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BK Festival’s 1st Amusement Rides Arrive in Coney Island

Posted in amusement park, Amusement ride, tagged BK Festival, Coney Island, flat rides, Steeplechase Park, Thor Equities on April 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

First rides for BK Festival's amusement park have arrived in Coney Island. April 1, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Over the weekend, Coney Island’s amusement parks, which have a total of 60 rides including the landmark Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, celebrated opening day with fanfare. The Eldorado Bumper Cars–the 61st ride–are expected to open for one last season. Meanwhile, the first rides for the BK Festival’s new Steeplechase Amusement Park arrived and were parked on Thor Equities lot on the west side of Stillwell Avenue. ATZ snapped these photos yesterday afternoon.

BK Festival event director Will McCarthy tells ATZ that the first rides include a Himalaya, Scrambler, Bumper Cars, Giant Slide and Fun House. Castle Rock Amusements of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and NJ Party Works of South Amboy, New Jersey are the ride suppliers. The rides are projected to open for Easter on the BK Festival’s Stillwell lot behind Nathan’s. “This is a soft opening with the grand opening coming for Memorial Day Weekend,” McCarthy said.

The flea market vendors along with food stands and trailers are expected to continue on the east side of Thor’s Stillwell lots until the new Steeplechase Amusement Park’s full complement of rides and attractions debuts on Memorial Day Weekend.

Last month, McCarthy told ATZ the flea market didn’t mesh with the Coney Island location and this season the BK Festival will bring in rides and amusements in addition to a smaller number of vendors. As a critic of flea markets on land that historically has been used for amusements, we are thrilled with this new direction for the BK Festival and Thor Equities and wish them success. We’re looking forward to the return of popular flat rides like the Scrambler and the Trabant. With the newly arrived rides, Coney’s ride count is once again going up and is likely to be over 70 by Memorial Day Weekend.

The new park will be the third Steeplechase. In 1967, Norman Kaufman leased part of the Tilyou’s Steeplechase site from Fred Trump and called his park Steeplechase Park, according to Charles Denson’s Coney Island: Lost and Found. The Jumbo Jet, Cortina, Bumper Cars, Go Karts, Batting Cages and a Miniature Golf Course were among Kaufman’s attractions over the years. Kaufman’s Batting Range and Go Kart City was on this piece of land until he was evicted by Thor Equities in 2007.

UPDATE April 22, 2012:

The rides opened last weekend on Stillwell West and have since been moved to the Stillwell Avenue East lot, where permits are in process for a “temporary fair.” According to Will McCarthy of the BK Festival all of the rides will open on Memorial Day Weekend when the Festival brings in additional rides and attractions and debuts as “Steeplechase Park.” In the meantime, the merchandise vendors, food stands and Coney Island Dancers will continue to operate on the Stillwell West lot.

First rides for BK Festival's amusement park have arrived in Coney Island. April 1, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Video of the Day: Eldorado Auto Skooter at Coney Island (2011)

Posted in Amusement ride, video, tagged Auto Skooter, Bumper Cars, Coney Island, Eldorado, Gordon Lee, Scott Fitlin, Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin on March 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

If you’re feeling nostalgic for the Eldorado Auto Skooter and yearn to go for the first ride of the year, this HD video will intensify those feelings. Please be patient and send positive vibes to 1218 Surf Avenue in Coney Island.

On Tuesday we talked again with Gordon Lee, who operated the bumper cars and arcade for the Fitlin family last year. He affirmed that he is preparing to open up within the next couple of weeks. We have faith that Lee can make everything come together so that the famed marquee will light up again for one glorious last season of “Bump, Bump, Bump Your Ass Off” rides before it closes forever.

As ATZ reported last week, Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin and Sandy Fitlin, whose families have operated businesses in Coney Island for more than six decades, sold the building that houses the Eldorado to Thor Equities. Their son Scott Fitlin was the DJ extraordinaire of Surf Avenue’s legendary disco palace of bumper cars and his untimely death at the age of 48 left the attraction’s future in question.

“It is with deep regret that I sold Eldorado,” Sheila Fitlin told ATZ. “Due to my advancing age, the fact that I live in Texas, and, of course, Scott’s death, I could no longer continue.” It was a gift to Coney Island and a tribute to his memory that the Eldorado reopened in 2011. We’re hoping for a second gift to Coney Island in 2012.

UPDATE April 12, 2012:

Good news! Gordon Lee of Coney’s Eldorado Bumper Cars phoned to say he’s operating the ride today & open for business! The arcade will also open this weekend for the season. Hours at the Eldorado are “12 noon till closing.”

60 Years of Family History in Coney Island End with Sale of Eldorado

Posted in Amusement ride, tagged arcade, Bumper Cars, Buxbaum family, Eldorado, Eldorado Bumper Cars, Sandy Fitlin, Scott Fitlin, Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin, Thor Equities on March 20, 2012| 19 Comments »

Last week, Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin and Sandy Fitlin, whose families have operated businesses in Coney Island for more than six decades, sold the building that houses the Eldorado Auto Skooters and Arcade at 1216-1218 Surf Avenue to Thor Equities. For months Coney Island insiders knew of the pending sale as well as the possibility that the bumper cars and arcade will open for one more season, in the same way that Astroland remained open the year after it was sold.

“We’re actively working on negotiations,” arcade operator Gordon Lee told ATZ on Monday. Lee’s company Sun Star is a longtime provider of arcade machines to Coney Island, including the Eldorado as well as the now-closed Astroland Arcade and Faber’s Fascination. Last season Lee managed both the bumper cars and the arcade for the Fitlins after the death of their son Scott in October 2010. The bumper cars have undergone pre-season maintenance and passed inspection and are ready to open on Coney Island’s opening day if an agreement can be reached with Thor Equities.

Scott Fitlin was the DJ extraordinaire of Surf Avenue’s legendary disco palace of “Bump, Bump, Bump Your Ass Off” bumper cars and his untimely death at the age of 48 left the attraction’s future in question. His parents had retired to Texas and left the bumper cars in his care. It was a gift to Coney Island and a tribute to his memory that the Eldorado reopened last season. ATZ asked the Fitlins for a statement about the sale of the Eldorado and their years in Coney. Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin sent us the following note via email:

It is with deep regret that I sold Eldorado. Due to my advancing age, the fact that I live in Texas, and, of course, Scott’s death, I could no longer continue.

As one of the last of the “old timers,” I view a legacy in Coney Island that spanned three generations and lasted almost 60 years. I pay homage to those of us who shaped Coney Island–

The Buxbaum & Fitlin Family, Jerome & Carol Albert, Denos Vourderis, Freddy Garms, Norman Kaufman, Ronnie Guerrero, Jeff Persily and any I may have forgotten.

Eldorado established an entity that became a standard of the industry. The Bumping Disco was known worldwide, reproduced somewhat once in Japan, but never really successfully duplicated anywhere. Eldorado was one of the very first of the FECs. Today the concept is everywhere and much embellished upon. Many years ago we had plans to extend to other areas, but it never came to fruition. Unfortunately, we were never really recognized or acknowledged by “the new Coney Island.” Oh, what things the “old timers” could have taught the “johnny come latelys.”

I only wish that Scott had not died and the next generation could have persevered.

GOODBYE CONEY ISLAND, and most of all, goodbye to those I love.

Our friend Scott Fitlin told us about the history of the Eldorado in a March 2010 interview. It begins: “Eldorado was hand built by my grandfather Joseph Buxbaum, my Dad Sandy Fitlin, and my Uncle Peter Buxbaum, and a carpenter named Rafael. Opening date was March 21st 1973, admission was 50 cents and 25 cent re-rides. The FIRST record played was Cisco Kid-War!”

In a 2007 interview in the Coney Island History Project’s Oral History Archive, Sheila Buxbaum Fitlin recounts how her parents met in 1930s Coney Island when her mother was working in a frozen custard stand at Bowery and Stillwell and her father was selling hot corn next door to Nathan’s.

In the 1940s, the family opened the Shamrock Irish House, a restaurant, cabaret and open air bar with singing waiters on Henderson Walk and the Bowery. Customers would throw money onto the stage. “I can recall as a child–10, 11, 9–going there, getting a stage-side table and my father would give me a roll of dimes and set me up with my Coca Cola,” says Sheila in the interview with Charles Denson.

In the oral history interview, Sheila says the family switched over to games in the mid-1950s and had one of the first-ever water racing games. The Eldorado building was at one time the Pleasureland Arcade and was won by the Buxbaum and Fitlin families in a closed bid auction in 1971. The building is located mid-block on Surf Avenue between Denny’s Ice Cream and the Popper Building, a few doors down from Thor Equities property at the corner of Surf and Stillwell.