20th Anniversary of Pontchartrain Beach's closure

In 1983 Pontchartrain Beach closed its gates after announcing the land it sat on was too great of value for an amusement park. Only a small part of that land has currently been developed and remnants of the old beach still remain. It's a very sad thing how yet another piece of amusment park history was destroyed in the name of "progress." The University of New Orleans Research Park now stands where part of the amusement park stood. It's also ashame how a classic wooden coaster was brutally destroyed.

Hey Camera...yes that is sad indeed. I wonder if there was any attempt to secure historical registry for the Zephyr and thus save it from the wrecking ball. Found this on RCDB: "Thanks to Aaron Broussard the Mayor of Kenner at the time, the crest of Zephyr’s lift hill was saved and reconstructed at a park across from the Kenner City Hall." Is the crest of the lift hill still standing? Perhaps the whole coaster can be resurrected one day.
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Nashville needs a theme park!

Just the very top with its nostalgic ball on top. The cars used to be on display there but they are now in storage (or at least were).

That's great that someone still remembers this park. It is truly sad that this coaster and park is gone maybe you can give some insight as to how the park and the Zephyr really ran.

Also is the mega zepgh a worthy "child" or is it like SOB.

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Your Park only has 1 good coaster! That's too bad!

Mega Zeph is very much worthy but I just can't see it being referred to as a child. Maybe a cousin ;) Six Flags New Orleans is literally right down the lakefront road a few miles from where Pontchartrain Beach used to be.
*** This post was edited by Cameraman 9/1/2003 9:08:42 PM ***

The original Zephyr was an out-and-back with a bunch of tunnels at the bottoms of the camelbacks (supposedly to keep the drunks from hurling their empty beer bottles at the passing trains)... the MegaZeph is a much larger double out-and-back that seems to share nothing with the original except common location (in Louisiana) and part of a name.

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-Rob
A.C.E. member since 1990
Posting @ Coasterbuzz since 2000
E.C.C. member since 2002