50th Anniversary of Astroworld's Grand Opening!

[CoasterWild]

Come Friday the 1st of June and we'll honor Six Flags Astroworld (June 1 1968 - October 30 2005) in Houston, Texas with the 50th Anniversary of its Grand Opening!

What were your fond memories of this theme park?

 

[Gavin]

This is like one of those Facebook posts that say "Happy Birthday" to dead relatives.

 

[davidm]

Looks great these days. I see they have dumped some tarmac down.



c/w

 

[Hixee]

**** me, that is bleak.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Interestingly, the excellent YouTube series Defunctland features Astroworld in this week's episode:

Its closure sounds like a prime example of mismanagement, lack of ambition, and bad timing. It was a really big and well-equipped park, but Six Flags couldn't afford to add anything to it, and as such it stagnated. And then they decided to demolish it and sell the land, in the hope that the cash injection would save the company. It evidently didn't work, and Six Flags met the same destiny anyway, only with one park less to show for it.

Astroworld did succeed for a while, though, and Houston still has no other park to fill the gap it left (I think we had a thread on this a while back?). Maybe there's hope for the future here?