Uplifting memories of riding high above Brackenridge

Back in the 1960s when he was a kid, San Antonio real estate developer Mitch Meyer took in the city sights the way many did at Brackenridge Park: from a tiny gondola 100 feet in the air.

“You (got) to fly,” Meyer, 62, said. “We used to sit there and ride them and rock them and throw stuff off of them like every other kid.”

For 35 years, the Brackenridge Park sky ride carried thousands of puckish youths, frisky lovebirds and occasional fraidy-cats. High above the Japanese Tea Garden, the ride’s red, yellow, blue and green gondolas gave riders a breezy, bird’s-eye view of the park and downtown skyline.

Many of those original gondolas ended up in Meyer’s possession when he purchased 10 of them from the San Antonio Zoo in 2002, about three years after the sky ride shut down. Now Meyer has just three, one of which he put on top of a golf cart, cruising around in Fiesta parades. The rest have scattered to the winds, though two ended up downtown at the Hemisfair’s Yanaguana Garden.

The Brackenride Park sky ride had liftoff in 1964. Aerial Transportation Co.President Randall

Clay pitched the idea to City Council with help from auto dealers B.J. “Red” McCombs and Austin Hemphill. The council gave the go-ahead for the proposed $300,000 project (around $2.6 million today), provided the city would receive 25 percent of the annual profits.

When it opened Nov. 14, it cost 50 cents to ride round-trip and ran almost directly over the Japanese Tea Garden via a metal cable nearly 1,200 feet long. Passengers could board and exit at a ground station across from the zoo entrance or one near the Sunken Garden Theater. Each Swiss-made gondola weighed around 200 pounds and carried up to four

passengers for a leisurely fiveminute journey.

The sky ride remained airborne well into the late 1990s until waning interest led to its deterioration. By this time the

San Antonio Zoo owned the attraction, yet lacked the funds to restore the sky ride and upgrade it to meet safety standards. So after 35 years, the Brackenridge Park sky ride was grounded for good in 1999 when its operation contract expired.

The husk of the dilapidated sky ride remained until 2002, when the zoo spent $30,000 to tear it down. As for the gondolas, the zoo opted to sell them for $1,000 each. All 14 for sale got scooped

up in less than an hour. A handful of buyers ahead of Meyer in line got the first four. Meyer snagged the rest.

“They were going to be lost forever,” Meyer said. “So it was my social responsibility.”

The two at Hemisfair have been there since 2017. After Hemisfair developers bought the gondolas from Meyer, a group of St. Philip’s College students spent three semesters restoring the gondolas, banging out dents and brightening their paint jobs to a vibrant red and blue.

One of those students, Joe De La Cruz, also rode those gondolas as a child.

“You could see the whole city.

You were way up there,” De La Cruz, then 58, told the ExpressNews four years ago when the gondolas were delivered to Hemisfair.

Of course, the intimate, airborne containers on the sky ride also offered other kinds of out-ofsight adventure.

“I remember when I was hauling them off I’d hear, ‘I got my first kiss on one of those,’ ‘I smoked my first joint on one of those,’ ” Meyer said.

San Antonio Zoo CEO Tim Morrow, 51, also rode the Brackenridge sky rides when he was a kid. Decades later, he said he hears sky-ride stories all the time from zoo visitors.

“There’s something so simple and beautiful about it,” Morrow said. “It’s just one of those traditional San Antonio things that we would love to bring back.”

Morrow said the zoo has looked into ways to get a Brackenridge Park sky ride back in the air, either with replicas of the gondolas or seating similar to ski lifts.

“It may be back one of these days,” Morrow said, “and hopefully sooner than later.”

For now, San Antonio will just have to settle for their uplifting memories.

René Guzman / Staff Kids can still enjoy the gondolas — though at ground level at Hemisfair. Here, Mark Rodriguez, 8, and sister Allison, 11, of Missouri City play in the restored cars.

Staff file photo In 1989, a couple take in the sights during the five-minute ride. The beloved sky ride near the San Antonio Zoo opened in 1964 and closed in 1999.

Staff file photo Fourteen gondolas were offered for sale. All were snapped up in less than an hour.

Staff file photo San Antonio Zoo CEO Tim Morrow says he hears stories about the sky rides all the time.