Shiny, new Coney Island coming soon

[TalB]

I was at Coney Island a year and a half ago, and I did not get mugged. I even parked by the housing projects, and nobody broke into my car, and that was despite having all my stuff for college in the trunk. BTW, most of the people there were black, and they no problem when they saw me going by them being that I am white. It is a lot safer now than it was then.

[Daquan13]

I've never been there, though the thought has crossed my mind to go there.

[TalB]

A new page of Coney Island was just done on Forgotten NY.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/...p-417663c.html
Coney developer's Web site omits luxe housing proposal

Thor Equities launched a Web site yesterday touting its $1.5 billion reconstruction of Coney Island - but lost in the mix is the megadeveloper's plan for upper-crust housing.

The site, TheFutureOfConeyIsland.com, touts amusement rides, public praise and thousands of new jobs, but leaves out mention of luxury housing, a key component of the plan.

"To make sure the area residents benefit from the jobs to be created, the future of Coney Island will include job training and local recruitment," the site says.

Thor Equities officials have said the plan to erect amusement rides, hotels, an indoor water park and retail space at the amusement mecca would have to be scrapped if the city nixed plans for a luxury apartment building.

Jotham Sederstrom

Originally published on February 8, 2007

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/...p-422954c.html
Developer muzzles Coney tenants

Leases require they stay mum on plans for mecca

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Dianna Carlin holds dog Shimmer. She says she was evicted from her shop, Lola Staar, after complaining about confidentiality clause in her lease.

Silence is golden in Coney Island.

A dozen business owners have vowed to stay mute about the amusement mecca's future because of an airtight provision of their leases that threatens severe penalties for talking - even during crucial public hearings planned for this year.

"Everyone is going to have to shrug their shoulders and say nothing, and that's exactly what they want," said Dianna Carlin, owner of the now-closed Boardwalk shop Lola Staar Souvenir Boutique.

"They want to bulldoze through this whole thing," she said of developer Thor Equities.

The sweeping clause in the leases - most of them signed by short-term tenants in buildings scooped up along the Boardwalk - threatens $10,000 fines for each offense and even eviction for squawking about "the redevelopment activities" on Coney Island.

The clause also bars attendance at parades, marches, other public events and petition signings until three years after the lease is terminated - demands that would conceivably keep tenants from speaking during a city-mandated public land review process this year.

Thor's $1.5 billion project, slated to be finished by 2011, would include an indoor water park and residential, retail and entertainment components on 13 acres.

Thor officials defended the lease terms, but declined comment on the clause.

"Thor offered all of the Boardwalk tenants the opportunity to stay in place for an additional season," said Thor spokesman Lee Silberstein.

Primarily for tenants seeking one more year, the contract was signed by Ruby's Bar and Grill, Shoot The Freak, Cha Cha's and a Boardwalk outpost of Nathan's Famous, among others, sources said.

Carlin, who was offered a lease renewal that was subsequently revoked, said she was evicted in January after she objected to the confidentiality clause.

Had she signed the clause, it would have barred her from answering questions even from her customers, who routinely ask about the future of Coney Island, she said.

"People come to me all the time, and it's important for me to be honest with my customers," said Carlin, who opened her Boardwalk location seven years ago.

Others doubted the clause would stifle opposition during a public review expected to go through Community Board 13, the borough president's office and the city Council before reaching Mayor Bloomberg.

"If people need to sign a lease for one more year, that takes priority over speaking out in public," said Dick Zigun, president of Coney Island USA, an arts and community group. "Coney Island has enough loudmouths, including me, to speak out about development."

Originally published on March 1, 2007

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007...adventure.html
Parks set on Coney ad-venture

Asks bids on rock-climb wall, trapeze

BY JIMMY VIELKIND
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Monday, March 19th 2007, 4:54 PM

The Parks Department is taking a second crack at spicing up the Coney Island beachfront with action-packed activities after similar plans fizzled last season.

The agency is looking for contractors to operate "rock-climbing walls, rappelling walls, trampolines, ropes courses and trapeze," according to a request for bids released recently.

"Parks may also consider proposals for the operation of water sports activities, such as 'banana boat' rides or parasailing, as part of this concession," the document said. "The rental or operation of Jet Skis or any other personal watercraft, however, will not be permitted."

Bids are due in mid-April, but agency officials couldn't say whether things would be up and running by summer. A similar request last year drew no respondents, but the agency has increased advertising and outreach efforts.

"We're not sure why we didn't get responses the last time around - it might have been a question of people seeing the ads too late," said Parks Department spokesman Eric Abramson, noting that the agency is also "talking it up" to current Coney Island business owners.

The hope is that what is currently a lightly used parcel in Steeplechase Plaza near KeySpan Park just off W. 19th St. will become an extension of the amusements east of Stillwell Ave. - some of which have been cleared by developer Thor Equities as it bids to develop housing and rides in the area.

But there may be a deeper problem. Despite ongoing efforts to revitalize the neighborhood's amusement district and convert it to year-round operations, business is still very seasonal.

That could make it hard for an operator to recoup the initial investment required for a business - which one veteran operator estimated at roughly $1 million.

"It sounds like they would want a fortune just to go in there," said Rich Welter, a former Long Islander who now owns Sunset Watersports in Key West, Fla. "At 50 bucks for a parasail ride, you've got to do a lot of rides to make it happen."

Parks Department officials remain optimistic and have expanded last year's request to include Orchard Beach in the Bronx. Several bidders showed up for a site tour in Coney Island last week.

"People like all different kinds of recreation, and while Coney Island already has many offerings, this is just another avenue to increase the variety of our recreational offerings," Abramson said.

[bagel]

If you love old Coney, this is the last chance you have to catch the opening day of Astroland. I'm actually pretty sad about this. Though The Cyclone will still be there in any redevelopment, it's never gonna be the same.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events...oab_GOAT_above
SUMMERTIME BLUES

The Cyclone, Coney Island’s fabled wooden roller coaster, starts running again after being mothballed for the winter. The ride is free for the first hundred folks to line up (at least for those more than fifty-four inches tall). This annual tradition is organized by the coaster’s operator, the amusement park Astroland, which is entering its last season; the owners recently sold to developers, and the park is closing permanently at the end of the summer. However, the Cyclone, which turns eighty in June, is set to remain for years to come. (1000 Surf Ave., at W. 10th St. For more information, visit www.astroland.com. April 1 at noon, with a ceremonial christening a half hour earlier performed by the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, who will do the honors with a bottle of chocolate egg cream.)

[Lili]

Well, at least the Cyclone will still be running. I hope they don't retire the Astro Tower. It gives great views. The rest of the rides can go.

[redbaron_012]

Hey you guys surely can make Coney island work! Your New york..if you can make it there you can make it anywhere.....so if you don't what hope is there for the rest of us???? Here in Melbourne we restored our 'old' amusement park..Luna park...it has the oldest..continually operating wooden roller coaster in the world...since about 1912 I think ??? the fun palace is gone and the penny archade, river boats and ghost train..I remember a boat ride through a mountain as a kid ??? I guess unless it's Disneyland standard, hard to attract people but there are millions on your doorstep so have a go!

[Don Omar]

Coney Island Plan Is Scaled Back, but Critics Are Skeptical


An artist’s rendering of an aerial view of Surf Avenue at Coney Island under a new plan for a renovated amusement complex there.

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: June 18, 2007
nytimes.com

The developer who wants to remake Coney Island’s amusement district has a new plan and says that you’re going to love it.

Joseph J. Sitt, who says his company has spent $120 million buying up land underneath and around the rides, said on Friday that he had “rolled over” in response to the criticism of his earlier plans for an entertainment and residential complex.

So the looming 40-story tower planned for the Boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue is gone. So are the hundreds of rental apartments and luxury condominiums in the old plan. The new proposal is less dense, he said, but has more of “the new, the edgy, and the outlandish” rides and attractions that America’s first resort was once known for.

“This is our way of showing the New York community that we’re responsive to what they want,” said Mr. Sitt, the founder and chief executive of Thor Equities, which buys and develops commercial, residential and retail properties nationwide. “Our design, in all its greatness, is a way of showing the world what Coney Island can be.”

Who could complain?

Well.

Robert Lieber, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, described Mr. Sitt’s new plan as a “wolf dressed up as a sheep.” Mr. Lieber, along with neighborhood leaders and other city officials, had expressed fears that residents of new apartment buildings would not fit comfortably with the noisy, all-hours amusement district that would be preserved between West Eighth Street and the Aquarium and the minor league baseball stadium at West 16th Street.

The new plan keeps the concept of a new glass-enclosed water park, but instead of apartments calls for three hotels, including more than 400 time-share units, along with restaurants, shops, movie theaters and high-tech arcades. The latest renderings depict a pulsating entertainment complex with an Elephant Colossus statue and architecture that evokes the old Luna Park and Dreamland amusement parks.

Mr. Lieber and others say that the time-share units look an awful lot like apartments and that the complex looks more like a mall than Coney Island.

“He came in last week and presented a plan that had essentially the same density, but dressed it up with hotels and time shares,” Mr. Lieber said on Friday. “The building heights still exceed the 271-foot Parachute Jump,” a Coney Island landmark. “And he’s looking for a huge subsidy from the city. North of $100 million.”

The city has been working with local residents and property owners for nearly three years on a master plan for what everyone agrees is a dowdy area. The idea, they say, is to preserve the democratic, open-air quality of Coney Island’s culture and amusement district on the south side of Surf Avenue, while allowing for high-rise residential and retail development set apart from the rides, on the north side of Surf.

The Economic Development Corporation, along with the City Planning Department and the Coney Island Development Corporation, have been devising a rezoning proposal for Coney Island that will go through a public review process later this year.

“The community and the Coney Island Development Corporation have all indicated that residential and amusements don’t go together,” said Chuck Reichenthal, district manager of Community Board 13.

But Mr. Sitt says he believes the changes being proposed are too restrictive and would undercut his ability to redevelop the area.

Everyone agrees that the shrunken hulk of the amusement district is worth preserving, at the edge of a beach that still draws tens of thousands of people on the summer weekends. The question is how to turn it into a year-round attraction.

“Coney Island has changed its faces many times,” Mr. Reichenthal said. “The last Luna Park was in the mid-1940s. Steeplechase came down in the ’60s. But that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t remained a magnet. There’s a lot to do when people come down here. It’s still the place for people who don’t have a huge amount of money in their pocket to come and have a good time.”

Mr. Sitt, who is equal parts real estate entrepreneur and supersalesman, has been engaged in a game of chicken with the city over the future of Coney Island. Earlier this year, his team claimed that his project “isn’t a financially feasible investment” without high-rise housing. Over the winter, he knocked down the batting cages and the go-kart park in a move that harked back to the bad old days of empty lots.


The developer Joseph J. Sitt’s $1.5 billion plan for Coney Island includes a pulsating amusement area and three hotels, with architecture that invokes the old Luna Park and Dreamland.

Now he has taken the housing, at least all the units labeled apartments, out of his proposal, and he is betting that his new $1.5 billion plan will win the overwhelming support of local residents, if not all the officials at City Hall. The hotels, which range from 25 to 32 stories, have been moved to midblock, away from the Boardwalk.

Mr. Sitt has already spent a large sum buying up 10 acres behind the Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand from 30 different families, including the descendants of George C. Tilyou, founder of Steeplechase Park, and the owners of Astroland, an amusement park that embraces the 270-foot Astro Tower. Astroland is scheduled to close in September. The Cyclone roller coaster, which is a city landmark, will remain open.

Hear his pitch:

The hotels, Mr. Sitt said, would offer black residents not only jobs, but careers. The Russian immigrants, who enjoy a “quality of life and activity by the water,” would flock to the hotels and nightclubs. Jewish and Italian-American residents would get the “quality retail, bookstores and entertainment venues” that they want. As for everyone else, “what’s better than having fabulous restaurants, catering halls, shows and concerts?”

“Tell me, what issue any one of these constituencies would have with our plan,” he said. “We’re asking for motherhood, motherhood. Apple pie, Chevrolet and Coney Island.”

Pause for breath.

“Maybe I sound like a salesman,” Mr. Sitt said, “but I’m passionate about this.”

Jeff Persily, who has worked in the amusement district since 1960 and owns a penny arcade and other property on Bowery Street, agrees with the notion that the amusement area must be turned into a year-round attraction to survive. The city needs to change the zoning to allow for larger buildings, hotels, apartments, parking and retail, he said.

“They have a vision of open-air amusements,” Mr. Persily said. “We can’t afford to spend millions on new rides and only be open three months of the year.”

Would he sell out to Mr. Sitt? “At the end of the day, combining all the properties and building amusements, hotels and residential would be a wonderful thing for New York,” he said. “We’re talking about creating not hundreds of jobs but many thousands of jobs. I love Coney Island. I’d love to see it become what it once was when I was a kid.”

But not everyone trusts Mr. Sitt to deliver. They are concerned that he would convert his time-share units to apartments or flip the property to another developer who would change the plans.

Charles Denson, who grew up in Coney Island and now heads the Coney Island History Project, is fond of saying that Mr. Sitt could be a hero by saving the amusement district. But he said residential towers would overwhelm the amusements and “a big shopping mall is not Coney Island.”

The history project is running a show in the museum underneath the Cyclone roller coaster titled “Land Grab.” It depicts the development of Coney Island since the 1800s through aerial photographs.

“It’s the last ungentrified place in New York,” Mr. Denson said. “It’s still a poor man’s paradise. There’s something magical about it, the name, the reputation and the history.”

[Daquan13]

Great pics!!

I think they're keeping the roller coater though. It's now a landmark, and icon.

[koolkid]

And they're also keeping the red tower. I forgot what its called...

[Daquan13]

I once knew what it was also, and forgot. Anyone else know?

[Lili]

^ That tower is called the Parachute Jump.

[Don Omar]

yea google

[Daquan13]

Originally Posted by Lili

^ That tower is called the Parachute Jump.

Sounds almost like the Paratrooper, a ride that starts off spinning the riders sitting in individual pivoting seats, then it rises to a 45-degree angle.

But I knew that the word "para" was in it.

[bagel]

It's disturbing that the Wonder Wheel isn't in that picture. I hope they don't auction it off with the rest of my childhood memories.

Originally Posted by Daquan13

Sounds almost like the Paratrooper, a ride that starts off spinning the riders sitting in individual pivoting seats, then it rises to a 45-degree angle.

But I knew that the word "para" was in it.

The parachute jump is just there as an ornamental piece so I don't think it's like the paratrooper. They recently renovated it, but it's long been inoperative as an actual amusement park ride. I think it was part of the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Park and was moved to Coney. I don't know when it was last a working ride. I saw a documentary on Coney Island on the D-Times channel and they had people sit in chair on the bottom, then they're pulled straight up, and as soon as they reach the top, they are let go and drop with a parachute above them.

[koolkid]

Not seeing the Wonder wheel worries me too. I never got to ride it. I thought i'd get to in the future but I guess not...

[bagel]

Do it now... this is the last season before they shut down.

[koolkid]

Yeah, I'll do that.