Boardwalk
Demise of an amusement park, or a wanna be amusement park.
The history of this event is as interesting as the demise itself. A grand water park once stood where I stand today. But all signs of it and its counterpart have been bull dozed under to make room for yet another office park.
White Water was a water-based amusement park. It was one of my regular TV sponsors. We shot many stories with White Water as the background. It was the first park of its type in the Dallas Fort Worth area. During its second year of operation two things happened. First White Water opened a second park in Garland and second, Wet ‘n Wild opened down the street. It was another water-based amusement park. The White Water Parks thrived, the competition was intense, but no matter what Wet ‘n Wild did, White Water came out on top.
The owner of White Water was easy going, laid back and relaxed. The owner of Wet ‘n Wild was anything but. He could not understand why his park could not do as well as White Water. He gave up understanding and offered White Water more money than the parks could ever be worth. He purchased them both. The park closest to him he destroyed, filled the pipes in with concrete, closed it up and placed the land for sale. The one in Garland he kept for a while, and then sold it. He won, or did he? He went belly up a couple of years latter and Six Flags bought him out. A true example of greed and stupidity, but wait, another example beckons over yonder horizon.
1991 I was in the parking lot of the old White Water with my annual haunt. Working with the city and preparing to open I heard the rumor of a new owner for the park with big plans. I wanted to be part of the adventure and met with the powers at/to be. They put me off and asked me to wait to meet with the General Manager. I waited and waited and finally got to meet with, nope not the GM, an assistant. Oh, well, we had our meeting and I was very unimpressed. The assistant’s claim to fame was as an assistant manager for a fast food chain outlet. They were not interested in anything I had to offer or say.
My amusement park knowledge was still developing. I had not completed all of my research and not formed any set ideas. They may have been right about me not having anything to offer. I did not think that this was so, but my confidence in this area was low.
I kept tabs on the park and when it opened I took my children and their friends to visit it. It had the largest Ferris wheel I had ever seen and I wanted to ride it. The TV ads were anything but exciting and radio was no better. And the park, ahh yes, the park. We arrived and walked the familiar walk to the ticket booth. The attendants were less than excited and a bit inept. The lines were not and the wait was over how to handle cash.
Once inside the park I stopped for a moment and made this statement to my son “Brad, this place will be lucky if it finishes the season and it will never open again after that.”
My son looked at me as if I were crazy, he did not ask why; instead he engaged his own mind to look to see what it was that I could see that he had not noticed yet.
Three things hit me at the entrance of the park; the ticket fiasco, the food service help smoking in public and a costumed character with part of her long blonde hair sticking out of the neck of her rabbit costume.
He saw the kid smoking and the hair out of the costume. “Because the workers do not care?” “No son, because management does not care.”
It became more obvious to me and my son that they had serious problems. They had a new ride that I had never seen before; it was a gravity coaster. You rode on a small board with a friend and gravity propelled you along the track. I did not want to ride it and neither did the kids. We played miniature golf, rode the motorcars and the giant Ferris wheel. In general the employees were barely there and certainly knew nothing about why they were there, other than to collect a check. The kids had a nice time, I worried and we left. The ticket was more than the value we received and the concessions done Carney style (purchase coupons to obtain food) was further proof of how well trained and trusted the staff was.
The very next weekend tragedy struck. A little girl fell off the gravity coaster. It seems that the attendant did not check her seat belt and she fastened it improperly. She fell about twenty feet and landed in the grass. She was hospitalized for a year that I kept track of and then, don’t know. But “The Boardwalk” never recovered. Attendance dropped (not that it was much to begin with), employees were laid off, ads were pulled and the park closed in August never to open again.
The big red crane moves another steel roof girder into place. The office park is nearing completion. If the earth could speak, the stories it could tell, the fools to be revealed and opportunities missed. Oh, footnote, the guy that interviewed me was promoted to director of operations, the job I wanted. It turns out that the Boardwalk was a group of good ol’ boys scamming some foreign investors. In my honest opinion they never intended to make the park profitable, but a black hole for more money. I have no proof, other than my own observations, but the proof is in the pudding or lack there of.
So what have we learned? Attitude, it is now and forever will be everything. Knowledge, it is power, always has been and always will be. What you do not know will kill someone else. And “The Devil Is In The Details”. David Bertilino pooh poohed my details and is closer than he thinks to following the Boardwalk into history. He does have one thing that the Boardwalk did not, Erin Lawrence.
Copyright 2000, All Rights Reserved, JBCorn