A fine family evening at the Empire State Fair in Uniondale
This year's fair delivered more than the average carnival
With colorful lights, swirling rides, two tent shows, and an exotic petting zoo, the Empire State Fair set up by the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale invited families in for a full evening’s entertainment.
Barkers called from behind counters where a $10 bill bought three chances to win a huge stuffed animal. It looked oh-so-easy to knock the bottles over, guide a metal loop down a spiraling wire without touching the wire, pop the vulnerable balloons that bulged from a wall in pastel rows.
Popcorn, cotton candy, and sugared waffle cakes decorated the air with enticing smells.
The traveling fair is provided by Dreamland Amusements. Its rides have something for everyone — a huge bench swing to thrill small children while parents sit reassuringly at their sides, swift-tumbling cars that flip riders upside-down, a roller coaster, a stately Ferris wheel, a carousel of individual swings that whizzes riders around and around under the evening sky.
Asked if they liked the fair as they strolled the trash-free midway, people responded, “I love it.” Many had never visited it before. They crowded into a tent to applaud the family-run Royal Hanneford Circus, whose high-flying tumbling sequences, animal acts, silly clowns, and motorcycles barreling through a spherical cage left everyone cheering.
In a nearby tent, viewers ogled the World of Wonders Amazement Oddity Show, with close-up views of phenomena like a woman swallowing five needles and bringing them back out of her mouth dangling from a thread, a sword-swallower, and a woman seated on an electrically charged chair who ignited a small torch with her finger.
The petting zoo tent really was a zoo, with exotic as well as domestic creatures. Giggling teenagers fed kibbles to eager goats, while charcoal-gray wallabies relaxed in straw, a camel eyed its admirers, and a ring-tailed lemur wreathed itself around a trapeze.
A thoughtful boy named Carter examined the immense horns of a Watusi bull that stood patiently in its pen. Asked what he thought of the Empire State Fair, Carter looked up at his parents, Nyra and Jamal, and said, “I like it!”
The fair ran through Sunday, July 16.
