Friday, March 5, 2010
Price Set for Pippin Purchase as Green Bay Seals Deal
Posted by Jackson Baker on Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:05 PM
- The Zippin' Pippin, post-zip
What the Wisconsin city will pay is roughly $10,000, says Mulroy, who further explains that the original range had been “from $10,000 to $15,000” but that the deal had been simplified when the passenger cars belonging to the legendary Fairgrounds ride had been decoupled from the sale.
Those cars were re-consigned to Carolina Crossroads, the amusement park company which had tentatively bought the entire Pippin complex at auction from the City of Memphis but had failed to come up with a viable use for the ride and had subsequently negotiated with Mulroy to return to his local group’s keeping the partly dismantled Pippin complex.
Taking the cars out of the deal ”was a way of simplifying things,” said Mulroy, who acted as de facto executive officer of Save Libertyland!, Inc., the group founded in 2007 to forestall the abandonment of the Pippin, along with the rest of the once thriving Fairgrounds amusement-park complex.
Commissioner Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor, maintains he — or someone else locally — had to take functional control of Save Libertyland!, Inc. for strictly legal reasons, in that other original members had moved out of state.
“But we’ll have a meeting at some point of all the original members of the group and together we’ll decide what to do with the proceeds of the sale,” said Mulroy.
Green Bay's council vote on Monday night of this week was by a 7-4 margin. The Wisconsin city intends to spend as much as $3 million refurbishing the Pippin with new materials but in accordance with the original design.
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
For an elected politician to take over a grassroots group founded by women and children is a slap in the face. The original officers and co-founders of Save Libertyland! have not only had our preservation group's mission sullied, but an elected official profited from fraud. We reject any profit from the sale of this National Historic Register property.
http://www.savethepippin.com/
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There's that same old tirade and that nasty word "fraud" again. DP I understand that you feel frustrated and slighted, but PLEASE provide some form of proof of the fraud that has taken place. These postings are beginning to resemble those surrounding a certain birth certificate.
It's all too sad. The Pippin has gone the way of the Memphis Belle. It's like taking your great grandmother's jewelry to the pawn shop. Other places are more interested in our history than we are. It's just all too sad.
In many ways it is, but at least in this case we'll still be able to go to the new owner's house and wear it whenever we want. What else that we've lost can we say that about?
You may be able to go to Green Bay, but the children of Orange Mound & Beltline have nowhere to go to experience the two rarest landmark rides in America -- the Pippin & Grand Carousel. The children of Midtown -- for decades they could walk to summer jobs in Libertyland -- have nowhere to go. As for evidence, I have all of the emails proving we were defrauded... I cannot afford a lawyer, however. Unless of course I took the hush-money from the Commish -- which I will NOT DO so stop calling me and leaving plaintive voicemails, Mul-RAT!
dw, true. But it still leaves me with a feeling of yuckiness, for lack of a better word.
I understand that something great has been lost. I side with those who believe Libertyland should never have been closed. Midtown has been suffering greatly for many years, especially to be such a great neighborhood with so much culture and history. It's hard to be a ray of light in such an environment but Libertyland and the Mid-South Fair were just that. They were part of what made the community a community. They were right there in the back yard while at the same time they brought in people from all around. Now there's a big gaping hole and nothing to fill it. So while I'm eased that there will still be a Zippin Pippin, what it was a part of and what it meant to the community, is gone. What are the kids and families to do? With each good thing that the city of Memphis had destroyed over the past several years, I have lost more and more faith in the city government's ability to look after the best interests of its people. I figure I'm not alone there. But to try to get a private interest to come in and do something, there would have to be money in it, and that's not exactly plentiful in that area. That's why it has to be the city's place, but it's going to take some talent to open their eyes and get their hands out from under their butts.
Another example of the leadership (and I use the word loosely) of Memphis not having the ability or intellengence to exhibit anything remotely resembling strategic creative thought. The Pippin in Green Bay??? Maybe they can think of a way to get rid of Graceland and Sun Studio.
Well, to build on the comparison made in an earlier post- this is a relatively poor community with very limited resources. Is it better to keep the Pippin in Memphis and rot, or allow it to be maintained and used in a community with more financial resources? Compare it to the recent estate sale on Lauderdale- it was a goldmine. Considering the owners no longer had the ability to own and maintain the items found within the mansion- would it be better to allow them to eventually fall apart or is it better that those items are now owned by individuals who will value them and maintain them? A family lost its heirlooms, but at least they were saved from a future at the landfill.
Personally, I’m glad to see the Pippin find a home in a real theme park where it can be enjoyed in the coming decades.
I, for one, am glad to see that something is being done w/the fairgrounds besides letting it sit and gather weeds and rats while people (some well-intentioned and some who, while their hearts may be in the right place, don't even live in Memphis anymore) squabble about it.
The Kroc Center could be a big plus for the area. Hopefully the rest of the development will also be a plus.
Midtown doesn't rise or fall by what's going on at the Fairgrounds. It has its own identity.
As for the poor Midtown children who can no longer walk to summer jobs at Libertyland, that claim sounds pretty anecdotal and hard to back up. When was this? In the 80s? If it was run like every other thing around Memphis, most of those jobs probably went to relatives of the people associated with the Fair.
Regardless, it's 2010. Libertyland has been closed for a while and it's time to quit mourning and move forward. Small-time, largley mediocre amusement parks are no longer a viable business to be in.
Nostalgia is a fun diversion, but one shouldn't make it a life's work.
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