. Or when the park's first roller coaster, the Thriller, burned in 1910. And the time a young lady had the office staff totally confused trying to find the "house of amusement" for her.

It turned out she was looking for the bathroom but was too bashful to say it. More recently, the night the Indianapolis Symphony performed a concert in the park's auditorium and one of the members described it as having the best acoustics in town, including Clowes Hall. And probably the best memories for owner John L. Coleman are the many days when kids, young and old, came to Riverside to have fun. Coleman has owned and operated Riverside since 1940; before then Robert D.

Coleman, his father, was the owner. He wanted to open the park for the 68th time this spring, but a large combination of reasons forced him to sell the land and close the park. "The news media didn't give us any coverage. The city has no pride in the area and the land became worth more than the park," he said as he walked around the vacant playland. As he toured the park he unlocked the door Peeling paint, tall grass have taien over park.

More About Scott, Irwin In Moon Buggy Continued From Page 1 Schedule jft I Apennine MobntoVnti jv Iff Vvv i v'lv kt sl i 4- 4 J- "i TODAY 6:39 p.m. Scott and Irwin begin seven-hour, 50-minute rest period. 9:43 p.m. Worden begins seven-hour rest period. TOMORROW 2:29 a.m.

Scott and Irwin end rest period. 5:04 a.m. Worden ends rest period. The command ship is making its 32nd swing around the moon. 5:44 a.m.

Lunar module depres-surized to start second surface excursion. Scott steps on surface at 5:57 a.m. followed by Irwin in 14 minutes. Telecast begins at 6:09 a.m. 12:34 p.m.

Scott follows Irwin into spacecraft and batch is closed. 3:59 p.m. Scott and Irwin begin seven-hour sleep period. 6:24 p.m. Worden begins 8.25-hour rest period while making 39th orbit of moon.

10:59 p.m. Scott and Irwin end rest period. ladder to unhook his fellow explorer from something that he was hung up on. Irwin was on the surface at 8:37 a.m. "Oh boy, it's beautiful out here.

Reminds me of Sun Valley!" Irwin exclaimed. Gazing out the Falcon window last night, Irwin had become intrigued by a marble-sized rock that looked like glass. He headed for it right after he touched the surface. "I'm going to put a big circle around that glass bauble," Irwin said. "I don't want to lose it." Worden Circles Moon While Scott and Irwin began man's most extensive exploration of the moon, the third member of the expedition, Alfred M.

Worden, circled overhead in the command ship Endeavour, conducting scientific and photographic experiments. The ship has been converted into a flying science laboratory. It is equipped with a $17 million array of cameras and instruments. As Scott backed down the ladder, he opened a compartment on the side of the landing craft, uncovering a camera that relayed to earth his first step to the surface. The camera was moved into position several feet away from the Falcon to give a good look as they removed the moon cart from a stowage bay in the lunar module.

They shuffled about like ghostly figures in the dark dust of Hadley Base. "Your boots are dirty already," Irwin told his commander. Irwin's first job before helping deploy the rover was to collect a contingency soil sample of aboit two pounds. This assured that they would return some soil to earth in case they had to make an early emergency takeoff. The thickness of the dust caused them to slip slightly as they moved about in a world where temperatures range from 243 degrees above zero in sunlight to 257 degrees below in 7 7 I It The cabin leak was traced quickly by Scott and Irwin to a urine dump valve in a tube that runs from their spacesuits to the outside of the lunar module.

The valve was capped and the pressure quickly rose to normal in the cabin. Scott and Irwin steered their lunar ship Falcon to an almost-perfect landing in the Marsh of Decay at the base of the Apennines at 5:16 p.m. EST yesterday after a quarter-million-mile journey from earth. "Falcon is on the plain at Hadley," a jubilant Scott told Mission Control Center on touchdown. He and Irwin immediately named the site Hadley Base.

Scott and Irwin plan three driving excursions, each lasting six to seven hours, during a record 67-hour stay on the moon. Shortly after landing yesterday, Scott and Irwin donned their pressure suits and opened Falcon's top hatch. Scott poked his head and shoulders into the lunar vacuum to survey the site, and exclaimed: "Oh, boy! What a view!" "All of the features are very smooth. There are no sharp peaks," he said. "All the mountains are rounded off." All around him' he saw spectacular scenery the Apennines soaring 15,000 feet high only two miles away, hundreds of craters dotting the bleak, barren terrain and small rocks highlighted in shadow in the lunar dawn.

'Area Looks Smooth' "The whole surface of the area appears to be smooth," Scott said. "It's gently rolling terrain 360 degrees around. The largest features I can see nearby are six to eight inches. I think we'll be able to get around pretty well with the rover." But Scott said that many craters 25 to 35 feet across dotted the valley and that they caused him some problem on landing. "I had to do some dodging to avoid them," he said.

I 4 i'. 29. v'lvj Bur. fo I Hi Tiiti-i Three routes of Apollo 1 5's moon rover shown. AP.

Nevertheless. Mission Confrnl renort- "No wonder we slipped, Dave, there is really some soft dirt around here, around the front footpad," Irwin said. "It sure is, about six inches deep of soft powder material," Scott confirmed. The astronauts reported after landing that the Falcon was on a slight tilt. "I can see why we're tilted," Scott reported from the surface.

"The left food pad is about two feet lower than the right." Another of the small problems that have troubled the Apollo 15 mission caused Scott and Irwin to be awakened an hour early, at 4 a.m., to search for a "very slow" leak in the lunar lander's oxygen pressure. There was a drop of about 100 pounds a square inch from the normal 2,690. In case the moon exploration had to be cut short, scientists scheduled visits to Hadlev Rille and the mountain front for the first moon drive. These are the two most important of five geology features in the landing area. Hadley Rille is about 1 mile across and 1.200 feet deep, and Scott and Irwin planned to collect samples at the rim and take stereo' photos of the walls in an effort to determine whether it was caused by a lava flow, a gaseous flow or a collapsed lava tube.

The Apennine range may contain ed that Falcon appeared to have landed almost precisely where it was targeted. Scott and Irwin had a hard time falling asleep during their 7'i-hour rest period because of the excitement, and they stayed up past their bedtime to describe features seen through the windows. "There's a dark, black angular fragment six to eight inches across," Scott explained. "All the others appear to be white. This one really looks like a jewel." ina! lunar crust, dating back 4.6 billion years to Ihe creation of the solar system, and the hope to bring back th ancient material.

The second excursion, to start at 5:44 a.m. tcnirrrow, to take the astronauts five from the Falcon to another area of the front and to a cluster of impact craters. On the third drive, starting at 2:44 a.m. Monday, they will range along another section of tho rille and explore a group of craters that may have been volcanic. I.