A lost SF Park or a load of crap?

What do they mean by SF Power Plant?

http://members.tripod.com/~savehorizons/espn.htm

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Sounds like a rip-off of the Six Flags name. Six Flaggs?, I doubt thats a typo.
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Save Cheese on a stick!

It was a Six Flags attraction, but all that remains is the building.  (I was there tonight. It is now ESPN Zone, Hard ROck, Barnes and Nobles plus a few more things)   There were no coasters there, just as there were none at the old Six Flags Auto World park.  Or no coasters at Busch Gardens California.......when I buy a park ( :) ) I'm going to be sure to put in coasters.

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- Peabody

No, it was real, and it didn't last long. Thank God, Six Flags returned to Maryland in the form of an amusement park.

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Batwing-Bow Down

I was about to say... I've been in that building! Had a few beers there in '99, and I bought Luscious Jackson's Electric Honey and The Fragile from NIN.

Weird how you remember stuff like that.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

The SF Power Plant was the old power plant building used to make the electricity that powered Baltimore's street cars. When Baltimore began redeveloping the inner harbor, they wanted to save the building because it is historic. Six Flags had great plans for this "urban" amusment park, including both indoor and out door flat rides and a small indoor "Las Vegas" style roller coaster. The problem was that Baltimore's Inner Harbor development committee was split on the idea of how to better use this building. There was another group that had proposed turning the building a "sports" museum. This group had a lot of support from the city council but lost out to Six Flags on being awarded the rights to develop the site. In an effort to insure Six Flags would fail at the site, and then the "sports' museum could be given a chance, the city council passed regulations which limited what Six Flags could do at the site, including not allowing any rides of any kind. In other words, they told Six Flags they could develop the site, but they had to do it with their hands tied behind their backs. Mostly what Six Flags had at the site was indoor shows and attractions. After poor attendance, SF converted the food consessions area and resturant into a sort of night club called P.T. Flaggs. The arcade area remained open also. After a couple of years, SF decided that they did not want to be in the night club business, and the operation was shut down. As a side note, the "sports" museum group was given a chance to develop the site, but after receiving state and city money to proceed with renovations, the top leaders of the group "skipped" town with the money and left the site vacant for another few years before the current group turned the site into what it is now. It would have been nice to have this SF "urban" park, but I am glad that we have SFA now.
*** This post was edited by Rescue131 on 11/1/2001. ***

*** This post was edited by Rescue131 on 11/2/2001. ***

"A lost SF Park or a load of crap?"

Some would say it is both :)

Side note: Does anybody know the history or significance of Phineous T. Flagg?

Great Adventure once had a ferris wheel named "Phineous Flagg's Balloon Race."

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everything's better with a banjo

Actually, that was Phineas Fogg's Balloon Ride. 

Phineas Fogg is a character from the novel "Around the World in Eighty Days"

~ Michael ~

millrace said:
"A lost SF Park or a load of crap?"

Some would say it is both
Side note: Does anybody know the history or significance of Phineous T. Flagg?
Great Adventure once had a ferris wheel named "Phineous Flagg's Balloon Race."
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everything's better with a banjo

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ah ha! thanks :)

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everything's better with a banjo

Not sure about Phineous T. Flagg (or P.T.Flagg of the Power Plant Fame), however was the name of the Balloon Race ride at Great Adventure "Phineous Flagg" or "Phileas Fogg"? The reason why I ask this is that Phileas Fogg was the main character in the Jules Vern novel "Around the World in 80 Days" in which the image of old Phileas Fogg and his side kick (not sure of his name) floating aloft in a balloon is sort of well known.

Not questioning your memory. If in fact the name on the balloon race ride was "Phineas Flagg", it could have easily been just a take off on Phileas Fogg to suit the Six Flags name (Flagg = Fogg) or it could have been because of some copywrite issue with using the original name of Fogg (not sure how long copywrites last or if it was renewed). However, somehow I would bet that there may be a connection between Phileas Fogg and the balloon in "Around the World in 80 Days" and Phineas Flagg and the balloon race at Great Adventure.

NOTE: Okay, as I was typing this, Chernabog beat me too it. One thing that Chernabog did was mix up the name Phineas with Phileas... which is something I always thought too... Phineas Fogg, not Phileas Fogg... untill I looked up the name about 5 minutes ago before I typed my original post here.

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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."

*** This post was edited by SLFAKE on 11/1/2001. ***

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Chernabog beat me too it. One thing that Chernabog did was mix up the name Phineas with Phileas... which is something I always thought too... Phineas Fogg, not Phileas Fogg... untill I looked up the name about 5 minutes ago before I typed my original post here.

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Well, sorry about that :-)  The funny thing, I wanted to be certain it was a character from the novel, as I've never read it, so I did a search on Yahoo! for Phineas Fogg, and I got lots and lots of results.  So, at least I'm not alone.  The error apparently happens fairly often in adaptations and other publications of the novel.
But, with that said, my memory tells me that Six Flags may have made that same error.  I wish I could find an old map lying around somewhere.
~ Michael ~

I think it is what ever source you use. I did a search for "Around the World in 80 Days" just to be sure of the spelling. Of the three sources I checked (2 entries in the Internet Movie Data Base for movies by that title and one version of the novel) I found the name Phelias. I will say this... I was checking because I was not certain of the spelling of "Fogg" (1 or 2 G's)... I always thought it was Phineas myself. Like you said, I have a feeling that different sources have it listed different ways... especially in the Internet.

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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."

The Phineas T. Flagg character was used by SF as the "host" of the Power Plant. P.T. Flagg was supposed to be an inventor who was sort of "lost" in time at the turn of the century and the Power Plant was his lab where his inventions that "never quite made it" were kept. These "inventions" made up the bulk of the attractions at the Power Plant along with the arcade and a few shows. Six Flags had been trying to break into the Baltimore/DC market for years and they had hoped use the power plant as a sort of spring board for building a bigger traditional amusement park in the Baltimore area. It's just a shame that the Power Plant suffered from the usual "not in my backyard" syndrome that seems to afflict this area anytime some sort of amusement or entertainment idea is brought up.  I'm just glad that SF was able to finally get their foot into the door in this area with the opening of SFA.

*** This post was edited by Rescue131 on 11/1/2001. ***