PTL / Heritage USA: 22 Years Later- 6/26/09- Vid #3

This video concentrates primarily on the hapless condition of the main entrance to the water park. This building is located right outside the main entrance to the HGH. Sadly, this building is in such a sad state of ruin that it simply cannot be rehabilitated. It is currently being used as maintenance storage. Paint is peeling or missing. Wood panels & fixtures are chipped, mangled, broken or missing. Windows are broken out, and the entire thing is just too far gone to even attempt to fix up. It's almost a tragedy that the current owners have allowed the building to remain standing. Why try to fix up the HGH, and keep this eyesore right next door? It makes no sense to me. When you crossed the wood bridge, you entered a round structure on the water park island itself. This building is obviously missing. One could only imagine the condition IT was in to have been demolished while THIS building still stands!

Within the first 16 seconds of the video, the camera follows a narrow gravel path that was once the path of the train that surrounded the lake.

This building does have two indicators of its former use: First there are the words "TRAM STOP" in bold letters over the canopy, visible at 1:57. At 3:48 in the video, I found an old rate table, which had covered admission rates to get in to the park. It obviously had been painted over at one time, it seems, but directly over the letters "SION RATES", very very faintly you may be able to make out the words "HERITAGE ISLAND WATER PARK". It is VERY faint, but still there.

The wood bridge leading to the water park isn't in much better condition. Wood planks are loose and curling. Light globes are broken or missing. Wood railings are missing or broken. Oddly, the "Welcome" sign and water park rules board are still erect, as if still expecting to greet crowds. Also amazing is that almost nothing recognizable is left on the waterpark island, except some of the fake cement "rocks", and a few scattered light poles.

The hammering you hear in the video is coming from the new housing tracts going up immediately on the other side of the lake. The houses going up are not visible in this video, but are in other videos I've recorded on the same date as this one.

Indeed, the park looks almost nothing like it did as I remember it from the 80's.

Category:

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Tags:

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• HGH
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• Towers

[mstmimosa]

WOW!!!! I am fond of all things abandoned or left... there is a word for this I am sure, I guess you could say it is just.... ME! The geek! But this video seals what I have been watching for the past couple weeks about Heritage. after watching all your earlier videos to have this one open here just put 20 years into prospective... I can't say thanks enough!!! I love this!

[CincinnatiGifts]

@mstmimosa- Thanks a bunch. I tried to document what what there in the 80's, as well as what remains standing today. Oddly, I think the tram station in this video HAS been revitalized and restored. I haven't been back since this vid was recorded. Perhaps someone else can verify this.

[Bizkits531]

I was there from years of 83 to 88, every summer, I do not remember that building that looked like the Disney castle!!

[CincinnatiGifts]

@Bizkits531- It was one of those structures that was never fully completed, and therefore never really opened. It was intended to be a Wendy's restaurant prior to H USA's collapse. Later, it was turned in to some type of go-kart track. Ironically, this castle is still one of the few, few PTL structures still standing today, unless it's been demolished recently. It really looks so out-of-place now, with all these new homes springing up all over the place.

[johncassity123]

@Nash1a your thinking of the outdoor theater the entrance looked like a castle

[Nash1a]

@CincinnatiGifts Ok, let me ask you this. You visited Heritage Village when it was open, right? I've only seen what they showed on TV. Pre 1987, do you remember seeing this structure WITH the Disney-esque castle spires? If you do, then, I'm just wrong.

What does look very familiar to me is the bottom and middle sections. The top part (the towers and points) looks to me like it was added on.

[CincinnatiGifts]

@Nash1a Could be. Or possibly you happened to have seen the castle in a different stage of construction, in a state where it hadn't had its spires installed yet.

[Nash1a]

@CincinnatiGifts Yep, your right. I did a search on google images "PTL Upper room" and a different but similar looking building appeared. But I still maintain that I recognize this structure without the spires. I just can't remember what it was for. Was it supposed to be a mock up of solomon's temple?

[CincinnatiGifts]

@Nash1a Actually, you are getting two completely different buildings confused. There actually was (and continues to exist, at least as of 2009) an Upper Room building, which was located very close to the outdoor ampitheatre. The castle is a completely different structure, located away from the Upper Room. The castle is actually located very close to the former PTL Partner Center and close to the former Heritage Island water park- about a 1/2 from the Upper Room building.