The Cyclone Roller Coaster (The Warriors)

Every gang story needs a finish line — and for The Warriors, it's a century-old wooden roller coaster rising out of the Coney Island dawn.

The Scene

The Warriors (1979), directed by Walter Hill, sends a Brooklyn gang on an all-night odyssey from the Bronx back to Coney Island after they're framed for the murder of Cyrus, the gang leader who tried to unite the city's crews. The final showdown with the Rogues plays out on the sand with the Cyclone's wooden lattice towering in the background — the visual proof that these guys are finally home. It's here that Luther delivers the immortal taunt, "Warriors, come out to play-ay-ay," before the Riffs arrive to settle the score. The closing shot — the gang walking the beach into the sunrise as Joe Walsh's "In the City" plays — is one of the most quoted endings in New York film history. The Wonder Wheel also appears in the Coney Island sequences.

The Backstory

The Cyclone opened on June 26, 1927, at Surf Avenue and West 10th Street — on ground that had once held the Switchback Railway, America's first roller coaster. Landowners Jack and Irving Rosenthal hired leading coaster designer Vernon Keenan to build a ride that would out-thrill Coney Island's other wooden giants, the Thunderbolt and the Tornado. It worked: an 85-foot first drop, 60-mile-per-hour top speed, and 2,640 feet of twisting track made it the most famous coaster in America. Charles Lindbergh once called it more thrilling than flying.

It almost didn't survive. By the 1960s crowds were thinning, and New York City bought the Cyclone for $1 million with plans to demolish it. A "Save the Cyclone" campaign won out, Astroland refurbished it, and it reopened in the summer of 1975. Luna Park has run it since 2011. Declared a New York City Landmark in 1988 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, it remains one of the country's oldest operating wooden coasters — still rattling riders the way it rattled their grandparents.

What to Look For

Stand on Surf Avenue and look up: the Cyclone's interlocking wooden frame is unmistakable in its classic red, white, and brown. If you're up for it, ride it — the Cyclone is sold as a premium single ticket, not bundled with Luna Park's all-day Midway wristband, which tells you everything about its star status. From the top of the lift hill you get the camera's view: boardwalk, beach, and the Parachute Jump on the horizon. Then walk two blocks south to the sand and face the sunrise — this is the Warriors' frame, gang colors optional.

Getting There

The Cyclone is inside Luna Park at 1000 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn (the coaster stands at Surf Avenue and West 10th Street). Take the D, F, N, or Q train to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue — the last stop on all four lines — and walk a few blocks south to the park. Luna Park runs roughly late March/April through the end of October: daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day, weekends only in the shoulder seasons, and everything is weather-dependent. Admission to the grounds is free — you only pay to ride.

Trivia

• The house under the roller coaster in Annie Hall was the Thunderbolt, not the Cyclone. Woody Allen spotted the real Thunderbolt house while location scouting and wrote it into the script. The Thunderbolt was demolished in 2000.
• Coney Island plays a pivotal role in Uptown Girls (2003) too — but it's the teacup ride, not the Cyclone, where Molly finds a runaway Ray in one of the film's most emotional scenes.
• Location sleuths debate whether the very last sunrise shot of The Warriors was filmed on Coney Island's beach at all — some argue the dunes and wooden poles point to Breezy Point, across the bay. In the film, though, it's home.
• The Warriors' trek from the Bronx to Coney Island is about 30 miles — compressed into a single night.

The Hunt Clue

Where wooden giants kiss the sky,

The Warriors came home, and so can I.

Ride the drop that shook the brave,

Then find the frame beside the wave.

Photo by King of hearts via Wikimedia commons CC BY-SA 4.0