Hoping to open Playland this season, Westchester County declared an “emergency situation” last week and immediately awarded a contract to an operator to inspect, repair, and maintain rides at the embattled amusement park.
By last Friday, a crew from Zamperla, Inc, an Italian ride operator that manages thousands of rides worldwide, including those at Coney Island’s Luna Park, was on site at Playland inspecting more than a dozen rides.
The emergency declaration, county officials said, allowed the contract with Zamperla to be signed without a bidding process. Having an operator do that work was needed, the declaration stated, “in order to open the iconic Playland Amusement Park for a portion of the 2025 operating season.”
It is unclear how much Zamperla is being paid.
Westchester, which owns Playland, has been hard-pressed to develop a plan to open the landmark Rye-based amusement park since January, when private operator Standard Amusements LLC terminated its contract with the county to manage the park just three years into a 30-year agreement.
Standard argued that the county missed deadlines it was required to meet for renovations to the park. The parties now are locked in a legal dispute over the rupture of the agreement.
Standard “left little or no spare parts in inventory, in some cases did not properly winterize rides, and a number of rides were left disassembled,” Kathleen O’Connor, the county parks commissioner, wrote in a May 1 emergency order memo.
The county has not indicated when — and if — Playland will open this season, nor has it hired the large seasonal staff traditionally brought on to operate the historic waterfront park.
It is unclear how much it will cost for Zamperla to bring the rides into proper operating condition and maintain them until the company can “complete and price the work,” O’Connor also wrote in her memo.
Central Amusement International Inc., a subsidiary of Zamperla, was the 2016 runner-up when the management of Playland was awarded to Standard by then County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican.
Astorino left office before Standard assumed control of the park. When a new administration entered the mix in 2018, the relationship with Standard quickly soured.
The new Democratic county executive, George Latimer, accused Standard of breaching its contract and was reportedly interested in getting out of the Astorino agreement. And in 2019, Standard filed for bankruptcy ahead of Latimer’s plan to nix the contract.
The matter was litigated in federal court — costing Westchester taxpayers $5 million — and led to a renegotiated deal in 2021, after the court ruled the Latimer administration could not terminate the contract, the Journal News reported.
Shortly after taking office, Latimer and his deputy county executive, Ken Jenkins, hired a consulting firm run by Joe Montalto — a former Playland director and Jenkins’ ex-campaign manager — to help guide a bidding process for a new ride at the park, the outlet reported.
Montalto also had been a Central Amusement consultant on that company’s failed 2015 bid to run Playland. Zamperla won the new bid and installed the Dragonator ride, which opened at Playland in 2019. The county owns 11 rides manufactured by Zamperla, according to the Journal News.
Last month, Catherine Cioffi, the county’s communications director, told The Record, “As we look ahead to the 2025 season, our intention is to open the park. … At this time, we are actively assessing the situation to ensure that when the gates do open, the experience is safe, enjoyable, and up to the high standards our residents expect and deserve.”
The county and Standard are scheduled to enter arbitration in August to settle issues related to their dispute. Standard is seeking $57 million in damages.
This story was updated on May 5.
