A Cape Town False Bay tagged image from photographer – origamidon as published on Flickr.
Fort Gorges (1858-1865) from Greenwood Garden Playhouse (1884/1891)
Image by origamidon
Garden Place, Peaks Island, Maine USA • View from the front deck of the Greenwood Garden Playhouse which was built in 1884 as an open-air roller skating rink. It was transformed into a theater in 1891, and is now operated as a charming, rustic event facility owned and operated by the Peaks Island Lions Club.
… the summer people began coming to Maine in the 19th century. For cool tranquil beauty, summer here has few peers. The Maine coast had been drawing wealthy vacationers for some time by the 1880s. Then after two centuries this fishing community exploded into a kind of Coney-Island-north — hotels, restaurants, theatres, dancehalls, a theme park, all served by twelve steamboat lines. – From Engines of Our Ingenuity: No. 2407 Peaks Island.
• The Greenwood Garden Amusement Park started as a picnic grove in the southwest corner of the island in the 1850s, transformed by the Brackett family in the 1880s into an amusement park with observatory, skating rink (later converted into this theatre), carousel, ferris wheel, midway and petting zoo.
This is an island of movie stars and artists, of budding theatrical productions and protected open spaces preserving native forests for all time. Martin Landau, famed for his “Mission Impossible” role and Jean Stapleton, Edith on “All in the Family” both got their start at Peaks Island’s Greenwood Garden playhouse.
Another view: Bowling alleys were common at summer resorts, but from the 1880s to the 1930s, Greenwood Gardens [actually: Greenwood Garden Amusement Park] was a reason for families to visit the island. it held a summer theater, an observation tower, a dance hall, facilities offering food and drink, a merry-go-round, and a small zoo. A pavilion at times provided variety shows, tightrope walkers, and balloon ascensions. – From page 20; Portland, by Joyce K. Bibber and Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., © 2007.
Cliff Gallant says the Playhouse, operated through the first half of the twentieth century, and is where Jean Stapleton, the lovable Edith of "All in the Family" fame, made her first professional appearance, in the summer of 1941. [ Circa 1908, D.W. Griffith was torn between continuing to appear in plays produced at the island’s playhouses as he frequently did or heading to Hollywood. Martin Landau also made his professional stage debut in a 1951 production of "Detective Story" at Greenwood Garden where for several seasons he was a resident cast member.] The Gem Theater, the best known of the Peaks Island summer theaters, hosted productions featuring members of the famous Barrymore family, and was also a favorite venue of George M. Cohan, who liked to stage productions there before bringing them to Broadway.
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• Fort Gorges is a military fort built on Hog Island Ledge in Casco Bay, Maine. Casco Bay is an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on the southern coast of Maine. • Following the War of 1812, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed that a fort be built on Hog Island Ledge, in Casco Bay at the entrance to the harbor at Portland, Maine. Named for the colonial proprietor of Maine, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, it was constructed to support existing forts, including Fort Preble in South Portland and Fort Scammel built on nearby House Island in 1808. Congress, however, did not fund construction of Fort Gorges until 1857. The walls of the fort were begun the next year, and when the United States Civil War broke out in 1861, work quickly advanced.
The fort was designed by Colonel Reuben Staples Smart. The chief architect in charge of construction was Thomas Lincoln Casey, who later became Chief of Engineers. It is similar in size and construction to Fort Sumter, but is built of granite instead of brick.
The fort was completed in 1865 as the war ended. Modern explosives made the fort obsolete by the time it was completed. A modernization plan was begun in 1869, but funding was cut off in 1876, with the third level of the fort still unfinished.
The fort was last used by the military during World War II, when it was used to store submarine mines. It was acquired by the City of Portland in 1960 … . – From the Nation Master Encyclopedia.
☞ On August 28, 1973, the National Park Service added this structure and site to the National Register of Historic Places (#73000114).
∆ GeoHack: 43°39′47″N 70°13′17″W.
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