Author seeking photos for book about Nunley’s

A local author who spent a happy chunk of her childhood at Nunley’s Amusement Park on Sunrise Highway in Baldwin is collecting images and ephemera for a book that will celebrate the now defunct attraction.

Marisa Berman, 29, the executive director of the Queens Historical Society, who grew up in Oceanside and now lives in Malverne, is planning a late 2012 or early 2013 release for her book, “Images of America: Nunley’s Amusement Park,” through Arcadia Publishing. She calls the book “a photo retrospective on the history of the park,” and is hoping to “include many photographs from private family collections.” She says she currently has about 400 pages’ worth of contributions, but estimates that her finished project may well exceed 1,000 pages.

Nunley’s, as many readers will remember, was a Long Island institution from 1939 until it closed in 1995. It featured a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, an arcade, miniature golf and, of course, the signature carousel that still rotates near the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Museum Row in Garden City. “Currently, no publication exists that documents the history of the park,” Berman explained. “As a longtime Long Island resident, I grew up a town over from Nunley’s and was a frequent visitor to the park as a child.”

Berman said that Nunley’s represented a “happy time, warm summer days, and the delights of youth,” and she believes the park “holds a strong place in the memories of many Long Islanders.” She hopes her book will memorialize the attraction in addition to documenting its history. “There’s still a lot of interest,” she told the Herald. “There are groups of people who worked there who get together, and other groups who want the park to reopen. People went on first dates there and fell in love there.”