It would not be an exaggeration to say that Greek Playland Park, located in Monroe Township, is the most unique park of its kind in the world. This would not be an exaggeration because to our knowledge there is no other park of this type anywhere else in the world! In fact, it is such an unusual place that it defies definition, but certainly not description. Greek’s Playland is an 87-acre theme park, with no real theme other than the fruitful imagination of a single visionary individual known simply as “The Greek.”
Greek Playland is just one of the names given to this place over the years, and there is no sign anywhere that actually has that name. Some know it better as Display World or the Stone Museum. These days, the nickname you’ll see as you pass through the brightly colored gates of Spotswood-Englishtown Road is “Garden Falls.” Around the Playland grounds, you’ll find a hodgepodge of various “attractions” ranging from the Cobra helicopter and M60 army tank to a 30-foot-tall, brightly painted clown constructed from an old oil tank, some telephone poles and an assortment of other things. refuse.
In fact, almost everything at Greek’s Playland was recycled from something else, somewhere else. The Greek himself puts it quite simply when he tells us: “It’s junk!” » Around every corner of Playland’s winding maze, there’s another unexpected sight, like a vast field of brightly painted truck tires, welded sculptures made from old bicycles and car parts, a golf course miniature designed so that the ball enters virtually every single hole, a disused driving range where golf balls were once aimed at old satellite dishes, a paddle boat lake, a wooded path adorned with hundreds of bird feeders, a number of waterfalls man-made and other water features, Japanese pagodas and gateways, cavernous, exotically decorated banquet halls including the Mahal Gardens, a popular spot for Indian weddings, and enough parking to accommodate hundreds of cars and buses – there’s even a helipad!
The entrance to this crazy world is guarded by Monroe the Dinosaur, a ferocious dinosaur built from an old tractor backhoe, who roars and drools as you pass through the gates he guards. The place looks like an incredibly fun park – but Greek’s Playland isn’t an amusement park at all – it’s not even open to the public and never has been.
So, what exactly is Greek Playland? That’s the question we here at Weird NJ wanted to understand, so we sought out the only man who could truly answer that question: the Greek himself. His real name is Spiro Drakoulakous, but no one calls him that. No one even calls him by the name he shortened it to years ago, Spiro Drake. He is the Greek, or simply Greek, to all who know him. We recently visited The Greek to learn a little more about the man behind Greek’s Playland and to try to understand what it’s all about.
There is a stone museum at Greek’s Playland which displays an impressive array of gemstones, phosphorescent minerals and fossils from around the world, which the public can visit for free. This is where you’ll usually find The Greek just about any day of the week. He is not a tall man, perhaps only about 5’5″, with a thick head of bright white hair that sweeps across his tanned forehead. He is over 80 years old and wears gray work clothes greenish that a janitor might wear as a uniform.
He told us that he built Greek’s Playland in 1970 to allow children with disabilities to come and spend the day and have fun like any normal child. Then he made the property available free of charge to state agencies that care for the blind, deaf, learning disabled and disadvantaged.
The Greek says his real mother abandoned him, leaving him in a coal bin during the Great Depression. “But look, at least she liked me,” he said, with a wide smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. “If she didn’t love me, she would have left me outside and I would have frozen to death.” He was raised in a foster home in Middlesex with a dozen other children by a woman named Elizabeth Van Fleet, whom he always calls “Mom.” While on her deathbed, at the age of 105, the Greek made a wish to her mother, promising: “I will build something in your memory, something for the disabled. I took my oath to him. The next day, she died… the next day! He also promised her that he would spend half of all the money he earned in his life on charity.
So how does a poor orphan from Middlesex end up owning an 87-seat amusement park that no one ever pays to enter? The answer to that question is a true rags-to-riches story that The Greek clearly loves to tell. As a young man, he borrowed $500 to buy his first pickup truck, a shovel and a rake and started his own landscaping business. Over the years, he continued to attract an increasingly wealthy clientele. Soon he became the landscaper of choice for the rich and famous, including clients like Jon Bon Jovi. His fortune made, the Greek set out in 1970 to make good on his solemn vow to his dying mother when he purchased 87 acres of what was essentially a swamp in Monroe Township and began transforming the property into the wonderland we see Today. Then he set about building all the weird and wacky attractions his whimsical heart desired. And every inch of the park was barrier-free and wheelchair accessible.
Then he opened the doors to share his Playland with people less fortunate than himself – for free, hosting state-sponsored and local groups. Typically, the Greek never participates in these events himself, preferring to revel in the joy it brings and the happy faces of children from afar. To date, more than 100,000 children and adults have visited Playland, according to Greek.
The last two years have not been kind to him. He suffered two strokes, was diagnosed with diabetes and underwent hip surgery. But even if his physical difficulties may have slowed his progress a little, they did nothing to diminish his morale. He has been retired from the landscaping business for eight years now and admits that money is sometimes tight, since the Playland was never opened to the public as a recreational park and has never nothing charged to its guests during charity events. Private weddings now fund the venue: there are three separate banquet rooms, accommodating 120, 300 and 500 guests.
The Greek would like his Playland to continue forever, even after his departure, as a non-profit enterprise. He was married only once, for a brief period in the early 1960s, and had no children. “It’s my whole life,” he said. “That’s why I’m here every day.”
It was great to see this enigmatic joy giver work his magic on the children the day we visited the Playland and felt like it was a day they would never forget. And with that, we bid farewell to Greek’s Playland and the kind old elf who dreamed up this unique and strange Technicolor wonderland, and who would generously share it only with the people who truly needed it most. Mom would have been proud.
Garden Falls and the Stone Museum is located at 608 Spotswood-Englishtown Road in Monroe Township. Visit them online at www.gardenfalls.com.
The preceding article is an excerpt from a full article found in the current issue of Weird Magazine NJ, #43which is now available on newsstands statewide and on the web at www.WeirdNJ.com.
All photos ©Weird NJ/Marc Moran
