Topic: Amusement Parks

Where Do Theme Parks Go When They Die?

As I trudged through the Louisiana swamp in the 100-degree July heat, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my thick black hoodie. With the front zipped to just above my navel and my digital camera safely tucked against my stomach, I looked almost pregnant. At least that was the hope.

Making our way through the overgrown backyard of a long-abandoned house, Jacob and I climbed up to the road, where we came face to face with a parked car and a security guard. Glancing suspiciously at the two of us and my awkwardly bulbous form, he climbed out of his car, leaned against the front bumper, and crossed his arms. We hung a quick left down the main road and quickened our pace, grateful when he didn’t pursue us.

Whew. I breathed a sigh of relief and pushed my sleeves up to my elbows. Crisis averted. There was only one problem: the security guard was parked directly in front of the path through the woods, the one marked on the map I had left in the car, venturing only to bring myself, my ID, and my camera on this seemingly misguided trek. I also had the number of a Louisiana attorney scrawled in sharpie down my forearm. Just in case.

So as not to appear even more suspicious, we continued walking, following the road back to the highway we had taken over Lake Ponchartrain not long before. The area was more or less deserted, lending little credibility to our cover as a “couple on a walk”. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we stumbled upon something useful: an access road marked “Employee Entrance.” Every few steps, I looked over my shoulder and then back to the gate we were approaching. “No trespassing,” a sign read in large, bold letters, with a complete breakdown of the Louisiana laws on illegal trespass. Great, I thought, just great. I looked at Jacob, who was surveying the gate and the fence on either side, nearly ten years of weeds encroaching on upon it.

“Well, I think you can make it under this gate, but I most likely can’t, so I guess I’m going over the fence,” Jacob said, confidently, “Yep, this is definitely how we get in.” I guess we’re actually doing this, I thought as I nodded my head. When I’d sent Jacob an article about the abandoned amusement park a few weeks earlier, I hadn’t expected that his response would be, “when are we going?” Placing my camera in my hand, I laid down on the dusty dirt road and slowly shuffled under the gate. “Shit!” I heard from the bushes next to me seconds later, as Jacob tumbled out of them.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, that fence isn’t very nice.”

Realizing we were still on a main road and still very visible to anyone who cared enough to look, we quickly scurried down a small hill and into a ditch. The ditch ran parallel to the access road and the overgrowth provided just enough coverage to camouflage us. We walked the length of the ditch, hidden from security and the highway, until we passed the lake. Crossing the road quickly, we scampered into the thick swamp on the other side. My pulse quickened as I looked up to see a large, wooden rollercoaster.

We’d made it. We were in Six Flags New Orleans.

The closer we got to the rollercoaster, the more my excitement I grew. All of the research I had done had paid off. Hours of scouring the comments at the bottom of various internet articles, reading stories from the “glory days” of Six Flags abandonment in the years immediately following Hurricane Katrina and the claims of those who said it had been impossible to get in since 2012, two years earlier. That the park had become a set for various movies, and with that came tight security and a slew of arrests. It wasn't worth trying, they'd said.

But we’d made it.

There’s something eerie and exhilarating about being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. Like you’re playing a trick on the world and only you’re in on it. A mix of adrenaline and anxiety that quickens the pulse and heightens the senses. These feelings intensify tenfold when the place is an abandoned amusement park. A place that typically conjured thoughts of the joyous shrieks of children and long lines of patrons eagerly awaiting their next thrill was now entirely still and barren. Even the slowest days at Kings Island couldn’t compare with the complete absence surrounding us.

I was hooked.

We continued through the swamp until we encountered our next obstacle: a chain link fence over six feet high separating us from the innards of the park. My heart sank. We hadn’t made it. Not yet. Maybe this is it, I thought, maybe we've come all this way just to not get in. In the intense humidity, surrounded by the Louisiana swamp and an assortment of large bugs I had never seen before, I started to lose hope. Still, we pressed on, following the fence until we came across a hole slashed through the wire mesh. Jacob held it open for me and I climbed through.

And then it happened. Just like that, I was standing underneath a rollercoaster. I finally was on the wrong side of the fence and in a whole new world. I walked through the wooden joists and supports until I emerged into an open field. All around me, the rollercoaster track twisted and turned, climbing hills and cutting a path through the swamp. Old carousel decorations were strewn through the grass and Jacob and I stood in awe, taking it all in. Just as we breathed a sigh of relief, a low flying helicopter passed overhead.

“Shit,” I said, “do you think they’re here for us?”

“I hope not, but I don’t see why else they’d be all the way out here,” Jacob said. We ran for cover, ducking under the rollercoaster track and quickly disappearing into the swamp. It wasn’t long before we came to the entrance of the coaster, the winding carrels that once lined up excited visitors barely visible through the foliage. We ran like excited kids, ducking under railings and pushing tree branches out of our way.

As we came to the end of the path and climbed a set of stairs, I saw it. The main station and loading platform. The first hill. We climbed onto the platform and took a tentative step onto the track. I could see the rust and worn wood, but the overall structure was stable. Giddy, we followed the track out of the station and to the start of the first hill. That’s when we heard it. A truck engine. A very close truck engine. “Hide!” Jacob squealed, and we quickly swung underneath the rollercoaster track, crouching beneath the swollen wooden beams. We sat in silence for 15 minutes, the sound of the truck engine growing closer and then, as soon as it started, it disappeared.

“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but if we’re caught, you run and I’ll get arrested. It’ll be easier for both of us if you can just bail me out of jail.”

In silence, we pressed on, creeping through the wooden rollercoaster to a metal one, green and purple with menacing twists and turns. To an old soaring set of swings, its decorations torn and metal seats long gone. Through buildings full of debris covered in black mold, most of them gutted. All over, the same spray-painted message read “Temporarily Out Of Service.” A long row of New Orleans style shotgun houses with wrought iron balconies and various storefronts told me we had made it to the front of the park; the main entrance. I stopped before one building and snapped a picture. On the side, someone had hastily spray-painted a poignant question: where do theme parks go when they die?

“Do you hear that?” Jacob asked. When I listened closely, I heard what sounded like a chainsaw in the distance. “They must be working on something over here. We should get out of this area.”

As we started to make our way down the path to where we’d come in, we heard another sound. This one was closer. A lot closer. We ducked behind a nearby shack and crouched down in the bushes surrounding it. It was only when I looked around that I realized that half of the shack was missing. The remains of the shack offered little cover from a nearby walkway, the thin layer of bushes providing a laughable barrier from any approaching dangers.

We must’ve crouched behind that building for a solid, silent 10 minutes, listening intently for any sound, before either of us spoke. “We should wait for the machinery to start up again and make a run for it,” Jacob whispered, “we can use the noise to cover the sound of our footsteps.” I nodded in agreement, my eyes scanning our surroundings for the most logical path back to the wooden rollercoaster.

“Are you ready?” He asked, and I nodded. We both stood up, glancing around the sides of the shack. “Okay, next time the saw fires up, we run.” I nodded again, but as the noise broke the silence, something didn’t feel right. “Get down,” I hissed, and we both dropped back to the ground. Slowly, I peered around the corner of the shack, just in time to see a security guard approaching. He was walking down the path right toward us!

Time to give up, I thought, picturing myself walking toward the guard, wrists out and palms up in surrender, a night in New Orleans Central Booking in my future. I nodded at Jacob so he knew what had happened and glanced back at the security guard, who was still quite a distance from us. He stopped at the top of the path, looked back and forth a few times, then slowly turned and walked away. I couldn’t believe it. I could see him clearly through the bushes, and yet, somehow, he hadn’t seen us. I nodded to Jake once more and again we stood, ready to run.

When the machines started up again, we were off. As I trailed behind Jacob, my camera clanging against my stomach, I was sure the security guard could hear us, but there was little time to care. We quickly retraced our steps back to the wooden rollercoaster, through the hole in the fence, down the access road and past the security guard who still sat at the entrance to the secret path, none the wiser. As we got to my car and climbed in, certain of our freedom, our excitement was palpable. We’d done it. We’d conquered the unconquerable and barely escaped. We had bested Six Flags.