Six Flags New Orleans

***Six Flags New Orleans*** (originally opened as ***Jazzland***) is an abandoned amusement park in New Orleans located off the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 510. It has since been closed after a short 5 years due to the infamous Hurricane Katrina flooding the park. As a result, instead of rebuilding, they relocated salvageable rides to other parks and left the rest to this day.

## History

### Functioning park (2000-2005)

#### Beginnings

In 1928, east New Orleans added their first park, *Pontchartrain Beach*. However, only the white skinned people were allowed in there during the Jim Crow laws segregation. Ten years later in 1939, New Orleans opened *Lincoln Beach*, which was for the African-American citizens. Then, New Orleans was completely desegregated in 1961-64. So Lincoln Beach was left closed in 1965, and Pontchartrain Beach was open to all races. However popularity did start to decrease though, and it closed forever in 1983. This left Louisiana being absent of any amusement park, besides *Carousel Gardens* which opened in the also opened in 1928.

However in 1998, Alfa SmartParks, which is now absorbing as Palace Entertainment, began to develop the next park for Louisiana, which would be built on a concrete deck 4 ft thick of New Orleans east. Odgen Entertainment had to spend around $135 million, and construction for the park began in early 1999.

#### Jazzland (2000-2002)

And on May 20, 2000, the park opened to the public under the name "***JazzLand***"! At the time of grand opening, the park was well-received and the crowd was estimated 20-25,000 people. The park originally had six themed sections containing 30 rides: *Jazz Plaza, Cajun Country, Pontchartrain Beach (a tribute to the original park), Mardi Gras, Kids' Carnival, and the Goodtime Gardens.* The park's first four coasters were *Mega Zeph* (a CCI wooden coaster with steel supports, the highlight attraction, inspired by the original Zephyr wooden coaster in Pontchartrain Beach), *Muskrat Scrambler* (an L&T steel wild mouse coaster), *Rex's Railrunner* (a junior Vekoma family coaster), *and Zydeco Scream* (a Vekoma Boomerang coaster that opened a month after the opening). The park was not profitable, as Alfa SmartParks specialized in running water parks and smaller amusement arcade centers. It attracted 1.1 million visitors for its first season, but that decreased to 560 to 580 thousand the next season; Alfa filed for bankruptcy reorganization in February 2002. Because of this they did not bring in guest from further away. The guests complained about the lack of shade and would have to direct sunlight. Citing its benefit to the local economy, HUD loaned $25.3 million to build the park, and after Alfa went bankrupt, the city of New Orleans became liable for the remainder of the loan. In 2001, the park was put up for sale and quickly sold to Six Flags in March 2002. Despite this, Jazzland operated under the same in 2002. The New Orleans city council approved the 75-year lease in August 2002; under the negotiated agreement, repayment of the remaining $24.4 million loan from HUD was to be split between the park and the city.

#### Six Flags New Orleans (2003-2005)

Six Flags spent $20 million to upgrade the park for the 2003 season. On April 5, 2003, the park reopened and would now be known as *Six Flags New Orleans.*

This included changes such as Jazz Plaza being renamed *Main Street Square*, the log flumes Cypress Plunge was renamed *Ozarka Splash,* and the majority of the walkways were now under shade coverings providing many needed relief from the Louisiana sun. The Kids' Carnival section was renamed *Looney Tunes Adventures*, with many of the rides being rethemed, and Rex's Railrunner being renamed *Roadrunner's Express*. Pirates 4-D in the motion simulator movie theater attraction was also changed into a new unique ride, named *SpongeBob SquarePants: the Ride*. A new roller coaster was brought into the Mardi Gras section called the *Jester* (one of only two Vekoma Hurricane coasters ever built), which was relocated from Six Flags Fiesta Texas as *Joker's Revenge*, this time the coasters trains would still drive backwards. The park also received a new section expansion, known as *DC Comics Superheroes Adventures*, which was added behind the Zydeco Scream. This section was home five new attractions: *CatWoman's Whip* (a Mondial Shake, that had seats rocking back and fourth), *Joker's Jukebox* (a Schwarzkopf polyp ride that featured 1950's styled automobiles), *Lex's Luthor's Invertatron* (a Zamperla topspin) as well as the Gotham City Hall theater, which would have a Batman spectacular Stuntshow, and the best largest addition ride *Batman: The Ride* (an inverted B&M coaster new to Louisiana relocated from a park in Japan). The park even decorated for their Six Flags Halloween Fright Fest, adding a giant spiderweb on Mega Zeph, and making other changes. Some people were upset about Jazzland losing its original Mardi Gras theme, but the park was still successful. In 2004, the park was seriously competed with AstroWorld in Houston, Texas (poor AstroWorld).

In 2005, the park had new exciting ideas of the 2006 season. Six Flags New Orleans actually had plans to expand the park by using some of the unused land on its property to build a new waterpark. This was about to be announced in late August 2005, but things were starting to wind down since school had started early. So the park decided to operate on weekends only. They were originally ready to open back up on the last weekend of August, but at time something was about to happen that would change the fate of the park.

This was why Jazzland should've never been built in that location in the first place.

#### Hurricane Katrina strikes

August 21, 2005 would be the last day that Six Flags New Orleans would be opened to the public. They originally intended to reopen on August 27th or 28th, but with news of the upcoming Hurricane, the park closed back down in order to prepare for the storm, and evacuate the city. Former NOLA mayor Ray Nagin issued the first mandatory evacuation. The word's "**Closed For Storm**" appeared on the park's sign outside the park, which would obviously never reopened again and stay closed forever.

#### Aftermath

On August 29, Hurricane Katrina made her landfall and caused devastating damage across the deep southern coast, with New Orleans and Biloxi, MS suffering the greatest damage and thousands lost their lives. Because of the park being located right next to Lake Pontchartrain, drainage pipe pumps were installed to protect it from flooding, but it was worst than they thought. After the parks drainage pumps failed, the water from Pontchartrain overflowed causing dark black brackish saltwater to flood the entire park. When Katrina finally left Louisiana, the park sat up to 6-7 feet of water for over a month. When the water eventually drained what it left was a shocking site, the water eaten up most of the buildings, metal was rusted, and electronics were fried. Because of this, the park did not have any condition to reopen. On July 1, 2006, Six Flags Inspectors reported that the parks structures were 80% obliterated as an "effective total loss" and was said to be taken a very, very long time to rebuild. The only salvageable attraction that was unscathed was Batman: the Ride due to it's elevated structure helping it to survive the entire storm. Ray Nagin forced them to rebuild on the same land. They removed Batman and relocated to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 2008, where it was repainted under the new name "*Goliath*". They also removed anything that could be recovered from the site such as ride parts, shade coverings, lights, security cameras, ceiling fans, etc. Besides Batman: the Ride, Bayou Blaster & Sonic Slam (twin S&S Drop Towers) were taken to the Great Escape in Queensbury, NY as *Sasquatch*. And the Roadrunner Express was taken Magic Mountain in 2010 under the same name. As for the rest they remained and sat abandoned. Eventually, Six Flags was successful at exiting their 75-year lease, meaning that they could no longer remove anymore things until demolition. The park might have not been turned around into a success they hoped. Since 2009, their were many attempts to river the park, including an upscale mall and other theme park versions (including a Nickelodeon type) none of this had came to be. Six Flags New Orleans removed their giant neon entrance sign and never returned.

#### Abandoned

As of 2022, Six Flags New Orleans was left to rot until its impending demolition. Trees and grass grew their way up the structures, with rust covering the remaining metal, and slowly decaying coasters. Urban explorers documented and made creepy images of what remained. Buildings and rides (mostly SpongeBob's) have also been considerably vandalized. Lurking alligators, large moccasin snakes, large snapping turtles, and wild boars joined forces and took over the lake at the center of the park.

### Sections

#### Main Street Square (formerly Jazz Plaza)

* Zydeco Zinger
* Jazz, Jazz, Jazz theatre
* Gift shops

#### Cajun Country

* Lafitte's Pirate Ship
* Ozarka Splash (formerly *Cypress Plunge*)
* Gator Bait
* Muskrat Scrambler
* Cajun Pirate shows
* SpongeBob SquarePants: the Ride

#### DC Comics Superheroes Adventures (2003 Expansion)

* Batman: the Ride
* CatWoman's Whip
* Gotham City Hall theatre
* Joker's Jukebox
* Lex Luthor's Invertatron

#### Pontchartrain Beach

* Bayou Blaster & Sonic Slam (formerly)
* Beach Bangup
* The Big Easy
* Dizzy Lizzy
* Pontchartrain Flyer
* Zydeco Scream

#### Mardi Gras

* Bayou Blaster & Sonic Slam
* Jocco's Mardi Gras Madness
* King Chaos
* Krazy Krewe
* Mad Rex
* Mardi Gras Menagerie
* Mega Zeph
* Skycoaster
* Spillway Splashout
* The Jester
* Voodoo Volcano
* Zydeco Zinger (formerly)

#### Looney Tune's Adventure (formerly Kid's Carnival)

* Roadrunner's Express (*formerly Rex's Railrunner*)