Sketch of Bible Storyland’s proposed Hanging Gardens of Babylon restaurant
Bible Storyland, you say? It’s the theme park that never happened. Planned for 220 acres at Foothill and Rochester in Cucamonga in 1961, it was the scheme of ex-Disney salesman Nat Winecoff, “Wizard of Oz” Tin Man actor Jack Haley and yo-yo magnate Donald Duncan. They needed $15 million to launch the Bible-based theme park and never got it after opposition from local clergy and, presumably, tepid response from investors to the strange concept.
I wrote a column about the whole thing in 2005 — read it as the extended entry to this post — and figured that was the end of it. Hardly.
Harvey Jordan, a San Fernando Valley man who became fascinated by the theme park after finding dozens of sketches and documents about it, is planning an exhibit on the park at the Victoria Gardens Cultural Center in August 2011. (He works ahead.) He’s got a Bible Storyland website. And he’s also financing a documentary.
His crew, consisting of a producer and a cameraman, interviewed me in a Daily Bulletin conference room last Monday, capably and at some length. I’ll probably be edited down to a sentence fragment — that is, if the documentary is even completed. Jordan hopes to have it done in time for the exhibit.
I’d suggest you keep your fingers crossed, except that 15 months is a long time to keep one’s fingers crossed.
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