Questions About Childhood Fun Centers (Memphis, Crump: skateboarding, amusement park, insurance)

[TheGameHHH]

I am a late 80's/early 90's baby and I remember having birthday parties at places like Fun Plex, Celebration Station, X-Site, and Boogey's. I would like to know what happened to all these places and why they all closed. If anybody has any other pics of them, please post them. Its a shame that kids these days dosent have the fun we had back then...and this is coming from a 20 year old.

Heres the only pictures I found of the buildings, I woud like to see them in their active state again, especially the interiors.

X-Site:


Fun Plex (Google Map Image)
Google Maps

[rockadoodle]

That particular "fun center" was near the Mall of Memphis, right? I would guess that one croaked because of the crash of the neighborhood with the mall. The mall went downhill supposedly because of crime in the parking lot and surrounding area, so it makes sense that people thought the neighborhood was unsafe in general...so less folks willing to take their kids over to the fun center. Mall went downhill = less folks driving through the neighborhood looking to spend money or hang around. Etc.

Perhaps with the advances in home entertainment people decided going to malls, arcades and these fun center type places constituted too much of a hassle -- not worth the time and money (bang for your buck, so to speak). Better home entertainment centers (VHS->DVD), better home game systems (Playstation, Nintendo 64), PC gaming, better TV options even for people living in the sticks (mini sat dishes/Direct TV/etc.), and probably most important of all -- the spread of internet access -- changed how people spent entertainment time and dollars in the early to mid 90's.

What happened to skating rinks in the area? Water parks? Mini golf places? Etc. Same thing? Sorta "video killed the radio star," you know?

Really, the quality of entertainment options for young folks in this region of the U.S. is pretty pathetic all the way around. I noticed it when I was a teen (decades ago); I remember writing the paper and griping about the lack of skate and bike parks when I was about 15. It's only gotten worse since then, though. Geez, at least we still had an amusement park when I was a kid.

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Going a little further, regarding arcades: Around the late 80's/early 90's, arcade owners cranked up the cost of games, particularly in malls. They went from $.25 to play/$.25 to continue to $.50+ to play/$.25+ to continue. This happened with everything from stand-ups to the air hockey table. Bang for the buck & time sank like a rock if you were a kid, particularly from mom and dad's point of view. At the same time, many arcade games became more complicated and began to outpace younger gamers period. The general fun-ness of arcades started to suffer as games got "better." The rise of fighting games like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat brought about a new type of gamer entirely -- the "elite" uber-competitive a-hole who didn't play for fun so much as to p0wn somebody. Essentially an arcade bully, this type of gamer was the pre-cursor to the more recent online gamer who lives to gank people rather than team up or complete missions/quests, i.e. "griefers," "gankers," etc. Back then, parents were better off keeping the kids at home with Super Mario than giving them $5 and leaving them at the mall arcade. By the time the "fighting game" fad started to fade, home game system quality started to really take off. The shift was inevitable.

[(901)]

www.pumpitupparty.com

Went to my neices b'day party here ^ Bunch of kids jacked up on sugar

[hex_haight]

aw...I remember space walks fun plex!!!! (i'm 30)
Now there is incredible pizza and the putt putt up on summer. The places we remember (like that weird go cart race track off sycamore view... not celebration station, but on the other side of 40, near the hungry fisherman) are all gone.... I guess maybe insurance and people looking for law suits closed them down? I worked as a lifeguard in highschool. One private pool I worked at shut down because the parents would not parent the kids and the owner was tired of not making any money and basically running a day care center.
We have some skaters here trying to make their own skate park since the city refuses to provide these kids with a place to skate other than the public parks and downtown. I adore my skaters, but I'd rather them have a park for their very own than use my public fixtures and arts to perfect their newest trick. Last week on national go skate day, the cops showed up at Al-town and started arresting people! Al-town as been in existance for at least two years. The skaters had permisson from the owner of a dead piece of land at like Crump and third (I know it is off Crump..not sure exactly where, but it isn't like there is a big line forming to buy the empty lot we're talking about.) These guys have put their own money and time into building something for our community of skaters to use. they had talked with the owner and have been working on this thing for a while...so the day of national skating comes around and suddenly the owner says no one had permisson to be there and kids got arrested by our cops who seem to think that just because some kids can't handle free day at the zoo, that any gathering of kids (and my kids, I mean kids and grown people like me, too). needs a heavy police presence ( like 420 at overton, yeah, by all means, arreste morons doing drugs in public, but do you really need to come over and get in my business when one of YOUR emergency dispatchers is handing me a $20 for the tax return I did for her the week before??? thank god she is part of them, they'd never have believed I was just slinging tax prep!)
Two weekends ago there was a shooting (and I believe the little girl died) at a place I've always known as the Riot. I saw Against Me! there in 2002 when no one knew who they were and they were begging for gas money to get to the next gig (last time they played here they opened for hte foo fighters at fed ex). The place was a dumpy basement under the rehersal rooms on monroe. A portion of hte room was flooded, I never found a bathroom, we all brought our own beverage of choice in with us (some of the kids were Straight Edge, so no assumptions about underage drinking). I swear I remember often seeing big orange extension cords brought in from else where. And it was wonderful. Tiny yucky space, great unsigned bands, and a bunch of kids, moshing and enjoying the music and the scene. Only once did I see a fist fight break out, and it was between two brothers...and was pretty unspectacular. One or two punches and then a bunch of hugging and "I'm so sorry". There were always underage kids, and I was careful not to share my flask with them as I didn't want an angry parent calling me....but it wasn't violent. The concept of someone getting shot at one of those shows is insane. (Now, a building fire killing all of us in the basement...maybe.) None of us even had guns! How on earth could something change so quick???
So maybe the lack of fun things to do here is because our teenagers are scary. I am heartbroken to hear someone was shot at a place that holds so many happy memories for me. =(

[weisenheist]

well, Memphis IS violent you know, and not just in the proverbial 'ghetto'

[rockadoodle]

What happened to the skate park out in Cordova? Is it gone?

It's too bad the city doesn't open one near UofM between the main and south campus areas (if they could find the space). Cheapskates is right down on Getwell; I bet the skater kids from the University and all over would use it.

[hex_haight]

the cordova skate park closed about two years ago. from what i understood from one of my skater friends, al-town was conceptualized because of the cordova one closing.
<3cheapskates. I don't know that it is fact, but I think money and cost of liability insurance closed the one in the Dova. Several of the guys I know have built ramps or pipes of some kind in their own yards since the city won't meet the need. Often the skaters I know take field trips to mississippi...some how mississippi has managed to open public skate parks...and nashville. but memphis? no, we'd rather have our skaters destroying the fixtures at overton and downtown.
I find this really sad. Skateboarding is such a good activity for kids. A kid that spends hours mastering a trick not only is not only positively occupied, but will gain a sense of pride and personal accomplishment when they finally land it. Additionally, at the rate that MATA is going, the next generation is going to need their own form of transport if they want to get anywhere in the city. I do not understand why the city is not trying to jump all over a good activity for kids to be doing. Do we even still have any city summer sports leagues or have those all been done away with/taken over by private churches/groups? As a city we should have a youth basketball league..can you imagine the kind of press our talented kids would get??? The NBA would be trying to change the rules to draft jr high kids!!