Tour the abandoned theme park with a 4,000-foot rollercoaster

Welcome to Jazzland

Eerily empty and scattered with rotting rides and broken attractions, this deserted theme park looks like a scene from a big-screen disaster movie. Astonishingly, a natural catastrophe actually did unfold here, adding to the list of misfortunes the park has suffered.

While it may be plagued by bad luck and according to local legend, a few ghosts, a fresh start may be just around the corner for this forlorn attraction. Read on to take a tour and discover its fascinating story...

Broken dreams

Six Flags New Orleans opened in 2003 amid a blizzard of publicity that hailed it as a huge attraction for Louisiana. But these big plans for a magical theme park quickly turned to dust, and within two years its doors had closed, seemingly forever.

Now, remains of the deserted park poke out from beneath the flourishing greenery, as Mother Nature rapidly consumes the old rides and attractions.

Leland Kent of Abandoned Southeast photographed the site in all its faded glory.

Discover the secrets of this derelict theme park

Before it was a Six Flags, the attraction was known as Jazzland. Opened in 2000, the original site was a 140-acre amusement park with a New Orleans theme, built to an eye-watering $130 million (£102m) budget. Areas such as Mardi Gras, Jazz Plazza and Cajun County offered thrilling rides with a flavour of the music and culture of this vibrant city.

Entering the park today, many of the original rides are still standing, and at first glance it’s strange to think the place has been abandoned for almost 20 years.

Beginning with bankruptcy

With its door invitingly pushed open, the original ticket booth remains, but its peeling white lettering has since been adulterated by angry red graffiti.

Despite a promising start, Jazzland failed to turn a profit, and two years after its grand opening the owners filed for bankruptcy. Superstitious folk might say a venture born out of bankruptcy was doomed to end in disaster from the beginning...

New investment

But the demise of Jazzland didn’t deter amusement park giant Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which bought the site for $69 million (£54m) and reopened it in 2003. Rebranded as Six Flags New Orleans, the park enjoyed a massive $20 million (£15.6m) injection of funds devoted to much-needed improvements.

It was billed as the best day out for families, friends and general thrill-seekers. But now, with crumbling, faceless cartoon characters and eerie graffiti, it's a shadow of its former self.

The Jester

State-of-the-art ride technology was a big draw for park visitors, and this rollercoaster – named the Jester, after Batman's nemesis the Joker – was a thrill-seeker’s delight, with multiple loops, and sections where it ran backwards.

It’s shocking to see how easily swiftly nature has swallowed this hi-tech structure under a blanket of green leaves.

Scream machine

Imagine visitors strapped in and waiting to be propelled into the air on this now slowly decaying spinning ride. But it wasn’t the most terrifying one at Six Flags – that prize goes to Batman: The Ride.

This cutting-edge inverted rollercoaster held its screaming passengers upside-down while whizzing them around the looped track. The ride was brought to Louisiana from a defunct Japanese theme park, and has since been relocated to Six Flags Texas.

Mega Zeph!

You can see the mesh framework of another of the park’s big-name rides in the background of this desolate patch of ground.

The Mega Zeph was Jazzland’s top attraction and continued in popularity under the Six Flags banner. It’s an unusual design: a 4,000-foot-long wood-track coaster, built on a steel frame. Today, this magnificent feat of engineering is mouldering away in this sad, abandoned space…

The Big Easy

Set so close to the picturesque Lake Pontchartrain, this ride must have offered its passengers breathtaking views. The Big Easy Ferris wheel stands motionless in this 2011 photo, but you can just imagine it creaking back to life and beginning to turn again.

The Big Easy is a nickname for New Orleans, referring to the city's famously laid-back lifestyle.

Elaborate decorations

This eye-catching, aquatic-themed edifice featuring a mythical mermaid and merman was, surprisingly, still standing in 2010.

An incredibly decorative exterior for a humble restroom, you can just about make out the faded lettering over the doorway. The characters seem a bit more creepy than cute, though.

Trail of destruction

By 2011, however, the mermaid had been hauled off the building and lay broken in pieces on the ground. Vandals had also scribbled on the walls of the abandoned building. It's sad to see such a quirky building being destroyed so mindlessly.

Derelict and decaying

Photographed in 2011, the entrance to the Cool Zone was located in the Mardi Gras section of the park. Snapped six years after the park was abandoned, you can see how the trees are pushing in around the structure, while debris piles up underneath.

Lost to nature

Photographed seven years on, the same structure had been lost to nature, barely visible beneath an overgrowth of trees and plants.

Despite the investment Six Flags pumped into their New Orleans park, it never made much profit. Just like Jazzland, the site became something of a money pit, seemingly cursed with bad luck.

No way out

But, having signed a 75-year lease with the City of New Orleans as part of the acquisition deal, the company were in it for the long haul. This carriage on the Wild Mine Company ride looks remarkably well-preserved compared to other parts of the park.

Tragedy at the park

However, tragedy struck in July 2003, when a 52-year-old grandmother was hit by a ride vehicle. The woman was strapping her four-year-old grandson into the Joker's Jukebox when the ride started. She was taken to hospital but sadly her injuries proved fatal.

A storm strikes

Then, on August 21, 2005 – just two years after its grand opening – Six Flags New Orleans closed its doors in advance of a severe storm warning. It would never reopen again.

Here’s the main sign informing visitors of the closure. Photographed in 2010, the sign remains as a reminder of the day everything ended.

Deadly hurricane

Days after the park closed for the storm, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. More than 1,800 people lost their lives and millions were left homeless. The theme park did not escape the wrath of the category five storm.

Imagine the high winds tearing through this derelict gift shop in the Mardi Gras zone.

Drowned by corrosive flood water

Yet more bad luck was to come. Lake Pontchartrain, the second-largest inland saltwater body in the United States, burst its banks, and the whole park was swallowed by six feet of floodwater.

Corrosive water remained for more than a month after the storm, and you can see the rust marks on the cars on this ride from when they were lashed by the hurricane.

Katrina kills the park

Here’s a close-up of the car. It’s amazing how much of the paintwork remains unscathed. About 80% of the rides were damaged beyond repair by salty water, including the iconic Mega Zeph.

One of the few to survive was Batman: The Ride, which had an elevated position and corrosion-resistant supports.

Forever Zombieland

Seemingly in keeping with the satirical graffiti on this sign, the site shifted into zombie-like inertia, with the damaged husks of once-vibrant rides left in a state of limbo.

Insurance funds didn’t stretch to the $32 million (£25m) needed to restore the park, according to Abandoned Southeast. Declared a total loss, the park was left to decay.

Exit settlement

Retaining its slightly rusted orange and green paintwork, this scream-inducing ride looks ready to run again, but, like most of the ride mechanisms, it has been corroded beyond repair.

Six Flags negotiated to get out of the 75-year lease signed for the park with the City of New Orleans. In 2009, a settlement was reached, with Six Flags paying $3 million (£2.3m) to vacate the lease.

Hollywood calls!

The city was back in control of the land, and various offers to develop it came and went. By 2011, the park’s post-apocalyptic appearance began to attract the attention of Hollywood movie scouts.

Matthew McConaughey thriller Killer Joe was filmed there in 2011, and included a cameo role for the Mega Zeph rollercoaster. The clapboard fronts of park attractions like those pictured were perfect for doubling up as disaster-ravaged shops and houses on film sets.

Movies galore…

In 2012, the park’s French Quarter-inspired Main Street Square, pictured here, was used as a movie location for Stolen, starring Nicolas Cage. Keen-eyed viewers will recognise the theatre was used as a villain’s lair, while a car was driven into the park’s lagoon.

Fantasy film Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, meanwhile, transformed the park into Circeland, the spooky site of the film’s finale, where the Mega Zeph was used for a key scene.

Watch out for the alligators!

These old bumper cars would make great movie props. Continuing the big screen journey, a whole ape village was built on the site’s old parking lot as a film set for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, while Jurassic World also used the park extensively as a location.

Indeed, scary reptiles are a hazardous fact of life here – the surrounding wetlands have a large wildlife population, including alligators and snakes, which sometimes stray inside the abandoned park.

Fancy a snack?

It’s strange to see how quickly the site was abandoned and how little was salvaged. Even this vending machine full of snack packs was left to rot.

Several later plans to develop the park failed, including projects to transform it into a shopping mall, a hotel complex and even a power plant. It remains dilapidated and decaying to this day.

Glimmer of hope?

Yet while the structure rusts and the trees encroach, the site's future may be about to turn a corner. The city of New Orleans has reportedly given the green light to a local developer, who will transform the languishing lot into a hotel, waterpark, sports complex and movie set.

Change may be afoot, but there's something undeniably enigmatic about the abandoned theme park. You can see more of Leland Kent's incredible photography in his latest book, Abandoned Alabama: Exploring the Heart of Dixie.