Fireworks and snow?! Instead of doing a Best Photos of 2011, ATZ is featuring some images that we missed during the hectic summer season. It’s also “snowing” on our blog through January 2, thanks to the Holiday Engineers at WordPress.com.
“The new ‘IN’ place to be on a Friday fireworks night is THE PIER,” wrote Coney Island photographer Bruce Handy on the Friday night in July when he took this stunning photo.
The Coney Island tradition of Friday night fireworks begins for the 2012 season in mid-June. That’s six months away, fireworks fans. Coney Island’s rides and attractions open for the season on the last weekend of March, which is Palm Sunday Weekend. That’s just over three months away. Mark your new 2012 calendars!
On Tuesday, the City’s Parks Department issued an RFP (Request for Proposals) to renovate, operate and maintain the antique carousels in Flushing Meadows Park and Forest Park in Queens for a 15-year term. It’s the fourth go-round for an RFP to run the Forest Park Carousel, which has been shuttered since September 2008, and the second for Flushing Meadows. Parks did not receive any proposals for their first two RFPs for the Forest Park ride, though there were responses to the most recent RFP in April, which also included the Flushing Meadows Carousel.
After the last RFP was issued in April, a Parks Department spokesman said there were no suitable proposals, according to Project Woodhaven, a local website that has been advocating for the reopening of their neighborhood carousel. Here’s a video they made on the occasion of the site tour in April 2011. Let’s hope the fourth time round is the charm for Forest Park!
The Forest Park ride was manufactured in Philadelphia in 1910 and is one of two Daniel Muller carousels still in operation. “In his dedication to reality, Muller would carve stitching holes in the saddles and insert heavy thread to give the illusion that real leather had been used,” writes William Manns in Painted Ponies: American Carousel Art. “”His Indian Ponies were adorned with lifelike feathers and his saddles and bridles sometimes were carved to resemble tooled leather.”
The Flushing Meadows Carousel has a Coney Island pedigree. It is the work of amusement ride inventor and manufacturer William F Mangels and developer of the “Coney Island style of carousel wood carving” Marcus C Illions. The ride is comprised of two Coney island carousels that were combined and brought to Queens for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. The frame, organ, chariots and 47 horses are from the Stubbman Carousel (1908) and 24 horses are from the Feltman Carousel (1903).
Close-up photos of some of Muller’s and Illions’ carvings may be viewed on the “Carousels: Queens” page of RoadsideArchitecture.com
How much can a concessionaire expect to make operating the two Queens carousels? In 2008, the Forest Park Carousel had gross receipts of $72,000. The guaranteed annual fee to Parks was $20,000 or 10 per cent of gross receipts. In previous years the annual fee ranged from $15,000 to $17,500. In 2010 – 2011, the Flushing Meadows Carousel had gross receipts of $160,554 for carousel rides, $76,824 for food sales, $37,205 for toy sales, and $1,036 for special events. The guaranteed annual fee to Parks was $80,000 or 10 per cent of gross receipts.
According to the current RFP, “In the last agreement, the fee paid to Parks was the higher of the minimum annual fee or percentage of gross receipts. However, in responding to this request for proposal, proposers should express their fee offer only as a flat fee, and not on a percentage of gross receipts.”
A busy day at the carousel in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, June 1968. Courtesy of the Parks Department Photo Archive
Here’s the hitch: the City requires a substantial investment from the operator, who is responsible for all costs associated with the renovation, operation, and maintenance of the antique rides and their pavilions. According to an article in last week’s Queens Chronicle, the cost of renovation work on the Forest Park Carousel adds up to about $150,000. But there is already one potential proposer: Assemblyman Mike Miller (D-Woodhaven) recently met with the Parks Department and reps from Independence Residences Inc., an area nonprofit interested in operating the carousel, the paper reported.
Proposals for the current RFP, which may include the option to develop and operate a “family amusement venue” at Forest Park and “children’s amusement rides” and mobile food units and souvenir carts at Flushing Meadows Park are due on January 27, 2012. An on-site proposer meeting and site tour will be held at both locations on January 12th.
Last month the City’s Parks Department also issued an RFP to operate and maintain the restored B & B Carousell at Coney Island’s Steeplechase Plaza next to the landmark Parachute Jump. Proposals to operate the B & B are due on January 17, 2012. (Update: On December 30th, Parks sent out an addendum to provide a website where available plans may be downloaded and extended the deadline for the B & B to January 30th)
Forest Park Carousel Tiger. Courtesy of the Parks Department Photo Archive
Every Christmas, exquisite models of long-vanished Coney Island landmarks are part of a holiday tradition at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Thanks to ATZ reader Jim Levine, who sent us his photos of the 20th annual Holiday Train Show.
Among the replicas are the original entrance and a ticket booth from Coney Island’s first Luna Park, which opened in 1903 on the north side of Surf Avenue. There’s also a Coney Island bound trolley and the Galveston Flood Building, where a cyclorama of the 1900 catastrophe was a popular attraction.
According to the Botanical Garden’s release, “Natural materials such as bark, twigs, stems, fruits, seeds, and pine cones are used to create more than 140 scaled iconic buildings, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Radio City Music Hall, and the original Yankee Stadium. More than a dozen large-scale model railway trains—from late-1800s American steam engines and streetcars to modern freight and high-speed passenger trains and trolleys—traverse nearly a quarter-mile of track across rustic bridges, along overhead trestles, through tunnels, and past waterfalls that cascade into flowing creeks.”
Jim shared a bit of trivia about the trolley in the picture below, which he says is a model of car number 1001. “It was one of the last trolleys to run in Coney Island. My father, who was just starting with the Transit Authority in the 1940s, drove that trolley in Coney Island. That car, 1001, is now at the Shore Line Trolley Museum up in Connecticut and has been fully restored.”
The New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show runs through January 16, 2012. Tickets are available online.
Amusing the Zillion 