MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - On a fading afternoon as summer wanes, asmall girl looks anxiously into the Haunted Hotel, trying to decidewhether she will risk entering the ride where a sign promises 'DoomService Available.'
A cool breeze brushes in from the ocean as a middle-aged womanwaves to a friend snapping her picture as she rides a zebra on thePavilion Carousel. Down the way, past lemonade stands, the log flumeand ring toss games, teenagers shriek as they spin on swings high inthe air.
Across Ocean Boulevard, youngsters barter skeeball tickets forprizes amid the cacophony of a penny arcade and older folks, seekingquiet and reliving memories, sit on a balcony overlooking the street.
These are the sights and sounds of the final summer of a piece ofAmericana. After nearly a century, the Myrtle Beach Pavilion isclosing, and along with it the amusement park that has been part ofthe fabric of this oceanside resort for more than 50 years.
'It's just awful they are tearing the place down. It's sad,'agreed Matt Blankenship, 25, of Roanoke, Va., who brought his 5-year-old daughter Clarissa to the park before it closes. 'I remembercoming down here with my grandparents when I was about her age, andmy parents came here when they were kids.'
Generations from the Carolinas, Georgia, West Virginia and beyondspent summer nights dancing to a jukebox, and later live bands;screaming as they braved the heights of the roller coaster; or simplywatching the delighted faces as their children rang the bells on theboat ride.
'When I think of Myrtle Beach, this is what I think of, this iswhat Myrtle Beach is,' said Jane Turpin of Siler City, N.C. 'Whenthis is gone, what are people going to remember about Myrtle Beach?'
The Pavilion is a victim of changing times and changing tastes.
'There are not enough people loving it economically,' said TimRuedy, vice president of operations for the sports, entertainment andrecreation division of Burroughs & Chapin Co., which operates thePavilion. 'All things have to be supported, and for the last numberof years, it just hasn't been financially viable.'
Many visitors are getting older and likely don't want a spin on aroller coaster. To younger children, used to video games andcomputers, the rides seem quaint, he said.
The carousel dates from 1912, while the park's 2-ton pipe organwas first exhibited at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris. 'For a lotof people that is wonderful, but for a 10-year-old born in 1996, theydon't care,' Ruedy said.
'Although the Pavilion helped Myrtle Beach to grow, Myrtle Beachhas outgrown the Pavilion,' he says. 'There are a lot more things tosee and do, and it is a much more competitive market.'
The first Pavilion opened in 1908 and was a wooden structure usedfor entertainment and dancing. It burned in 1920 and another wasbuilt.
That one burned in 1944, and the existing reinforced concretestructure - which survived Hurricanes Hazel and Hugo - was built fouryears later.
That same year, a traveling carnival was purchased by Burroughs &Chapin, creating the Pavilion amusement park. The last rides at thePavilion will run on Sept. 30.
Ruedy said some of them may end up at other Burroughs & Chapinproperties - the company operates the Broadway at the Beach shoppingand entertainment complex across town - and the carousel and pipeorgan also will find new homes.
Plans for the 11 acres of valuable real estate in the heart ofdowntown have not been set. The company is working with the city andother landowners on a renewal project that will involve about 300acres.
'It won't be like Myrtle Beach anymore,' said 62-year-old BrendaWoodle of Norwood, N.C. 'Everything is going to high rises and stufflike that.'
Woodle remembers as a teenager leaving home in North Carolina lateat night for the trip to the Grand Strand.
'We'd park on the strip and visit the Pavilion until 2 or 3o'clock in the morning,' she said. 'If we got tired, we'd go out tothe car and sleep - you could sleep in the car at night back then -and at daylight we'd get up and go to the beach.'
Trip Hatley, 53, of Rome, Ga., was taking some pictures of thePavilion before it is demolished. He grew up in North Carolina andhung out at the Pavilion.
'The first summer job I ever had was in North Myrtle Beach,' hesaid. 'A friend and I drove down after graduation, and I worked at alittle cinema house there. We stayed in a little one-bedroom room for12 bucks a week.'
No one understands the public's sense of loss better than Ruedy.
'It's one of those things where you want things to be thatwonderful moment in time forever,' he said. 'But you can't have thatforever. A memory is what you have. We can't take away your memories.The place may not be there, but the memories still reside with you.'
