Decaying Building at Pontchartrain Beach « What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today

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Decaying Building at Pontchartrain Beach

May 21, 2009 by Kate

Decaying Building at Pontchartrain Beach It was another seventy degree day in New Orleans, and I got up early enough to get a nice long ride in before my night class. Jack and I rode out Elysian Fields, because Googlemaps said there’d be an amusement park at the end. Now, of course I know better than to think there’s still an amusement park over there, but I just wanted to see what was left there. After a short argument with a security guard about my rights to bicycle around a parking lot, I found my way to the beach and to this broken-down structure. It’s overgrown, with a sagging floor and broken roof and a bent metal staircase. The underside is covered with graffiti. Pontchartrain Amusement Park was opened in 1928 for “Whites Only,” desegregated in the 1960s, and finally closed in 1983. I don’t know what this building was, if it was part of the amusement park, or a grandstand, or what. I wonder what it looked like when it was new. I wonder who used to come here. Today there were folks fishing out on the pilings, a couple eating crawfish on a cement slab, and some guys in a back of a pickup truck with a camera, taking pictures, just like me. I stood out in the sun, thankful that I can ride my bike anywhere I like, and am only a short ten miles from this place. I left the beach, called S. for directions home, and headed over through Mid-City on Wisner along City Park and Bayou St. John, up Jeff Davis,through Central City back Uptown. Perfect.

Posted in buildings, parks, weather | Tagged Uptown, Central City, New Orleans, Mid City, Bayou St. John, City Park, Lake Pontchartrain, Pontchartrain Beach, crawfish, Pontchartrain Amusement Park | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on May 21, 2009 at 3:58 pm | Reply janice schmidt

I love the photograph of this bandstand and your description of it. Well done.
on May 21, 2009 at 4:49 pm | Reply NOBC Pat

Kate, that is the old building where the roller coaster “The rajun cajun” loaded and un-loaded riders. It was modelled after a cajun style home. It was not taken down when the roller coaster was removed in the 1980s.
on May 21, 2009 at 6:21 pm | Reply Kate

Thank you, Pat. I was looking all over the internet for the story–cheers.

I want a roller coaster back! Did you ride it?
on July 1, 2009 at 5:35 pm | Reply Richard

I rode it — and I loaded people on it and helped people get off of it. Cool picture.
on July 11, 2009 at 12:02 am | Reply Kelly

I rode it too. Richard you probably helped me get on and off. Part of my childhood that is sorely, sorely missed. Thanks for helping me blow the dust off of the memories.
on August 21, 2009 at 11:50 am | Reply Claudia

Yep. Definitely the old Ragin’ Cajun ride. I’m surprised they still have that up. I actually have photos somewhere in my closet of that structure from the last weekend it was open. I worked there in the summer of 1983. I had just graduated high school and would be attending UNO in the fall. I worked in “Kiddie Land”, operating the little boats, the Red Baron planes, etc. Sometimes, I’d even get to operate the “Magic Rainbow”. I remember that Ragin’ Cajun seemed like such a cool, scary rollercoaster back in the day. Now, that I live near Universal Studios, and my kids ride the huge coasters there, the R.C. pails in comparison.

But, I do have a bunch of photos I took on the last weekend of many of the rides. In fact, that weekend, Fats Domino, the Neville Brothers (or maybe the Meters), Wang Chung and Iron Butterfly played concerts on the small stage near the lake!!! I got to hang out on stage during Fats’ set and realized I was standing right behind Elvis Costello! I’m not kidding.

Thanks for the chance to reminisce.