I cried through a lot of this. Sights I thought I would never see again after over 55 years come back to life, and I could almost feel my Pop-pop with me again! THANK YOU!!!!

My family went there every year. This was part of our summer fun, along with going to Atlantic City. Oh! The sweet memories.

4:40 - "And there's nothing like a good old weenie to fill the gap!" So sad Willow Grove is gone, but the glory of beautiful, wonderful traditional amusement parks can still be experienced at Kennywood, Knoebels, Waldameer, and a few others around the north-east.

This was made the year I was born!! We went there at least twice each summer. I am a class of 1974 Abington High School! Got my drivers license on my 16th birthday!! Passed with flying colors!! The DMV guy knew I had obviously been driving before that day! We lived near the Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center that had a huge parking lot in the back that no one used. Dad (& my boyfriend!!) took me there to practice!! After that I had my own car, a 1965 VW Bug! We went to this amusement park a lot!! So sad when they tore it down for the mall!! Now malls are dying so will they replace with amusement parks?? Move away on December 6, 1985, to sunny Tampa Bay, F-L-A!! The day I left I woke to 6 inches of snow!! Got to my parents place on December 8, 1985!! It was 85 & sunny!! We have Busch Gardens, Zoo Tampa, Clearwater Marine (they filmed Winter the dolphin there), Sea World, Universal Studios, all the Disney parks!! Last time I was in Philly, was for my class reunion in 1999. The day after Thanksgiving & they got snow!! My best friend said, "Don't you have snow tires?? Or a scrapper??" Um, no!! It snowed 1 time since I moved here! It was coming down but melted within minutes! Everyone I worked Dem native Floridians were outside catching snowflakes!! Thanks for sharing this piece of the memories I have from Philly area!!

I use to live about 3 miles north of here, i remember the park very well... It's a mall now, named the same..

My grammar school in North Philly use to go there at the end of the school year in June. It was beautiful then and a lot of fun. We took the trolley car, that was such a beautiful ride. Thank you for posting this. Brought back many happy memories.

Wow this was so awesome. As kids we came here yearly with the school. Was the best ever. So sad when they tore it down for a shopping center. They did use a lot of artifacts from the park. It is a beautiful mall. Thanks for sending this

Wow!! Great video.

We went up from the city in the 1960s and then later, when we moved to Hatboro, we would often go to the bowling alley. 116 lanes I believe, made it the world's largest. The bowling alley had many photos of John Philip Sousa when he performed there early in the 20th century. It was a great park and certainly had a longer life than the mall that replaced it. Malls everywhere are a dying breed. Thanks for posting this. Awesome video that brought back great memories and also a chance to see some of the rides (like the rocket ships) actually working. When we started going, they were already shuttered. Thanks again.

Found something of interest related to this when I was researching today and recalled seeing this video a few years ago. From page 60 of “The Billboard” Parks-Resorts-Pools, March 17, 1956 a short article about this clip, “Willow Grove Adopts Film Promotion” Text of the article, “PHILADELPHIA, March 10 - Joseph A. Helperin, general manager of Willow Grove Park, has produced and directed a 16mm color and sound film documenting the story of the park. Narrated by radio and television announcer Paul Taylor, the film is available, free of charge, to schools, churches, community, fraternal and industrial organizations. To insure its widest possible use, the park also furnishes projection equipment for those groups which lack these facilities. The film runs 22 minutes.”

What a charming video of a slice of Americana that's long gone. I'll take one of those old family run parks any day over the impersonal behemoths called theme parks.

Wow! In 1956 I was 6 years old. I recall going to the park as a kid and teenager. Once my Dad took my sister & I on the Thunderbolt. He had such a tight grasp of us around the neck,I was afraid we'd never make it off alive.LOL! Remember the Swan Boat ride? They built the bowling alley over that area and the lanes warped because of it. I bowled there with the Upper Moreland High School varsity bowling team. They didn't say anything about the "Freak Show" tent. What fun we had at the Park!!

I absolutely loved this place. What a great place to take a special date!

WOW! What a flood of memories came with this. I could even smell the pop corn and cigar & cigarette odor that permeated the park. We went a few times every year with my Aunt Catherine McQuillan on the trolley. And we had our school picnic there every June.

Hard to imagine that the little kids are now in their 70s and the teenagers are now in their 80s here in 2023, if they are even still with us!

Our grammar school's (St. Callistus) annual highlight was the school picnic at Willow Grove Park. We all had "box" lunches...literally shoeboxes...for our trip. Such a great, fun time. It was good, clean fun. Times were so innocent. This brough tears ...thank you.

Awesome! I remember seeing the roller coast on my way to Crestmont Pool as a child.

My 3rd grade class did a field trip to Willow Grove Park in '56. The only things I remember are that it was fun and nobody missed the bus home. However, the park closer to home, Rocky Springs, had most of the same rides and it's a blast to see them in action again. Thank you.

Leave it to Beaver goes to the amusement park! This was fantastic!!!!

THIS is awesome! Filmed five years before I was born . . . but was there many, many times thereafter and remember so many of the attractions even after modifications. Great job!

I bet in 1956 you would often hear Perry Como , Elvis and Chuck Berry songs in the amusement park 😂

Hah! My Dad's company- Alan Wood Steel had their company picnic there every year when was little...good times!

The background music is called "Runaway Rocking Horse."

I grew up in Willow Grove, but, sadly, I was too young to enjoy Willow Grove Park. On January 3, 2013 (the date of this writing), I had my nearly-84-year-young mom (she easily passes for less than 60) watch this video, and she was amazed. I remember the Alps through the fence of the closed-down park in the late 1970s, the antenna over the parking kiosk and the sign at the entrance. My grandfather and great-grandfather, who were PRT/PTC employees, also doubled as park employees in the 1940s.

I live around the corner from the current mall tht Replaced it

Sadly, long demolished...I was there when it changed to Six Gun Territory...and soon after, it was razed.

3:05 there's my late Grandparents Werner and Vivian Gleiter and my Dad and Uncle!

My cousin and friends used to climb over the fence in the back of the Park near the picnic grove so we wouldn't have to pay the TWENTY FIVE CENTS TO GET IN.

FANTASTIC VIDEO Mate, My father was WW2 Navy and was there at that park back during the war and I was active duty Navy stationed at N.A.S. Willow Grove and was there the day before they were about to start tearing it all down and also for a few days after they started. Me and my shipmate Paul went in walking around looking at all the abandoned stuff the cops rolled up and asked us wtf we think were doing and I said to the cops just snooping around how my Dad once was here and so forth we both showed them our Military ID as well as our regular and I told the cop he really will not be able to run anything more than a very very basic check on me and he said wanna bet I said sure and if you win we leave never to return if I win we get a 3 day play at the abandoned park get out of jail free right to be there free ride ... I knew I was gonna win as I carried a Top Secret Clearance and the FBI if anyone tried to go any more than basic on me info wise can not do it they get blocked and have to answer to them and well to make it short would be in a world of poop and they would get investigated by the FBI and Military intelligence as well if they tried to get any more info than a very basic check. So anyways Paul and I got a free 3 day pass to enjoy our self's as the park day by day was leveled and erased from sight. I got a bunch of different ride tickets and some of the different brochures I got from the abandoned parks main office building and pictures of the coasters with trees growing up thru the tracks and some of the coaster original 50's cars that I was told if I wanted them I could have them and man I wanted them. All I seen was vintage dollar signs in my head but to get them out of there and put them in storage and maybe send them back home to Chicago FORGET IT ... Cost me a small fortune...What a shame they were mint condition yet just the vinyl on the seats were cracked up from age. We walked up to the top of the coaster mountain I took some shots there as well I took shots all over the place in there it was so sad to see it being trashed to the ground...The Willow Grove Bowl at that time had some awesome pictures of the park over all the years it was there from start to end on the wall inside dedicated to the Park. It was awesome looking at some of them pictures. Oh and good thing I got them different ride tickets and such when I did as some punks 2 days later set that house on fire and burnt it to the ground . I hate lil destructive jerks like that there is and was no reason for them to do that. It truly was a shame as in the last days it seemed the cops didn't care if anyone wanted to walk around and snoop a bit and maybe could have got a few tickets mementos for themselves if the fools didn't torch it for no other reason than to be a jerk. So sad the Bowling Alley also went out a few years later. I only wish I could have gotten my hands on some of those Willow Grove Park pictures the Bowling Alley had on there wall before it went under and shut down. I mite have a picture or 2 of that wall they had dedicated to the park. Now I'm gonna have to do some digging thru my old stuff to see what I got maybe sell some of it on ebay or get a couple a frames and put some tickets and pictures in it or something like that then sell it on ebay ;)

Who remembers 6 gun territory?

I nearly lost a tooth on The Whip, vomited on the Hell Hole centrifugal ride and was traumatized by the Freak Show. Still, I wanted to go back again!

I wish I was alive back then. I live close to the mall and its soooo boring

The film didn't show us the big swan and the little boat swans on the lake.

anybody recall that giant turning barrel that u had to walk through whilst walking through the course.

This is filmed like an Infomercial, where would one see this video back then? Did they show it as an intermission at a movie theater? Or before the movie? I just can't imagine where else a regular person would see this video back then. Unless on a local public channel but in 1956 did they have those?

147 acres? Google maps says it's closer to 96 acres.

I'm guessing this is one of those parks that Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned in his 1963 Letter From A Birmingham Jail on why Blacks found it so difficult to wait gradually for integration... " When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people..."

Sadly it had to be demolished because it was in DEPLORABLE condition.