Frederic Thompson, creator of Luna Park at Coney Island, pitched Toyland Grown Up to the Concessions Committee in July 1913 and won the concession at its next meeting. His first building on the grounds was a Noah's Ark at the corner of Laguna and Francisco Streets. It was the first Zone building permit ever issued, on August 25, 1913, and for months it stood alone. The Ark became his office and studio. Aboard it Thompson worked among paint pots, plaster models and cardboard castles on an idea he called an exposition of amusements, which would spread over five acres to the east.
Thompson's crew grew to some 300 men, half stage carpenters and half house carpenters. The work fell between their two trades. Over the entrance towered a wooden suffragette 90 feet tall and two tin soldiers of about the same height, whose feet were big enough to shelter merchandise booths. Inside were a Crazy Town, a Flea Circus, a Midgets' Theater, a Cobweb Lake, a Giant's Kitchen and Mother Hubbard's Cupboard. A canal with locks ran under the floors and walks, so visitors could glide through in a small power boat and catch glimpses of the attractions through openings overhead.
The publicity was charming. Nat Goodwin lit an Aladdin's lamp on July 1, 1914. At the dedication on October 13, 1914, hundreds of children "planted" toys to grow into the finished show and watered them with California champagne. The show itself did not work. Todd's history says Toyland "fell flatter than Babylon" in the hard times of 1915. It shrank to a dog-and-pony circus, and several of its attractions moved out to fronts of their own elsewhere on the Zone. The Toyland Midgets and their band lasted, and marched in the Zone parades.