by Denise Trowbridge, Liquid Weekly, September 2001

Local attorney Robert M. Schoenfeld remembers the park’s last day vividly. He took his son, Morlas, and convinced him to ride the Zephyr. "I knew it was the last time Pontchartrain Beach was going to be open, and it was the last time the Zephyr was running," he says, " He had never gone on the Zephyr and I begged and pleaded with him that this was the one thing he had to do while he had the opportunity."

He gave in. Morlas, then 7, tightly gripped the bar on his lap and looked straight ahead, his dark eyes wide open and thick black hair blowing straight back. "I don’t think he was scared so much as enthralled with this ride," he says, " I was proud that he gave in and did it."

Morlas, now 25, says he doesn’t remember if he enjoyed it or not. "But I did it anyway."

He wasn’t the only kid afraid to go on the Zephyr. The antique coaster was more than 40 years old in the Beach’s last days, and made noises that modern steel coasters just didn’t make. Kids at the back of the line swore they saw the track shaking when the cars thundered by. Jeremy Schreiber, a New Orleans native who was 11 when the park closed, saw a bolt fly off the Zephyr’s wooden frame just as he was ready to plummet down the first hill. " I was petrified," he says, " I probably didn’t go on it one more time that summer."

Generations of beach going thrill seekers like Jeremy and Morlas made memories at Pontchartrain Beach. The thrills didn’t last. The neon midway went black, and the snoball and popcorn shacks shut down when it closed its gates to the Crescent City 18 years ago this month, ending 54 years of family fun on the lakefront.

But Pontchartrain Beach never would have existed without refrigerators. Batt family legend says Harry was listening to the radio while driving home from his ice delivery route when he heard the news: General Electric was manufacturing a machine that could make ice in people’s kitchens, making home delivery obsolete. Park founder Harry Batt was running the family ice delivery business and had made a fortune selling large blocks of ice to Uptown’s upper crust. Harry realized his livelihood would soon be gone and said, "I have to find something else to do."

That’s when Harry Batt decided to make a living out of fun.

Inspired by a man who ran a carousel in Audubon Park, he subleased land from the owners of the original Pontchartrain Beach Amusement park near the Old Spanish Fort at Bayou St. John. In 1928, He set up the Bug, a caterpillar like roller coaster that ran until the park closed in 1983, and a scooter car ride which he owned and operated under his newly formed company, Playland, Inc.

Then it crashed. The stock market plummeted, and sent America into economic depression. The owners of the park, Lakeside Amusement Co., were forced out of business and Batt became Pontchartrain Beach’s sole proprietor in 1934. Development forced Batt to move the park to its new location at the end of Elysian Fields in 1939. The old site became residential Lake Vista.

Mary Lou Widmer, St. Charles Avenue columnist and author of 11 books including New Orleans in the 30s, remembers the move. In December of 1938, she went to a friend’s house to help decorate the Christmas tree, but they needed a tree stand. "In those days, you didn’t buy a ready made tree stand," she says, "You had to figure out your own."

They decided to stand the tree in a bucket of sand from the newly filled beach, so they piled into a car and headed to Pontchartrain Beach. "Nothing had opened yet, but I have a vivid memory of that line up of rides with the cement street in front facing the water," she says, " It was so beautiful, new and shiny and so enormous."

Before heading home to hang ornaments and tinsel, they walked the Midway and spotted the giant clown head, whose mouth was big enough to sit in. "Four or five of us got in it, and kind of crouched inside," she says, " And we were so tickled with ourselves."

The clown was part of a ride called the Cockeyed Circus, a fun house of distorting mirrors, slanted floors, and gusts of air that blew up ladies’ skirts. " Women in those days didn’t wear slacks much, it was skirts, And all of a sudden you would look down and realize that there was an audience down on the Midway watching you," says Widmer, " It was an open room and they could see your skirts blowing up and that was the laugh."

New Orleans hadn’t had a Coney- Island style ride like it before Pontchartrain Beach.

The Zephyr opened that first summer, boasting the South’s fastest coaster. Unlike its name, it wasn’t a gentle breeze. Reaching an unheard of 60 miles per hour of neck-jolting white-knuckled fun at the bottom of its first dip.

Harry Batt Jr., who operated the park after Harry Sr.’s retirement in 1970, was around 12 the first time the Zephyr rolled down the track. "It was fantastic to get on top of the Zephyr," he says, " And see nothing but cow pasture as far as you could see into Gentilly."
New Orleanians never tired of it. It was the park’s signature attraction and its most popular ride for 44 years.

The Beach at War

Shortly after Pontchartrain Beach opened in 1939, America prepared for war. The area surrounding the park, what is now the University of New Orleans campus, was a tent-city military base for young enlisted men. Camp Leroy Johnson and Camp Polk were within walking distance of the sandy beaches and cotton candy, and the Navy used the Beach parking lot as a drill station.

Enlisted men kept the park open when similar businesses, like Stock’s Amusement Park on City Park Avenue, were going under because of the enduring depression. A sea of sailors in caps packed the park until the Axis surrendered.

Harry Batt Sr., recognized the soldiers' part in keeping the new park afloat, and cut ride and game prices in half for men in uniform. Pontchartrain Beach became New Orleans’ most accessible, inexpensive quality entertainment for young soldiers looking for laughs and a break from long days of hard training and the anxiety of war.

The Provost Marshall seemed to appreciate it too. The Beach kept young soldiers away from the French Quarter, where they inevitably got into trouble.

The Beach staged hundreds of savings bond drives, simulated war games, and military equipment showcases to support the local war effort. "Our place was a Mecca not only for service men and women," said Batt Jr., " But also for the many drives we put on there."

And it was a great place for dates. The terror of the Zephyr was a good excuse to throw arms around a paramour, and Midway games were a great way to win a girl’s heart with Cupie Dolls and pitching arms. Gene Leingang Jr. , web master of www.pontchartrainbeach.com says the Midway was a great place to meet girls. " You could go up to a girl and talk to her and say ‘do you wanna go on a ride or to the Penny Arcade?,’" he says, "It was innocent and it was safe."

Harry Batt Sr., always guaranteed a good show too. Free entertainment started every night at 9 p.m. Animals acts, circus performers, and marriages performed on a tightrope amused guests on hot summer nights. Any seat on the seawall was a good view and everyone had fun even if they didn’t have a dime. Those with a pocket full of pennies could spend an hour or two in the penny arcade getting their fortunes told, playing penny slots or buying trading cards of movie stars.

Kiddieland, Bali Ha’I and 25 years of good clean fun

The post-war Baby Boom prompted the Batts to build Kiddieland at the base of the Milneburg Lighthouse in 1947. " It was a great hit, " said Batt Jr. " No one had ever done anything like it before."

The 50s became the decade of playful optimism. Park attendance sky- rocketed, drawing tourists with its miles of supervised free beaches, nickel a ride prices for the carousel and Kiddieland and high-profile entertainment. Tightrope walkers gave way to big name acts like Fabian, Rudy Vallee, and Elvis Presley, who played his first show for free and lost top billing to a circus animal act.

The Bali Ha-I at the Beach joined the park in 1958, on the heels of a nationwide Tiki craze fueled by veterans returning from the Pacific Rim. The Bali Ha’I , an A-frame Polynesian paradise, shared the name of the mythical island of women in the 1948 Pulitzer prize-winning novel Tales of the South Pacific. New Orleans indulged its more exotic appetites with giant Tiki Bowl cocktails laden with paper umbrellas and gourmet Cantonese cuisine.

The tropic environs and inebriating Mai Tai’s made the Bali Ha’I the city’s celebration hot spot. Waitresses dressed in theme and guests of honor sat in fan-backed wicker chairs. Many New Orleanians drank their first real cocktails in the slanted shade of its palm fronds, thanks to prom night dinners and liberal drinking laws.

But the Bali Ha’I didn’t last as long as the Beach. It closed to the public, except for catering, in 1975 because too few chefs could prepare high-quality Polynesian fare. In a 1976 article in Dixie Magazine, Harry Batt Sr., said " As soon as one got the wrinkles out, he’d leave and start a restaurant of his own."

The prosperity of the 50s, like the Bali Ha’I, didn’t last.

Turbulent 60s, The End of the Glory Days

When schools, streetcars and lunch counters, swimming pools and bathrooms were racially segregated, so was Pontchartrain Beach. Harry Batt’s lease with the Orleans Parish Levee Board specifically stated that the facility was only to serve the city’s white community. Then Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Attorney Robert M. Schoenfeld says segregation was one thing that Pontchartrain Beach patrons didn’t really notice. Everything was segregated. "It was just the way things were, " he says, " It wasn’t something that stood out."

The city provided the Black community with its own amusement park, Lincoln Beach, a few miles from Pontchartrain Beach. Most white residents thought that was enough for New Orleans’ Black community.

But the city was integrating. In 1960, the federal government forced the Orleans Parish school system to admit black students and shut down schools that refused to comply. That same year, members of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, staged a sit in at the lunch counter of a downtown Woolworth’s. In 1962, Tulane University admitted its first Black students, and ‘colored’ signs were removed from public water fountains and bathrooms.

The Batt family knew Pontchartrain Beach was not immune to integration. Harry Batt Sr., wanted to take advantage of the desegregation clause written into his lease and sell the rides to the city. The Levee Board would have to pay him full price for his equipment if he chose not to operate an integrated park, so he could go out of business without losing his investment. But Harry Batt Jr. and brother John convinced dad to weather the storm and keep the park running." We had never catered to the Black man. We didn’t know his habits or his desires or whether he would like our type of entertainment," said Harry Batt Jr., " So we were in a sense rolling the dice on what the future would be."

The turbulent social climate prompted the Batt’s to make a few changes before the park integrated on July 1, 1964. A fence was installed around the park to help control crowds and reduce vandalism, and a new pay-one-price ticket policy went into effect, intended to discourage troublemakers.

Still, the park suffered. The 1964 to ‘69 seasons were the leanest in its history. The swimming pool closed and attendance drastically decreased. Even Lincoln Beach began to decline. "White customers were reluctant to come back to us," says Batt Jr., " They wanted to sit a while and see what was going to happen."

Mary Lou Widmer says many people resented the integration of the park and began to think it was the end of the glory days of Pontchartrain Beach. " You see we were integrated by law in 1964, but that doesn’t mean everybody accepted it," she says, "There was always a great deal of dissatisfaction about that among whites, so whatever places you could stay away from, you did, if that was your feeling."

In an effort to bring customers back to the park, Pontchartrain Beach got a makeover. A new sky ride, cable car, and calypso were installed to dress up the park and give it the shot in the arm it needed to survive. But other factors worked against its recovery.
Family owned and operated Pontchartrain Beach couldn’t compete with television or corporate theme parks like Disney World and Six Flags. Air Conditioning lessened the appeal of the cool lake breezes that had drawn so many people to the lake front in earlier years. Finding liability insurance became impossible. " New Orleans is a litigious city," said Batt Jr., " People like to sue you if they stub their toe walking down the Midway."

Times were changing. People were changing. Amusement parks needed new gimmicks to keep people coming back year after year. The Ragin’ Cajun, erected in 1978 at a cost of $1.3 million, was the last ride installed in the park. The all-steel loop coaster only raised attendance temporarily, and did not create the momentum the park needed to stay open. Pontchartrain Beach was just too small, and the Batts couldn’t afford the expensive new rides needed to keep people interested. " Small family parks are just about extinct," says Batt Jr., "Because the cost of equipment is just too much."

In 1983, the Batt brothers threw in the beach towel.

The Beach Today

The Milneburg lighthouse is an inconspicuous ivy- covered relic forgotten and in disrepair, eclipsed by the large buildings looming nearby. Two decades ago, it was a focal point and meeting place blanketed in the sugary smells of salty lake breezes and candy apples melting on sweltering summer days. A centerpiece of Kiddieland, it shaded visitors meeting friends at its base. The University of New Orleans now leases the old Pontchartrain Beach site from the Levee Board and plans to develop the area into a 55-acre Research and Technology Park, to restore the beaches and build a new hotel. The Milneburg lighthouse will be preserved as an historic landmark and incorporated into the hotel structure.

In May, a mystery surfaced at the Beach. Developers trying to restore 15 acres of beach near UNO found a three walled structure and ramp between the flood wall and the water. The ramp was the Ragin’ Cajun’s loading dock, which Sheriff Charles Foti has offered to restore with the help of city work crews.

More bits of the Beach await the nostalgia starved in Kenner. The public park across from Kenner City Hall at 1801 Williams Blvd., houses the top crest of the Zephyr and the entrance finery of the Bali Ha’I. The ‘Bali Ha’I At the Beach’ sign and corresponding 6-foot twin Tiki gods now guard the entrance to a picnic area overlooking a sand volleyball court. The crest of the Zephyr, its red letters still nearly melting off its white wood frame, marks the first turn of the park’s miniature railroad line. Former Mayor Aaron Broussard acquired the items from the Batt family and moved them to the park shortly after Pontchartrain Beach closed.

Copy-cats and Coastering

New park operators know what the old Pontchartrain Beach means to New Orleans. Jazzland opened a Pontchartrain Beach theme area. "It’s basically a replica," says Jazzland public relations manager Patrick Evans. "We’re trying to build on the favorable memories of Pontchartrain Beach," he says, " To offer a nostalgic experience as well as a world class park experience."

Jazzland’s MegaZeph is a tribute to the old Zephyr coaster and, like its predecessor, is the park’s most popular ride. Evans says they are trying to buy the original Zephyr sign." I think people will come just to see that."

The Galaxi and the Ragin’ Cajun live on in spirit at Baton Rouge’s Dixie Landin’ theme park. Unfortunately, these coasters only bear the names of the old Pontchartrain Beach rides. The real Ragin’ Cajun is farther from home. After the Beach closed in 1983, the Great Escape theme park in Lake George, New York bought the coaster and renamed it the Steamin’ Demon, where it still operates.

Gene Leingang says Jazzland and corporate amusement parks can’t take Pontchartrain Beach’s place. " Pontchartrain Beach just had a different feel to it," he says.

Mary Lou Widmer agrees. " They are not a follow up of the original."

Digital Beach

Pontchartrain Beach lives on the Internet, thanks to Gene Leingang Jr. He’s been running the www.thepontchartrainbeach.com web site since 1998. The best site on the old Beach on the web, it posts vintage photos and postcards, letters, and information about park events like the Miss New Orleans Pageant.

The photos come from his late father, Gene Leingang Sr., an amateur photographer who snapped pictures at the park from 1939 to1983. He never thought anyone would see them. "The only reason he saved them was because he saved everything," says Leingang Jr., who found the negatives in a closet after his father passed away. More than a thousand of them lay between brown, crumbled pieces of rotting paper, but the 60-year-old negatives were in perfect condition. Most of the photos turned out to be Pontchartrain Beach. "I think he just wanted to be there because it was the place to be," he says.

Leingang started the web site so that he could share his father’s work with the community. "Nothing has ever been for sale," he says, " It’s more or less this is what my dad did, so enjoy it."
Gene Sr.’s photographs are also on display at the Bergeron Gallery at 516 Natchez St. in the Central Business District.

The Laff in the Dark has its own web site. The Beach’s beloved funhouse ride was only one of many similar rides in parks throughout the country. Www.laffinthedark.com features an essay by Doug Ferguson about his thrill at Pontchartrain Beach.

A Worthwhile Ride

Replica coasters and web sites can’t fill the void Pontchartrain Beach left in the heart of New Orleans when it closed its doors 18 years ago. It was the best place for fun in the summertime. Another amusement park wouldn’t open until Jazzland, nearly 20 years later. " I remember all the kids being upset," says Jeremy Schrieber, "There wasn’t an arcade, there wasn’t even a Chuck E. Cheese. When it closed, that was it."

"Nothing lasts forever. Everything has its place and its time," said Harry Batt, Jr., "Pontchartrain Beach served a great need in the community for many years, and it was well worth the trip."