American Folk Art Buildings

The Riverview Amusement Park in North Center Chicago was much loved and much visited from 1904 until its regretted closing in 1967.  Around 120 rides and attractions were often bold in look, with Aladdin's Castle among the most fanciful and compelling.  Large and grand with its big turbaned namesake, it was a walk through fun house with surprises and obstacles . . .  mazes, a collapsing stairway, a drum round room wonkily crossed, and a fan in the exit floor ensuring upturned skirts and expected exclamations. 

Such fun and risque too!

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Ours is 45" long and, as in the original, motorized eyes shift side to side. It was apparently made in the early 1980s by John Earl Zweifel (1936 - 2020) of Orlando.  Loving circus and American attractions, he made miniatures and rides and a 60ft long replica inside and and out of the White House, still an attraction in Clermont Florida.  This Aladdin's Castle is apparently one of eight real ride miniatures he made as a traveling exhibit to enliven Chicago area malls. The others are not located or identified.

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