By Amy S. Rosenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
[Philadelphia Inquirer, Thursday, January 17, 2002]

WILDWOOD, N.J. - It had quite a heyday as a Tunnel of Love, but its legend only grew upon being transformed 26 years ago into Castle Dracula and the Dungeon Cruise.

Yesterday, the popular haunted attraction met its demise, consumed by a fire that sent the four-story castle crashing under the boardwalk in Wildwood and filled its maze of tunnels with smoke and flames.

Police said the fire had been set by two teens who were caught by a police officer as they ran out of the front gates of the castle - locked up for winter - shortly after the fire was reported at 10:38 a.m.

Modeled after the real Dracula's castle in Transylvania - and staffed with a cast of 30 who each summer vied for parts as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the mad doctor, and the man in the ever-popular Guillotine Room - Castle Dracula had become a required part of every Wildwood summer. Lines stretched a block down the boardwalk.

"Every year, it always seemed to get better and better," said Kevin Crafton, 25, of Wildwood, who first set foot inside Castle Dracula when he was 5. "The characters got scarier and scarier. It's been history since the '70s. It's a legend. It's sad to see it go."

Police Chief Joseph Fisher said an officer noticed smoke coming from the castle, then saw two boys running from the scene. He caught them, and they were charged at police headquarters with burglary and arson. They were being held in juvenile detention pending an appearance in family court.

Fisher said the boys are 15 and 16 and from Wildwood Crest, but he did not release their names because of their ages.

A crowd watched - some recalling terror, others recalling stolen kisses - as smoke and flames continued to roar out of Nickels Midway Pier at Schellenger Avenue and the boardwalk hours after the fire broke out. More than 100 firefighters battled the seven-alarm blaze before it was declared under control about noon.

"It's like history in Wildwood," Yvonne Rios, 26, said. "Every summer when you came to Wildwood, you had to go to the castle."

Angelo Nickels, whose family owns the pier and built Castle Dracula in 1976, said the family treasure would be impossible to rebuild. The original Tunnel of Love dates to the 1930s. "To try to replace it would cost $10 million," he said of the castle.

A fire on the pier in 1992 caused $2.5 million in damage but spared Castle Dracula.

Nickels estimated that three million people have walked through the castle and taken rides in the boats through the Dungeon Cruise. The castle was filled with one-of-a-kind props designed, he said, by retired workers from Disney World, many of whom are no longer alive.

"They made it by hand," Nickels said. "There was a special frame that Count Dracula used to appear through. The front room had a ceiling that was 50 feet high."

There were realistic sound effects, a script for actors stationed in about 15 rooms, and lots of fake splattering blood.

"We got about 30 actors each summer, college kids," Nickels said. "They all had scripts. It was like a play.

He said the $4.50 ride earned about $400,000 each summer. For the last two years, his family has leased the pier to another company that built a water park adjacent to the castle.

"There's not another ride like it in the whole world," Nickels said. "It was the last castle walk-through in the state of New Jersey."

The wood-framed and stucco castle - one of the oldest amusements operating on the boardwalk - collapsed to the ground about 20 minutes after the fire was reported.

Firefighters with airpacks had to break their way through the back of Low's Balloon Game to reach the tunnels built under the pier. Some aimed water hoses through the iron gates at the castle's entrance, while others climbed to the top of the adjacent Splash Zone water slide to aim hoses from above.

Amy Rosenberg's e-mail address is arosenberg@phillynews.com.

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