THE THE E END ND OF OF JO JO Y Y Part I abandoned amusement parks
It is a photo book about beauty of amusement parks, which are abandoned by people. Once they were filled with laughter and fun. However, at present they are completely empty and devastated. Furthemore, some of the parks are even demolished. Want to know more? Just open secret pages.
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CONTENTS Parks Ho Thuy Tiên p. 3 Roock-a-hoola p. 11 Dadipark p. 19 Macassar beach pavilion p. 27 Nara Dreamland p. 39 Wonderland p. 51 Six flags p. 57 Takakonuma Greenland p. 67 Guliver’s kingdom p. 75 Tropicana p. 83 Index
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HO THU TIEN
6°40′46.7″N 78°5′59.5″E
2004 – 2004
Ho, Vietnam
Hoồ Thuỷ Tiên was opened in 2004 at a price tag of approximately three million USD, the Ho Thuy Tien water park opened its gates to the public when it was only partially completed. Construction of the park began the same year when ended. It is unclear, what caused closing of this aquapark. Distinctive feature is that after opening of the park to one of its pools delivered three crocodiles. However, after closing of the park their provision and quality of life significantly worsened as nobody cleaned pools and did not feed. Several human rights activists complained to WWF and PETA after that they took out crocodiles in their habitat.
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ROCK-A-HOOLA WATERPARK
16°24′27.7″N 107°34′43″E
1962 – 2004
Newberry Springs, California, USA
The “Fun Spot of The Desert” is now a haunting ruin acting as a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.
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DADIPARK
50°51′13″N 3°5′43.4″E
1950 – 2002
Dadizele Belgium
This theme park began as a playground for bored church children of the Basilica of Our Lady of Dadizele. The park was closed down when a boy lost an arm on the Nautic Jet ride and the site was closed down for “renovations”. Unfortunately. these improvements never took place and the park was simply demolished.
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MACASSAR BEACH PAVILION
34°4′36.8″S 18°45′6.8″E
1991 – ???
Cape Town, South Africa
Macassar Beach Pavilion is an abandoned water park overtaken by the dunes. Water slides are cracked open and filled with sand, and the once-bright paint has faded into pastel hues against the dunes. Signs in the reserve warn of “dunes on the move”, and they don’t lie, as the sand that has wafted into former concession stands and changing rooms confirms. The Macassar Beach Pavilion was built around 1991, and along with the dunes was named for the Sheikh of Yusuf, a Macassar nobleman who died at the Cape in 1699, whose grave is nearby.
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NARA DREAMLAND
34°41′58.0″N 135°49′21.0″E
1961 – 2006
Nara, Japan
Opening Nara Dreamland was inspired by Disneyland in California. closed because of low visitor numbers. The park was left abandoned for 10 years until October 10th 2016 when demolition works began, which were scheduled to take 14 months. The number of visitors slowly began to decrease, 50.8536 as more people are more interested in going to the original 3.0954 Disneyland. This marked the beginning of the downfall for Dreamland, though attendance numbers dropped to around 34.699444 a million visitors a year. Dreamland’s attendance numbers 135.822500 extremely dropped to 400,000 visitors a year. By 2004, the park began to decline in quality; some stores closed down and some attractions began to rust. On August 31st of 2006, the park closed down for good. Since then, it was left abandoned.
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WONDERLAND
40°14′12.5″N 116°9′49.7″E
1993 – 1998
Beijing, China
Wonderland is version of Disneyland, completely abandoned, mostly destroyed. Developers wanted to change that by turning 100 acres of the barren land into the largest amusement park in Asia, Wonderland. Midway through the project, disputes over money and land ceased all construction. Unlike some projects that lose funding, Wonderland was fairly advanced in its construction, which made it notably eerie. While for a time the smaller castle streets maintained their pastel exteriors, the massive fairy-tale castle succumbed to the elements and had just a facade and steel beams. Since the park served no purpose, some of the farmers in the area reclaimed the land, and it was not uncommon to see men working in the cornfields, with a Cinderella-esque backdrop.
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SIX FLAGS
30°3′4″N 89°56′3.9″W
2000 – 2005
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA That has been closed since Hurricane Katrina struck the state in August 2005. After assessing the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the related exorbitant expenses of repairing the damage… Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, which put those plans and the continued operations of the park in question. After the park’s drainage pumps failed during the storm, the berm retained the combination of rainwater and sea water overflow from Lake Pontchartrain caused by Katrina’s massive storm surge, submerging the entire park grounds in corrosive brackish floodwater to a depth of 4 to 7 feet (1.2 to 2.1 m) for over a month. Due to the extensive water and wind damage received, the park was closed indefinitely with no plans to reopen.
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TAKAKONUMA GREENLAND
37°48′19.8″N 140°31′8″E
1973 – 1999
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Takakonuma Greenland was a massive amusement park built in the 1970s, but now is overgrown by the forest. According to most sources, it is not featured on any maps of Japan and is as remote as it is unknown to cartographers. Much of its spotty history is made up of legend and lore. Built in 1973, the park’s first run at the amusement market lasted only two years. Although some say it was closed for repairs, others insist that deaths on the park’s equipment forced its closure. It tried to open in 1986 to 1999, but unfortunately park closed for good and was abandoned. The park was finally demolished sometime in 2014. Only the big sign on the hillside remains.
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GULIVER’S KINGDOM
35°25′20.4″N 138°37′17.0″E
1997 – 2001
Japan Fujigane
Gulliver’s Kingdom was a failed theme park. “Suicide forest”, the second most popular suicide location after San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Bad enough Gulliver’s Kingdom had a suicide forest as its neighbor, the park’s other neighbors were much, much worse. The exposure of Aum Shinrikyo was pretty much the straw that broke the back of Gulliver’s Kingdom, though there was really so much wrong with the park on so many levels one might say it was clearly doomed from the start. The closest things to the usual amusement park rides and rollercoasters were a bobsled track and a luge course – not exactly ideal for the kiddies.
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TROPICANA
51°55′11.1″N 4°30′06.9″E
1988 – 2010
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Tropiacana. In the 90s there were several incidents of mostly young immigrants women in paradise harassed. However, the owner of the bath was imposed a fine of 80,000 euros if the defects could not be restored. In mid-2015 there was a plan to reopen the Tropicana pool. A crowd fund action was part of the plan. This hoped to win the initiators 600,000. For the entire renovation was estimated more than 14 million. Creditor Aegon had auctioned the building public in October 2015. It was for an amount of EUR 1.7 million allocated to the company BlueCity010 which is an initiative of the mushroom farm mushroom Rotter established in the building.
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INDEX
Ho Thuy Tien p. 6-7
Ho Thuy Tien p. 3
Ho Thuy Tien p. 8
Rock-a-hoola p. 14-15
Rock-a-hoola p. 11
Ho Thuy Tien p. 9
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Rock-a-hoola p. 16-17
Dadipark p. 19
Dadipark p. 22-23
Dadipark p. 25
Macassar beach pavilion p. 27
Macassar beach pavilion p. 30-31
Macassar beach pavilion p. 32-33
Macassar beach pavilion p. 34-35
Macassar beach pavilion p. 36-37
Nara Dreamland p. 42-43
Nara Dreamland p. 39 93
Nara Dreamland p. 44-45
Nara Dreamland p. 46-47
Wonderland p. 54
Nara Dreamland p. 48-49
Wonderland p. 54
Wonderland p. 50-51
Wonderland p. 55
Six flags, p.57
Six flags p. 60-61
Dadipark p. 62-63
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Six flags p. 64-65
Takakonuma Greenland p. 67, 73
Takakonuma Greenland p. 70-71
Takakonuma Greenland p. 72
Takakonuma Greenland p. 72
Guliver’s kingdom p. 78-79
Guliver’s kingdom p. 75 Guliver’s kingdom p. 80-81
Tropicana p. 83
Tropicana p. 88
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Tropicana p. 87
Tropicana p. 90-91
Tropicana p. 89
Photo sources: Flickr photo archives (www.flickr.com) Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) Photographers: Nathan Hoang, Kris van de Sande, Reginald Dierckx, Debby Vervoori, Chris Staring, Adrian Bischoff, Jordy Meowg, Chris Luckhardt, Anthony Citrano, Jeff Kern, Artificia Owl and others Text information sources: Atlas Obscura (www.atlasobscura.com) Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) Technical data: Format 60Ă—90/16 Paper 65 g/m2 Design: Ksenia Dubrovskaya Moscow, Russia 2016
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To be continued