Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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5.14 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5 3 eep having kids," Ed Hart tells me. "Need as many out here as I can get." It's early April, about six weeks before the May 24 reopening of Kentucky Kingdom, and Hart, the park's president, is taking me on a tour of the place, which has been closed since Six Flags went bank- rupt more than four years ago and put up a CLOSED sign. Hart sold Kentucky Kingdom to Six Flags in the late '90s. Now he's king again. (Te 2013 photos, including those on this page, capture what Hart inherited.) "Te previous owner, frankly, ran this place into the ground," Hart says. "It has great bones. New body and it'll be top drawer." He says that a lot, "top drawer." "See that guy working over there?" Hart asks. "Been with me for years. He's top drawer." It must be said: Ed Hart, amusement park president, doesn't do roller coasters. "I'm not a rider," he says. "I get motion sickness." Instead, he says, "I'm worried about sightlines. I want the park to keep unfolding, new layers to reveal themselves. Te roller coasters — to me they're dinosaurs walking through a beautiful landscape." We walk toward a new coaster called Lightning Run (pictured on opening spread). Tomorrow, cranes will put the fnal piece of track in place, capping its 100-foot, 79-de- gree drop. Nearby, a few hard-hats are taking a load of. "You guys are starting to look like the highway department!" Hart hollers. "Like LG&E;!" one guy shouts. "MSD!" another yells. "OK, guys," Hart says. "Work hard." In King Louie's Playland, a man brushing a fresh coat of blue paint onto a railing says, "Mr. Hart, when do I get my season pass?" "Hurry up," Hart says. "Price goes up Monday." "Do I get an Ed Hart discount?" "Keep working, guys," Hart says, laughing. I ask Hart why it has cost tens of millions to get Kentucky Kingdom open again. He points to a patch of concrete that, using amusement-park scale, is basically one sidewalk square. "Tat's $49,000 in concrete," he says. Hart is 68. Voice sounds a little like a wiseguy's when he says, "Tere'll be no wiseguys in here. Tere'll be no spitting, no line- jumping." On this afternoon, much of the 60 acres remains a construction site. Ride signs aren't up yet. Parts of Hurricane Bay are muddier than the Churchill Downs infeld during a Derby Day downpour. Will the park open by the deadline? Hart's wearing sunglasses, but it's a wiseguy look. Stupid question. I tell him that I grew up in Cincinnati, going to Kings Island and riding that rickety wooden ass-kicker of a coaster named the Beast. Kentucky Kingdom has a wooden roller coaster that's been hibernating for several years. You've surely seen it from Crittenden Drive. It won't be open this season but will in the future. "Wouldn't that be something if somebody came up with a wooden coaster longer than the Beast?" Hart asks. "You're going to try to top the Beast?" I say. "Now you're putting words in my mouth," he says, smiling. Hart — who carries a ring of three keys that will turn any lock in the place — arrives at a security gate. A woman stops him. "What's your name?" she asks. "Ed Hart." " K 50-57 KY Kingdom.indd 53 4/21/14 9:26 AM