Dave Frieder, a professional photographer, was kind enough to send us pictures of the real parachute jump. Dave specializes in photographing New York City bridges. For more of his pictures go to Dave Frieder’s Web site.
Dave writes: Did you know when the Jump was FIRST installed at the World’s Fair it had only 4 guy wires for each Parachute? The Arms of the Jump at the end came to a triangle. Then when it was moved to a different area of the fairgrounds in 1940, additional steelwork was added to the Arms and the ends were given a “Round” configuration. Eight guy wires were then used per parachute to prevent them from swaying into each other on windy days. That configuration was kept when it was moved to Coney Island.
I grew up in Chicago and as a kid spent a lot of time at Riverview Park. They had a similiar parachute jump that we got to ride as kids.
George