A Day at the Abandoned American Dream
January 26, 2019 12:34 AM   Subscribe

"When I got a text last week from a local friend asking if I’d seen the American Dream, I initially thought she was making a jab at the quickly collapsing state of my home country. Turns out, American Dream Park is a real amusement park — or at least, it was. The park opened in 1996 and closed abruptly in 2001. The whole project seemed doomed from the start: it was too far from families and would-be guests, too expensive, and apparently just poorly managed in general."

"As we walk further and further into the collapsing scene, I start to understand just how big this park was. We’re talking about a $50 million project, in 1990s China. At the time, the country was finally stepping into its swing, opening up to the world around it and developing at an unprecedented rate under president Jiang Zemin. It was eager to try new things, to go places it hadn’t before. And although the attitude yielded hugely significant successes that still resonate today, American Dream Park stands as a reminder of its failures. Now, under president Xi Jinping, the idea of an amusement park built around the theme of American goodness is completely inconceivable."

Wonderfully haunting urban exploration photos that give me the creeps. Looks like the set of a horror movie with killer clowns.
posted by whitelotus (13 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
So we've come full-circle and old amusement parks are being monetised for the urban explorer demographic? Sounds OK.
posted by pipeski at 3:42 AM on January 26, 2019 [2 favorites]


Oh god. The non-irony.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 3:50 AM on January 26, 2019 [3 favorites]


Death to of the American Dream Park in China...

Did they plan this?
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:02 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Urgh. The pictures started out awesome and then delved into a nightmare of fish eye lenses.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:56 AM on January 26, 2019 [13 favorites]


I don’t think my expectations were unreasonably high but I was hoping for something a bit iconic, like a Planet of the Apes style Statue of Liberty. This was mostly just piles of trash and graffiti.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:43 AM on January 26, 2019 [4 favorites]


I thought that this was going to be about the American Dream Mall in New Jersey which has been ready to open any day now for a decade and a half.
posted by octothorpe at 7:28 AM on January 26, 2019 [3 favorites]


This sounds like an interesting place. Shame the photos were so lackluster.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:45 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Waitress: Five tacos, one taco burger. Do you know where the American Dream is?

Lou: What’s that? What is it?

Attorney: Well, we don’t know, we were sent out here from San Francisco to look for the American Dream, by a magazine, to cover it.

Lou: Oh, you mean a place.

Attorney: A place called the American Dream.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 10:10 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Few things are better than abandoned amusement parks.
posted by bongo_x at 10:43 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


There are better-looking photos (and fewer fisheyes) from other visitors on Sohu and Jiemian.
posted by zhwj at 3:16 PM on January 26, 2019 [3 favorites]


Came for something about Dusty Rhodes, left sorely disappointed.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:38 PM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is what the internet is for.

(I'm slightly annoyed at the fire-extinguisher thing. . . but, I suppose it did no real harm. At least until the place catches on fire.)
posted by eotvos at 12:07 PM on January 27, 2019


The [American Dream] seemed doomed from the start: it was too far from families and would-be guests, too expensive, and apparently just poorly managed in general."

This is the kind of heavy-handed metaphor that I've come to rely on the 21st century to deliver.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:21 AM on January 28, 2019


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