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Archive for September, 2010

Video: The Museum of Wax by Charles Ludlam

Posted in film, video, tagged Charles Ludlam, Coney Island Film Festival, Dick Zigun, Everett Quinton, horror film, Rob Leddy, silent film, Wax museum, World in Wax Musee on September 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

On opening night of the Coney Island Film Festival, the first film up was Charles Ludlam’s silent horror short “The Museum of Wax,” shot in the late 1970s in Coney’s World in Wax Musee. It is a little gem, but seeing Lillie Santangelo’s long-vanished museum was eerie and sad, especially now that the Henderson Building, where it was located for more than 60 years until closing in 1984, is being demolished to make way for Thor Equities’ strip mall.

Equally eerie and sad was seeing the late and much-missed Charles Ludlam‘s brilliance on the silent screen. Ludlam’s over-the-top performances in campy melodramas like “The Mystery of Irma Vep” at his Ridiculous Theatrical Company in Sheridan Square were a must-see for us in the 1980s.

Unfinished at the time of Ludlam’s death from AIDs in 1987, this rarely seen 16 MM film was remastered by Queer/Art/Film as part of the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. OutfestLA has also made the 20-minute film available in three parts on their YouTube channel.

At Friday’s screening, Coney Island USA founder and artistic director Dick Zigun referred to the film as “a work of film genius” and noted that it was last screened in Coney Island on Halloween in 1981. The occasion was a day-long theatrical extravaganza called “Tricks or Treats,” which Zigun curated at the Wax Musee. The film was shot in a few days after Zigun introduced Ludlam to Lillie Santangelo, the elderly proprietress of the wax museum. “It was a 100 percent found location,” says Zigun, who had discovered fifty wax heads, which appear in the film, in the museum’s storage area.

“Not much was planned. It was just go for it,” recalled actor Everett Quinton, who was Ludlam’s partner and muse. Quinton, who appears as the second convict in the film, compared it to “the unfinished Michelangelo sculptures that lead up to the David. It is unfinished.” According to Outfest’s website, until the recent digital re-mastering and the addition of a new score by original composer Peter Golub, “Museum of Wax” had not been seen in over 20 years.

In an act of programming genius by Coney Island Film Festival director Rob Leddy, “The Wax Museum” shared the opening night bill with “Shape of the Shapeless,” a new documentary exploring the gender bending life and performance art of Jon Cory aka Rose Wood, and the effervescent “Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque,” which won best documentary feature.

Coney Island Cat Is Last Tenant of Henderson Building

Posted in Animals, Demolition, tagged animal rescue, Coney Island, feral cat, Henderson Buildng, stray cat, urban cat on September 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

September 23, 2010: Cat Living in the Henderson Building Comes Out for Supper. Photo © AnyMouseHero via Amusing the Zillion

When Faber’s Fascination closed on Labor Day and began moving out, ATZ reported that the arcade was the last tenant of the soon-to-be demolished Henderson Building. Well, one more tenant- a grey cat – was discovered yesterday by a photographer who went there to document the demolition of the Surf Hotel on the building’s second floor. “The cat went under the gate of Shoot Out the Star into the Henderson Building when I came close,” says the anon photographer. A full plate of food and a full cup of water had been placed outside the building, probably by one of the cat lovers who care for Coney Island’s feral, stray and abandoned cat population.

As our regular readers know, ATZ loves a Coney Island cat story, preferably with photos or a video. For “I Love NYC Pets Month” in January, we wrote about the cats who live beneath the ramps to Coney Island’s Boardwalk and within its vacant buildings and an attempted cat rescue. We regularly feature Coney Island cats and kittens up for adoption. Now we seem to have hit upon an unfortunate new theme: cats displaced by redevelopment.

September 23, 2010: Demolition in Progress of the Surf Hotel in Henderson Building. Photo © AnyMouseHero via Amusing the Zillion

The appearance of the Henderson Building cat amid yesterday’s demolition of the Surf Hotel and the removal of the hotel’s original sign reminded us of our last day at Astroland. We’re not referring to the park’s last day of operation on Sept 7, 2008. We mean Astroland’s very last day, the day the lease expired and the property had to be vacated: January 31, 2009. On that day, we helped rescue a few signs from the water flume for the Coney Island History Project. By then there wasn’t much left of Astroland and we didn’t have the heart to take more than a few photos. One of the pix that we didn’t take: Two stray cats who had long found shelter in Astroland and were displaced by the teardown. As we stood outside the now demolished Feltman’s kitchen –home of the hot dog–and peered in at the original tile floor, the cats paced and waited. An Astroland worker came out and fed the Astro cats their last meal.

For information about feral cats, visit the website of the New York City Feral Cats Initiative, a joint program of two private non-profit organizations–the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals and Neighborhood Cats.

September 23, 2010: Last Happy Meal for Cat Living in Coney Island’s Henderson Building? Photo © AnyMouseHero via Amusing the Zillion

Demolition in Progress! Coney Island’s Surf Hotel in Henderson Building

Posted in Demolition, Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, demolition under the radar, Surf Hotel, Thor Equities on September 23, 2010| 10 Comments »

Surf Hotel Signage. December 26, 2008. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

A tipster phoned to tell us that Coney Island’s Surf Hotel on the second story of Thor Equities-owned Henderson Buiilding (pictured below in 2009) is being demolished. We’re told yellow tape blocking off the street and a tarp covering the sidewalk were the only concessions to public safety. Workers were ripping out window frames and walls. The Community Board 13 was alerted to the hazardous situation. As ATZ reported previously,Thor Equities has an asbestos abatement permit from the DEP. A demolition permit cannot be issued by the DOB until the asbestos work is certified as complete. We will update the story when more info & photos come in.

Thor's demolition of historic Coney Island in progress! Windows were ripped out of Henderson Building today. Photo by Anonymouse via Amusing the Zillion

September 23, 2010: Thor's demolition of historic Coney Island in progress! Windows were ripped out of Henderson Building today. Photo by Anonymouse via Amusing the Zillion

Update: We talked with CB 13 Manager Chuck Reichenthal…The bad news is the historic Henderson Building is coming down! The DOB told the CB Manager that Thor Equities does indeed have a demolition permit from the DOB since the asbestos abatement was certified as complete. What are the DOB’s guidelines for demolition? Reichenthal was told there really aren’t any. Yellow caution tape rules!

Here’s the Henderson’s page on the DOB’s website. We don’t see a demo permit, but there’s a two day lag on updates. Permits for construction of a “ONE STORY NEW COMMERCIAL BUILDING WITH ASSEMBLY AND AMUSEMENT SPACES” filed yesterday (September 22, 2010) are currently pending.

September 23, 2010: Thor's demolition of historic Coney Island in progress! Windows ripped out of Henderson Building today. Photo by Anonymouse via Amusing the Zillion

Update, 3:15 pm… The demo men have quit work for the day, according to a friend who went to the site. Now that the windows are gone, you can peer inside at the tin ceilings and vintage light fixtures. Somebody with a zoom lens please go and document it before it’s gone! We’re told that the original Surf Hotel sign pictured above was removed, though its fate remains unknown. Was it saved, scavenged or thrown out with the windows? BTW here’s a photo of the Henderson Building interior in happier days, before the property was bought and blighted by Joe Sitt. In 2007, the Velocity Nightclub occupied the second floor on the Bowery side of the former Henderson Music Hall until Thor bought the building and evicted them.