Message from Peter James Smith, author of the free to anyone online book: Doorway To Hell: The Mystery and Controversy Surrounding the Fire at the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure:
May 11, 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the most notorious and tragic amusement park attraction incident in the history of the world.
The Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure was built in 1979, from 17 highway trailers tied and aligned together. A facade was built out front in the shape of a castle. It ran for 5 seasons, and a few weeks of a sixth, until the inevitable happened.
The Haunted Castle, built free or permits or inspections, filled with combustibles that even the park's own insurance carriers warned against, met its fate by fire on a warm spring evening in 1984, while 20,000 witnesses watched in horror.
As the castle burned, Dutch rock band Golden Earring continued a planned concert on the park premises, as smoke billowed high in the sky.
The park closed three hours earlier than planned this evening, but then continued on the next day as if it were business as usual.
Eight teenagers had been found dead in the rubble of the Haunted Castle.
From New Jersey, a single girl, Tina Marie Genovese of Williamstown, just a few days shy of her Sweet Sixteen that upcoming Monday.
Also from New Jersey, Paterson residents Joseph Beyroutey, Jr. and Nicolas Caiazza, both 18.
From the Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn, which came that day with nearly 1000 students and came home with 5 less: Samuel Valentin. Lenny Ruiz, Jose Carrion, Eric Rodriquez and Christopher Harrison, all between the ages of 17-18.
The fire was determined to be lit by human hand, but that was passed off early on in the legal proceeding as an accident, although such is debatable.
No one ever faced prosecution for starting the fire, although there was a very likely suspect.
Corporations and fall guys did take some heat.
The men were all but pardoned, under the Ocean County program known as P.T.I. or Pre-Trial Intervention.
The corporations faced trial, and were even found not guilty.
The trial's main focus: the lack of sprinklers in the castle caused the deaths.
Experts were called in, top ranking officials of the National Fire Protection Association, and said, for a good sum of money, that the sprinklers wouldn't have gone off in time to spare the teenagers.
Case closed, or is it?
Many questions have been raised about the Haunted Castle, its truths, versus the unchallenged story that is smugly to the point.
Asking these questions,I learned, was taboo, until I refused to stop asking.
Now things that were hush-hush twenty-five, even ten years ago, are commonly known, and many don't add up, I have also learned.
I seek to ask these questions, and want to seek the truth, but even if all was proven true or false, it wouldn't change the result.
We need to focus on the innocent lives lost in this significant historical event.
We should not hide from it, like a vampire from the sunlight.
It is an irony that will forever haunt me. On May 11, 2009, I must attend the New Jersey Amusement Association's 50th anniversary celebration. It begins about 6 or 6:30 p.m.
I must celebrate and grieve at the same time. Twenty-five years prior to the very minute it happened. Is this just a odd coincidence?
There are not tears enough to be cried for the children who died in the Haunted Castle, snatched from their parents hands on what was suppose to be a day of fun, as if by monsters in a fairy tale.
You may recognize my last quote, heavily borrowed from the words spoken by the character Claudia, in the famous novel and film, "Interview With The Vampire", by the genius novelist, Anne Rice.
One theme in this piece of Rice's work is this: a child who can never die.
Claudia, made a child vampire, can never grow old, and thus, will never grow up, remaining cursed as an eternal child.
Anne Rice wrote the book in grief, the year following the death of her six-year old daughter, Michelle, from leukemia.
I write about those from the Haunted Castle also out of grief: for eight poor souls who remain locked together as eternal children.
As I grieved, I had to do so for many years on the site of bumper cars and of shameless exploitation and indifference.
I have seen first-hand the pain of those left behind, and the hurt it caused them to have to learn about such things.
I have researched and wrote: spending countless thousands of dollars, and countless hours of my limited spare time making sure that I could learn all I could to tell the story of the Haunted Castle in a way I thought it was befitting to honor the memory of the dead.
As I have done so, I have been praised and lauded by many, yet attacked by some, accused, among other hateful things, of trying to profit from the Haunted Castle's tragic history.
So hear me now: no profit has ever been made by me or anyone connected to my research in the ten years of effort it took investigating this matter.
I remain, regretfully, in the red, almost 100 to 1.
If I sold the rights to publish my book, I could possibly break even, maybe even turn a profit.
Would I like to earn back some of the financial loss this project has been? The answer is yes, of course. But, I probably won't.
Initially, a mass-produced paperback was planned, but was considered less than eco-friendly, and would amount to cost that would have to be occurred by readers.
There maybe a small, boutique printing of a Special Edition, for those who wish to see it in print and have things signed, as there always is. However, I wouldn't count on recouping much loss from this alone.
I have chosen to take the route less followed.
I have decided that my book, Doorway To Hell: The Mystery and Controversy Surrounding the Fire at the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure, will be published its entirety, online, at my website: www.popartpete.com.
Anyone who wishes to read the book can do so for no charge from any computer in the world beginning May 5th, 2009.
I always wished I could tell this story to everyone for free, never realizing that one day, I would have the opportunity at my fingertips.
I had three separate carpal tunnel surgeries during my writing of this book over the years, and a related NSAID pain reliever-caused bleeding peptic ulcer, which could have killed me, in early 2009.
A suffering writer who asks for nothing in return for his effort, only it be a memorial to the victims? How avant garde?
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