May | 2011 | Amusing the Zillion

Archive for May, 2011

“Last Summer at Coney Island” Airs on PBS, DVD Offers Epilogue

Posted in film, Redevelopment, video, tagged Coney Island, JL Aronson, Last Summer at Coney Island on May 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

A 60-minute cut of JL Aronson’s documentary “Last Summer at Coney Island” will air on public television starting May 15 at 10 pm and May 16 at 2:30 am on WNET Channel 13. We recommend watching it and then buying the DVD with the full 90-minute version and a host of extras, including “Since Last Summer,” in which the film-maker narrates a candid update. “The City bought the land from Thor that they could have purchased at the start for less money, but then they would have been the ones to evict old timers who had been in Coney Island for decades,” he says.

When “Last Summer at Coney Island” premiered in August at BAM, the audience got teary eyed during the scene in which Astroland’s lights were extinguished, ride by ride, for the final time, and the illuminated Astrotower made its last descent. Many of us had attended the amusement park’s closing ceremony on September 7, 2008 after rallying unsuccessfully for one more year.

The next summer felt like another last summer for Coney Island. Real estate speculator Joe Sitt held Coney Island hostage as the City’s rezoning plan, which would approve high rise hotels on Sitt’s land on the south side of Surf Avenue, moved inexorably toward approval.

“Last Summer at Coney Island” chronicles Coney Island’s redevelopment hoopla with riveting scenes featuring Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt and Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert, as well as historian Charles Denson, Lola Star Boutique owner Dianna Carlin, City Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr, and then-CIDC president Lynn Kelly, among others. Aronson’s film ends with the City Council passing the rezoning in July 2009.

“The rezoning plan quickly became a sideshow itself, if not the main attraction,” says Aronson in the epilogue. “After shooting for a couple of years, I had to conclude the story at some point, and at a point that made sense, without waiting to see what might inevitably get built. If past lessons of Coney Island development tell us anything, it is that this process can take a very, very long time.”

Other extras on the DVD include an “Easter egg” with Coney’s “Unelected Mayor” Dick D Zigun. We found the hidden feature –it’s Zigun’s fiery speech at a hearing on the rezoning at which he resigned as a Director of the Coney Island Development Corporation in protest of “a deeply flawed plan.”

“Astroland” has interviews with longtime employees of the park, who consider themselves brothers and sisters, while “The Cyclone” focuses on Gerry Menditto, the now-retired manager of the landmark roller coaster. “The Friendly Butcher of Mermaid Avenue” is Jimmy Prince, who retired in 2009 after 60 years at a meat market beloved by the neighborhood. “The Ward family” features Jack Ward, who passed away last year, and whose family was the oldest property owner in Coney Island before selling their parcel to the City.

In fact so much has changed since “Last Summer at Coney Island,” about the only places in the film that look the same are the Thor-owned Grashorn building with its perpetual “for lease” sign and the landmark Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and Parachute Jump. Since Luna Park opened last summer followed by Scream Zone this spring, it feels like the beginning of a new Coney Island, though the future depicted in the City’s renderings, with hotel towers on Surf Avenue and glittering high rise condos to the west and north of MCU Park, is still a long ways off.

The hour-long cut of “Last Summer at Coney island” is scheduled to air on the following PBS stations:
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Sunday, May 15 – 10pm
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Monday, May 16 – 2:30am
NJN – New Jersey Public Television – Tuesday, June 21 – 10pm
WLIW/21 – New York – Tuesday, June 28 – 10pm
KQED – San Francisco – Saturday, July 23 – 6pm
KQED – San Francisco – Tuesday, July 26 – 11pm
More stations to be announced.

Coney Island 2011: Summer Photography Workshop

Posted in Photography, tagged Coney Island, Kevin C Downs, photography workshop on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Master's Last Summer. Photo © Kevin C Downs

Photographer Kevin C Downs annual summer photography workshop in Coney Island is going into its fifth year at Coney Island USA. ATZ has learned a lot about photography from looking at Kevin’s photos and those of his students, which may be viewed in this flickr group.

We especially admire Kevin’s empathetic portraits of Coney Island regulars. Our favorite is probably a classic image of a “sailor” and his gal at Ruby’s, which we featured in last year’s post about the photography workshop.

The Saturday sessions begin on June 4 with a review at noon in the Coney Island Museum and go through the evening. Tuition is a very reasonable $300. From the course description:

Students will be asked to think of a specific documentary essay that is a combination of art and journalism to focus on for the entire 8 sessions. The class will work on a narrative essay that will focus on telling a story through a sequence of events or actions. They may follow an individual or activity over a period of time and present this story in chronological order. A thematic photo essay focuses on a central theme (e.g. homelessness, the environment, Amusements, The Economics of Coney Island, etc.) and presents photos relevant to that theme.

Coney Island 2009. Photo © Kevin C Downs via flickr

Up for Auction: Sideshow Banners by Johnny Meah

Posted in art, Auction, tagged Johnny Meah, sideshow banner, World of Wonders on May 8, 2011| 5 Comments »

Two Sideshow Show Marquee Banners Painted by Johnny Meah for Hall & Christ's World of Wonders. Size: 94 inches long, 35 inches tall. Mosby & Co Auction. May 14, 2011

ATZ is a fan of word banners and if we had wall space in our apartment we’d try to win these beauties. Painted by Johnny Meah for Hall and Christ’s World of Wonders Sideshow, these two marquee banners are among the circus and sideshow items in Mosby & Company’s Spring Auction. The live auction is on Saturday, May 14, in Frederick, Maryland, but the catalogue is online and you can bid now or in real time during the auction. A couple of other banners by Meah, including a Half Man, Half Woman act (shown below) and a Bed of Nails act depicting “Tortura High Priestess of Pain” came directly from World of Wonder’s C.M. Christ and are also in the sale.

The name “Meah” takes me all the way back to my childhood days traveling the New England carnival circuit with my concessionaire parents. Hal Meah, a sketch artist who set up his easel at the Connecticut fairs on our route, taught me how to draw. His son, Johnny, began his career at age nine as “The World’s Youngest Portrait Artist,’ but I remembered him as a 20-year-old who hopscotched from carnival to circus to fairgrounds, snapping up sign painting jobs. Since a showman has to play a variety of roles in order to make a living, Johnny augmented his repertoire with sideshow lecturing, fire eating, and swallowing swords.

Strange Change Sideshow Banner featuring an image of a Half Man, Half Woman. Art Work by Johnny Meah. Size: 84 inches tall, 94 inches wide. Mosby & Co Auction. May 14, 2011

I first encountered Johnny Meah’s gloriously gaudy advertisements for World of Wonders at New Jersey’s Meadowlands Fair in 1996. As I wrote a few years later in an essay for Raw Vision …

Twisted Sister, Minnie the Mermaid, the Electrifying Voltara and other Strange Girls–Alive and on Stage–were seen by hundreds of thousands of people. The artist used every trick of the banner painter’s trade to pull in a crowd –vibrant colors (“flash,” in the lingo of the midway), bold lines, eye-catching exaggeration, and tantalizing wordplay.

Fairgoers were razzle-dazzled into spending two bucks to go inside, where what they actually saw was a contortionist, a girl in a goldfish bowl, an electrocution-proof woman, and other classic sideshow acts. The artist’s disclaimer appeared in small script near the entrance: ‘Fantasy art scenes are not intended as a true depiction of illusions presented in the inside of this show.’ At the same time, his hand-lettered signature proudly took credit for his creations: ‘All ‘Banner Art’ by Meah Studios, Riverview, Florida.’

Sideshow impresario Ward Hall, whose midway shows have flown the artist’s banners for more than thirty years succinctly explained to me the drawing power of Johnny’s art: “Because he has been in the sideshow, he understands what is required to sell tickets. And that’s what his banners do.”

Visit Johnny Meah’s website- The Czar of the Bizarre–to view his new work, read his writings, and download a font in his idiosyncratic handwriting style.

Mosby & Co Auctions, Spring Americana, Toy & Circus Sale. The auction catalogue is currently online for the May 14, 2011 Sale.