Amusement Today

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No park needed for the Big Easy

The City of New Orleans recently gave Six Flags a deadline of May 11 to announce a plan to reopen the Hurricane Katrinadamanged theme park. The city is stating that failure to reopen Six Flags New Orleans is preventing redevelopment.

Six Flags announced they have no plans to reopen the park, a property that they continue to make lease payments to the city on for the land, as well as mowing and securing the grounds on a daily basis. Several attempts by Six Flags to reach a settlement with the city and mayor have been unsuccessful.

Now the city has put a restraining order on Six Flags, resulting in a May 26 civil district court date in New Orleans.

No operator should try to reopen the park. One walk through the park and a closeup view of the hurricane damage says it all. Rust on rides and other metal fixtures along with mold in buildings are clearly visable. This is a result of the park being under saltwater for six months.

New Orleans wants redevelopment. The problem is the city still hasn’t cleaned up the mess the hurricane left behind. Drive through any New Orleans neighborhood that suffered flooding from the failure of the levee walls, and you will find at best, one out of every 10 households occupied. Unoccupied houses still stand, or in some case lean, while weeds grow and burned out cars sit on city streets untouched. Imagine driving through a third world country and that’s what most of the city neighborhoods look like. Massive bulldozing and cleanup is needed all over the city before New Orleans can even think about having an amusement park again.

Also consider that at present the City of New Orleans has an estimated population of 300,000 people at best. With the surrounding burbs, that number might reach 600,000. Compared to the 2 million population that the greater New Orleans area had prior to the hurricane, today’s population numbers in New Orleans aren’t enough to support a park even if Six Flags wanted to rebuild. There are simply not enough people to employe at the park or to visit the park.

Note to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: Get your city cleaned up first. Get the damaged houses and businesses bulldozed and the lots cleaned off. Haul off the rotting trash. Fix the city streets in the neighborhoods. Then, and only then, will business return. And, if your lucky, maybe then you can think about having an amusement park again.

—Gary Slade

Saving our park history and heritage

I’ve touched on the subject of historic amusement rides in the past, but there is a particular project in the UK at the moment which also deserves recognition.

Among my contributions to this issue of Amusement Today is an article on the proposals to establish the world’s first heritage amusement park on the site of the former Dreamland Amusement Park on the UK’s Kent coast. The park originally opened almost 90 years ago and became one of the best known and most popular seaside amusement parks in the country, attracting locals and tourists alike from a wide area, including London. Still today, it is home to the Grade Two listed Scenic Railway roller coaster which was saved from demolition by enthusiastic campaigners and now has heritage status.

In January 2003, however, the owner of the site announced it was to close and be redeveloped, and it was at this time that the Campaign to save Dreamland was formed, in the hope of ensuring the site’s future as an amusement park. All sorts of activities have taken place since, with a huge amount of hard work being carried out by campaign leaders to highlight the historical importance of the site, involve local authorities and decision makers and to raise awareness of the campaign within the public domain generally and with various other interested parties. Fund raising has also been a key activity to help save items on site from being sold or removed.

The hope is to see the complete upgrading and modernisation of the Dreamland site in the hands of a committed operator and considerable interest has been shown by potential operators who would invest in new rides, attractions and infrastructure centred around the existing Scenic Railway.

Such efforts by campaigners is to be widely applauded. Rides like the Scenic Railway should not be lost, while other attractions, structures and items from a bygone era should also be preserved for future generations, as is the intention. And if they can continue to operate, then all the better. Dreamland represents part of the UK’s heritage and as a whole should be saved.

—Andrew Mellor