Joyland Amusement Park Comes To A Long End Summary

The article “Joyland Amusement Park Comes To A Sad End” is written by Beccy Tanner, who is a Journalist for the Wichita Eagle. Beccy Tanner specializes in articles about Kansas History. In her article she talked about the demolition of Joyland. The park was built in 1949 by the Ottaway’s and in the 1970’s the Nelson family purchased the park from the Ottaway family. The park then closed in 2006. The purpose of this article was to inform Wichita citizens about the demolition of Joyland, a place that once held many precious memories. The targeted audience was specifically the people who live in or near the Wichita area. The article was very easy to read and understand. I agree with the author’s stance that Joyland needs to be preserved, but

the article that Tanner wrote did not impress me because parts of the article were weak and uninformative.
The main idea Tanner captured in her article was that the end of Joyland is near.

The article stated that, “Overgrown weeds mask the graffiti on the remaining buildings”(Tanner 6). This shows how little the Nelsons and the City of Wichita care about this iconic amusement park. Many city officials now see the park as a nuisance, but this so-called “nuisance” was once a part of Wichita. Tanner interviewed the Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Roger Nelson in order to find sources that would support her ideas. I felt as if the interview with Nelson was the most important, and sadly Tanner did not ask Nelson any important questions during their interview. Nelson stated in the interview, “We are in the process of tearing it all down” (Tanner 1). Locals understand this because bits of Joyland have been stolen or vandalized for years. Tanner could have taken this opportunity to ask Nelson about why he and his family did not maintain the park and allowed it to deteriorate over the years. Joyland was once considered the best and most unique attraction Wichita had to

offer.
I enjoyed reading this article, though I do not believe the article had an effective argument. The author did not have an argumentative statement; rather, it implied that Joyland should be preserved. Also, the article did not go into detail about the demolition of Joyland or why its history makes it an important landmark in Wichita. In the article, Tanner only stated facts or the opinion of another source. She did not elaborate enough on key topics or transition smoothly into new paragraphs. This did not allow the author to fully develop her own ideas or give insight about the situation. The whole article felt like a summary; this is one of the reasons why it was weak. If the author elaborated more about why the city of Wichita and the Nelsons were demolishing Joyland, then the article would have been stronger. The author does address the question of what will happen to iconic pieces such as Louie the Clown, the Whacky Shack, and the Carousel that Joyland once had. She simply quotes The Preservation Society Of Wichita and how they are responsible for relocating some of those iconic pieces. In my opinion, if the author focused more time and effort on this article then it would have been more reliable.
There were about four sources in this article. I think more sources would have been unnecessary, but instead of using a number of different sources she should have had more quality sources. The sources included: Nelson family member (Owners of Joyland), Thomas Stolz (Director of the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department), Deb Legge (Neighborhood Inspection Administer for Wichita), and Greg Kite (President of the Historic Preservation Alliance). I think there should have been more sources that directly supported what the author thought about the demolition of Joyland. By not having more sources that support her views, it did not sway the reader in any direction about this topic. I believe that the author was not well informed about this topic, due to her poor choice in the sources. By having generic sources it did not establish her views about the demolition of Joyland and caused the article to be less informative. She gave one footnote and it was the address of Joyland. This was the only thing that was provided in order to help the reader better understand what was going on. If someone was not from the Wichita area, then they would have no idea what Tanner was talking about. I think Tanner didn’t include footnotes because her targeted audience was the citizens of Wichita, though, having a few more footnotes could have helped some readers better understand what was happening.
I enjoyed reading the article because it discusses a local issue that interests me, though, it didn’t elaborate enough or go into detail about why Joyland was being demolished.

Also, she needed to talk about Joyland’s history in the beginning of the article before she started talking about recent events involving the amusement park. At the end of the article she should have kept the section about how the preservation society in Wichita is relocating iconic pieces of Joyland. Due to the poor coverage in this article it actually makes me more interested. I now want to discover more about Joyland and why the city of Wichita is not more invested in preserving similar local landmarks. I believe this article about Joyland was assigned to the writer and was not something she wanted to do. In turn the article was not thorough and lacked quality. I will definitely use this article to gauge future articles that I may use for my research paper. If any of my future articles are as bad as this one, then I will not use it in my paper. I would not recommend this article to other researchers, though this would be a good article for general readers in the Wichita area who happen to be interested about this topic and would use it for leisurely

reading.