Amusing the Zillion

Zip Line Under Construction in Coney Island. August 4, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The scaffolding towers for the Coney Island Zip Line started going up last week on Stillwell Avenue, but construction has not been completed. No one was working over the weekend. The gates were locked and the lot was a ghost town. Sources told ATZ that the zip line expects to be ready to open next weekend.

In the meantime, the BK Festival’s merchandise vendors who sell hats, sunglasses, jewelry and other items under the multicolored tents did not open as usual on Saturday and Sunday. Word on the street is they were closed because of the ongoing construction. Will they be allowed to open when people are zipping overhead? The new attraction is being set up behind Nathan’s and runs from the Bowery and Stillwell Avenue to West 15th Street. Originally slated to traverse Stillwell Avenue and open in July, the zip line’s debut has been rescheduled a couple of times due to paperwork delays. “It’s taken a bit longer than we thought to get the engineering drawings required for this project,” zip line operator Patrick Ingram told ATZ when we first wrote about it in June.

Another zip line in the news last week was in the UK, where London’s Mayor Boris Johnson got stuck in mid-air when he tried out the 1,000-foot ride at an Olympics celebration. This comic video of him merrily waving little Union Jacks before the zip stalled went viral and won him fans in China. “I love his spontaneity, not pretentious at all!,” one wrote on the social networking site Weibo, according to the Wall Street Journal. Will Coney Island “Mayor” and Mermaid Parade founder Dick Zigun be the first to ride Coney’s new zip line?

UPDATE September 14, 2012

Long-Delayed Coney Island Zipline Is Officially Open!

UPDATE August 19, 2012

BK Festival Vendors Back in Business, Coney Zipline Isn’t, ATZ

UPDATE August 14, 2012

Official sources tell ATZ that additional paperwork needs to be filed and the Zipline might open on Thursday or Friday.

UPDATE August 10, 2012

The Zipline is finished and ready for zipliners. On Thursday and Friday the crew was being trained and the zipline was tested. We’re expecting it to open today and will post an update via twitter

UPDATE August 7, 2012

Yay! Construction resumed today on the platforms for the Coney Island Zipline.

Related posts on ATZ…

June 28, 2012: Zip Line Coming to Coney Island’s Stillwell Avenue in July

June 15, 2012: Amusing the Zillion’s Guide to Free Summer Events in Coney Island

February 24, 2012: Summer Jobs: From Coney Island to the Carnival Midway

April 22, 2011: Coney Island Has 64 Rides and 30 Weekends of Summer!