Quote
The thrill is gone
For AstroWorld fans, the ride is over
By ANDREW GUY JR. and EYDER PERALTA
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
"Excuse me, ma'am, why are you closing the park?" asked 12-year-old Matt Lemberg.
ASTROWORLD
1968-2005
Jessica Kourkounis / Chronicle
ARMED FOR FUN: Vistors to
Six Flags AstroWorld take a ride
on the amusement park's most
famous ride, the Texas Cyclone.
The coaster, which was built in
1976, reaches speeds of 65 mph.
Joyce Ballenger, who works at AstroWorld's public relations office walked toward him. She looked rather sad.
"Corporate made a decision to sell the park," Ballenger said.
"Are they gonna put this park somewhere else?"
Ballenger shook her head. AstroWorld employees found out about the park's closing along with the public. There's very little Ballenger knows about the fate of the rides.
Lemberg munched on his fries. He asked if the San Antonio Six Flags park,
Fiesta Texas, would be saved. Ballenger nodded. Lemberg smiled.
The end is nigh
AstroWorld has been a place of firsts: Dates. Kisses. First thrill rides. A place where kids graduate from the kiddie world of the Dentzel Carousel to the very adult world of the Serial Thriller mega coaster.
Houston's first amusement park opened in 1968. Admission then was $4.50; $3.50 for kids.
For many area teens, AstroWorld is summer camp. Season passes are cheap. They can be had for $59.
On Oct. 30, a once-grand amusement park will shutter and the memories of millions will be all that's left along with scrap iron and lonely concession stands.
Coasting on empty
There's an air of romance about the Texas Cyclone. Maybe it's the cracked white paint that reveals bare wood, or the sound the swoosh and clack the roller coaster makes as it moves along the wooden tracks.
As the sun went down, Will, who asked that his last name not be used, stared up at the Texas Cyclone through the lens of a Hasselblad camera, a camera perhaps as old as the 1976 coaster. He shook his head every time he thought about the ride coming down. Will rode the Texas Cyclone the day it opened, when he was 8 years old.
"I don't think they're thinking about the long-term ramifications of (closing AstroWorld)," he said. "Every major city needs certain things."
Theme parks are where teenagers build memories. It's where Sue Gebhart, 48, came on dates as a teen. It's where she brought her daughter, once she grew 42 inches tall, to face fear on Greezed Lightin'.
Jessica Kourkounis / Chronicle
LAST STOP: Erick Young, 4, of Houston sits atop a wooden horse
on the Denzel Carousel at Astroworld last week.
A professional photographer, Will bought a season pass. He will stand in wake and document the Texas Cyclone until the park closes.
Teen hang-out
Ricky Mijares, a 15-year-old sophomore at Regan High School and Bianca Solis, a 14-year-old freshman, will miss AstroWorld. Both have been coming to the park since they were toddlers, both have season passes and both have years of memories of visits with friends and family.
Mijares prefers water rides. Coasters are fine, but he's afraid of heights. Even he admits that doesn't make sense.
Solis has no issue with heights. She's tried many times to talk her beau into joining her on Dungeon Drop, the free-fall fright that takes riders up 20 stories then drops them in a flash.
No sale.
"I will not do Dungeon Drop," Mijares says, flatly.
The couple says they will miss hanging with their friends in the summer, will miss the clank of roller coaster cars as they ascend that first hill and will miss the slightly dizzy feel you get after a ride.
"Where else is there for us to hang at?" Solis asks. "There aren't a lot of things around here for us to do. It's fun out here."
The big picture
When AstroWorld opened in 1968, it was part of a much bigger plan for Houston's south side. The park was constructed next to the Astrodome, then touted as the eighth wonder of the world. Former Houston Mayor Roy Hofheinz, the project's idea man, wanted to build nine hotels that would tie the complex together.
AstroWorld featured some 2,000 light fixtures. Two thousand tons of central air conditioning were pumped into the park, making it the most extensive outdoor cooling project in the world.
Live to ride
The inevitable closing brought fans of AstroWorld here. They wanted to ride Greezed Lightin', Serial Thriller or the Texas Cyclone one last time, before the park unscrewed every bolt and sent the rides to other amusement parks or a lonely retirement in some junkyard.
Thirty-seven years after Wanda Balmforth first visited the park, she and her husband, David, stood in front of Greezed Lightin', giddy, wearing pastel-blue shirts with a sketch of Coney Island's historical Cyclone roller coaster.
When Batman: The Escape opened in 1993, the couple was still dating. They rode the new roller coaster 42 times in a row. The only thing that stopped them from ride No. 43 was Wanda's bladder.
"This (park) is a piece of history," David said. "When we were kids (growing up in the northeast) we used to think Texans were rich because they had roller coasters."
The Balmforths are ACERs (members of American Coaster Enthusiasts); in other words, coasters are their life.
Family time
Addie Villavasso and her two kids, Starr, 9, and Courtney, 7, watched as the giant space shuttle of the Looping Starship rocked back and forth, back and forth, then up, up, up. All the way up, until the riders were upside down and screaming like banshees.
"Look at them!" said Villavasso, whose friends were on the ride.
There was more screaming as the shuttle did a full loop, as it swooped back towards earth.
"When are we going to eat? I'm tired," Starr said with a whine.
"Soon," Villavasso said.
A native of New Orleans, Villavasso is just one of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees still living in Houston. The family would like to return to New Orleans, but the daughters' school hasn't reopened. So far, the family has enjoyed its stay in Houston.
They've really enjoyed AstroWorld.
"Please don't close AstroWorld," Villavasso pleaded. "It gives parents sanity. You can bring your child here all day and it wears them out."
Starr interrupts.
"Mommy, I'm hungry. I want to go eat!"
And in the end
AstroWorld isn't as shiny as it was on opening day 37 years ago. In recent years the park has been an underperformer, and it's parent, Oklahoma-based Six Flags, which owns 30 amusement parks, is more than $2 billion in debt.
AstroWorld's real estate is much more valuable than the park. "While attendance has gone down, the value of the land has gone up substantially," chief financial officer Jim Dannhauser told the Chronicle. Some estimates put the worth of the land on which AstroWorld sits at more than $100 million.
Some of AstroWorld's rides will be moved to other Six Flag parks. There's a rumor that Texas Cyclone, once a star among wooden coasters, could be cut up and left for kindling.
A family affair
"Right here, you have three generations of people who have come to AstroWorld," said Joycelyn Winters, 42. LaShinda, her 25-year-old daughter, and her grandson Erick Young, 4, were taking a spin on the carousel.
The weekend was a pilgrimage. It felt like everyone was at AstroWorld to pay their last respects. For one last time, LaShinda rode the Texas Cyclone, a ride she finally conquered in her teens.
As a child, every time the family visited the park, LaShinda would gaze at the roller coaster and try to muster the courage to climb aboard. "It was old, and it seemed like it was falling apart," she said of the roller coaster that was constructed in 1976.
LaShinda's regret today is that Erick, too young and too short, will never have the chance to make that choice.
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