8 minute read
Pontchartrain Beach: A Family Affair!
by Shauna Grissett
If you’re a New Orleanian of a certain age, hearing the refrains of that catchy jingle transports you back in time to steamy summers spent at Pontchartrain Beach. The mouth-watering smells of hotdogs, hamburgers and cotton candy materialize and hang in the hot air that’s as thick as grits in the Big Easy. In the background, the loud clickety-clack of the Zephyr zooming along its tracks comes to life to the screams of delighted riders as you race to get in line for the Wild Maus, always the scariest ride at the Beach. Then again, a Fogg Cutter at the exotic Bali Ha’i with your best guy or gal might be more romantic. Just as the beat of the 70s’ hit Love Will Keep Us Together begins to pulsate from the loudspeakers along the Midway, your iPhone rings and your daydream of carefree summers spent at the beloved amusement park comes to an abrupt halt. But, no matter the era, everyone had “fun, every day of the week,” at Pontchartrain Beach.
In the early part of the twentieth century, Harry Batt Sr., the park’s founder, worked in his family’s ice manufacturing business. The story goes that while making an ice delivery Uptown, Harry Sr. saw a Model T truck carrying a refrigerator down St. Charles Avenue, and the proverbial “lightbulb” went off, signaling it was time for a new career. Jazz and liquor abounded in New Orleans—it was the height of The Jazz Age—and Harry Sr., an imaginative man with an entrepreneurial spirit, knew instinctively the one thing the city lacked—entertainment for children. So, with the support of his dynamic wife, Marguerite, by his side, he built his dream and opened Pontchartrain Beach on June 30, 1928.
Bryan Batt, grandson of Harry Batt Sr., and Katy Danos—co-owners with Tom Cianfichi of Hazelnut, the fine-gift and home-furnishings shop on Magazine Street—have written their second book together, Pontchartrain Beach: A Family Affair! It’s a fun-filled, roller coaster ride through the amusement park’s history, jampacked with laugh-out-loud stories, poignant reminiscences and vintage photos. The book is a tribute to Harry Batt Sr.’s vision and foresight as well as to the Batt family’s lasting legacy. When not at Hazelnut or writing books with Danos, Batt is the talented Broadway, film and television actor, best known for the role that won him two Screen Actors Guild awards—Salvatore Romano in the critically acclaimed series, Mad Men. And, Danos, equally accomplished, is the editor of Adore Magazine, a lifestyle publication by the New Orleans Advocate, Louisiana’s largest newspaper, and a contributing writer to Inside New Orleans. Her work has appeared nationally in House Beautiful and the New York Times.
Bryan Batt and Katy Danos.
Talking to Batt and Danos about their upcoming book is even more fun than riding the Ragin’ Cajun and the Zephyr—combined. The animated and charismatic duo, who met as undergrads at Tulane, are close friends as well as business partners. Danos says, “When we opened Hazelnut in 2003, Bryan and I quickly realized how much we liked working together. We are very in sync when it comes to creative pursuits.” She elaborates on their successful partnership: “We have a similar stamina, work ethic, vision, and we’re both fiercely driven.” Batt echoes Danos, saying, “I don’t think you can have a genuinely good working relationship, or any relationship, if you don’t have respect and admiration for that person. Katy is a ‘can-do’ kind of person, which goes with my philosophy. She’s great about structure and elevating ideas, and we trust each other artistically. We complement each other very well.” It was when Batt was cleaning out his late mother’s home that the idea for a book about the Beach began to take root. He says, “We found several boxes of memorabilia in the garage labeled ‘PB’ and wondered what to do with it. Unbelievably, nothing had been written about the Beach until now. I thought a book would be great because people constantly came up to me and asked about it.” So, Batt began to knock around his idea with Danos as a possibility for their next book. Danos says, “Bryan had a lot of material, all of Marguerite’s journals, her hand-written notes and many pictures. But, before I committed, I had to think about how I was going to connect to this project since I’m not a family member and I don’t love roller coasters! Then, Bryan started lobbying me about it, and he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer!” Eventually, Danos signed on, but the first order of business was figuring out the book’s angle. She says, “We didn’t want it to be a dry history, because we’re not historians. And, I didn’t want it to become a family scrapbook. Once I saw Bryan’s treasure trove of memorabilia, I knew that this was an American pop culture story of a much larger scale.” In order to tell the real story of Pontchartrain Beach, to find out what it was like to work there, to be a Beach-goer and to find out what Harry Sr. was like, Batt and Danos announced their project by asking the public—former Beach employees, patrons, performers and friends of the Batt family—for their stories and photographs.
Ask and ye shall receive. And receive they did! The public sent in countless reminiscences, memorabilia and photographs, more than Batt and Danos could ever have imagined. They were overwhelmed by the response. “As far as writing the book and selecting the photographs, which are the parts we love the most, it took about two years, and we did all of it together,” says Danos. We have a specific process, but the final phase is that we sit side-by-side and write word-by-word, together. We ask each other, is there a funnier word, a more lyrical word, a more striking word? And creating the headers and subtitles—well, let’s just say the humor flows!” In addition to cementing Pontchartrain Beach’s place in history, Batt and Danos had another motivation for writing the book: to tell the story of a family-owned business, a universal subject. Danos explains, “I felt people would identify with the book, even if they’d never been to Louisiana or to Pontchartrain Beach, because there are so many unique family businesses with their own cultures. The inside vantage point to this story is fascinating.” At first, Batt wasn’t sure that his personal family stories would be of such interest to the readers. But Danos convinced him otherwise, and she was right. Batt is both witty and a fabulous storyteller, and his accounts of growing up in the dazzling wonderland are worth the “price of admission” to Pontchartrain Beach: A Family Affair! One of Batt’s funniest anecdotes recounts his perilous experience as a child marooned on the Sky Ride with his brother, miles above the earth, his little feet dangling in the air. Without giving away the story, suffice it to say only Batt could turn his harrowing rescue by the Fire Department into a storybook ending complete with a photo op—a hint at his future career as an actor, perhaps?
About his family’s business, Batt says, “All of my friends, their dads were doctors, lawyers and businessmen, everything was very cut-and-dry. But I could never really explain what my father did.” Batt’s father and uncle, John A. Batt and Harry J. Batt Jr., joined the family enterprise in the mid-’60s and worked alongside their father, Harry Sr. Batt continues, “But yes, I suppose in retrospect it was very exotic to have the sampan from the Bali Ha’i come and deliver dinner at night! I was weaned on egg rolls, and honestly, I couldn’t stomach Chinese or Asian food from fifth grade until I was out of college!” The Bali Ha’i tiki lounge and restaurant opened in 1952 at the Beach. Built in response to the tiki craze sweeping the nation in the late 1940s and 1950s, it provided a new dining experience for New Orleanians. While parents enjoyed Asian food and drank rum-laced cocktails, such as Mai Tais and Fogg Cutters, kids had the run of Pontchartrain Beach. The Bali Ha’i was the perfect “date-night” location, a one-stop shop complete with a built-in baby-sitter!
Pontchartrain Beach poster by Brad Thompson Fine Art
On a more serious and touching note, in the process of writing the book, Batt learned more about both his grandfather and father from an adult perspective. “This may sound corny, but while we were writing, it was as if my grandfather came to life again. He passed away when I was only 14, but he was always so supportive of me. And my father died two years after the Beach closed, when I was in my early twenties.” Batt says he learned the impact his grandfather had on theme and amusement parks, not just locally but internationally. “Now I realize that he was a visionary.” In addition to the concessions, games and state-of-the-art rides, Harry Sr. brought in a wide variety of entertainment to the Beach. He hired animal acts, magicians, tight-rope walkers, high-divers, daredevils, celebrity guests—including a very young Elvis Presley—and introduced fireworks shows. With the nation’s fascination with Hollywood glamour, Harry Sr. had the groundbreaking idea to host beauty pageants at the Beach. The first Miss New Orleans pageant took place at Pontchartrain Beach in 1928 and continued, along with a variety of fun, themed pageants, through 1967. In September of 1983, after 50 years of providing thrills, chills and endless fun to the public, Pontchartrain Beach closed. Batt explains, “All good things must come to an end. By the late ’70s and early ’80s, that style of entertainment was dissipating. The big theme parks were taking over, and going on a roller coaster or taking your date to an amusement park was replaced with going to the mall. I am very proud of this book. It was important to document the Beach, not only for my family, but for New Orleans, the Gulf South and for history. I didn’t want Pontchartrain Beach’s legacy to fade away without proper recognition.”
If you’d like to meet Bryan Batt and Katy Danos in person, the following book signings are scheduled for Pontchartrain Beach: A Family Affair! Hazelnut 5525 Magazine St. New Orleans hazelnutneworleans.com Friday, November 2 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Garden District Book Shop 2727 Prytania St. New Orleans gardendistrictbookshop.com Wednesday, November 7 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble 3721 Veterans Memorial Blvd. Metairie Saturday, November 17 11a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
