There used to be a water park in my hometown that had a bunch of slides and a wave pool. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and even went there as a senior on a trip. I went to birthday parties there, sometimes.
It closed in 2020 and never reopened because they had apparently been avoiding paying bills for years. It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was visible from the freeway, so I watched it slowly being demolished over the next couple years any time I passed by.
I haven’t found a water park that really compared to it yet. Most are either too small or part of a larger theme park, which is fine. It just seemed like the fact that it exclusively was a water park allowed it to focus more on the atmosphere and types of slides it had.
There used to be a nice little place in the woods, near my house, where people used to walk their dogs, light off fireworks, smoke a little weed and just get out of the house to hang out. There used to be a little ranger shack out there because it used to be a place where people would go as an actual park before it became run down. About 10 years ago some development company associated with the New England Patriots announced that they were going to build an indoor sports field thing for soccer and flag football and stuff like that. Long story short none of that happened and what the company did was they worked with the city to start tearing down old buildings from all around the city, and then dumping the debris and waste in the area. They promised they would build a sports facility in. Needless to say, local residents were shocked and appalled because it was in a heavy residential neighborhood less than a half mile from a school, and it was completely illegal and unethical. I proceeded to contact every local newspaper, and even Erin Brockovich and her foundation. To date nothing has been done really about the gigantic piles of waste in building debris, except that the company was ordered to stop doing so in a town meeting where a state reps showed up.