Coney’s Bowery To Get New Midway Games But Can It Get Its Groove Back?

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Coney’s Bowery To Get New Midway Games But Can It Get Its Groove Back?

May 8, 2015 by Tricia

Stillwell Avenue and Bowery, Coney Island. April 16, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita

It turns out that Dan Biederman’s consulting firm Biederman Redevelopment Ventures was hired by Thor Equities to manage and create programming for two lots in Coney Island. So what’s planned for Thor’s second long-vacant lot, on the Bowery across the street from where Coney Art Walls and Smorgasburg are set to debut? “Our programming is still in flux, though we hope to announce some exciting things next week,” Ben Donsky, BRV’s senior project manager, told ATZ. “There will probably be performances on both lots.”

Since Thor bought the property in 2006 and emptied out the bumper boats, go karts and batting cages, the lot has seen sporadic use, most infamously in 2009 as the failed Flea by the Sea. Its tattered tents can be seen in the photo above.

As for game trailers coming to the lot and kiosks being offered for rent this season, as the Coney Island Rumor Mill has been saying for months: “There are no actual ‘kiosks’ in our plans on the east side of Stillwell, at least right now,” Donsky says. “But Gordon Lee of the Eldorado is going to be putting up midway games along the Bowery.”

Balloon Dart on the Bowery, Coney Island

Can the Bowery get its groove back? Or will it get a complete redo? Coney’s Bowery from West 12th Street to Stillwell is a ghost town compared to the crowds it used to attract, particularly since McCullough’s Kiddie Park got pushed out in 2012. As a measure of how much has changed, the spot where the old-school Balloon Dart was located in the demolished Henderson Building is now occupied by the Brooklyn Nets Shop in Thor’s retail building, where Wahlburger’s is opening a rooftop dining area that will overlook the festivities unfolding on the lots this summer.