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Remnant of Under Boardwalk Bar Found in Coney Island

Posted in Food, Food & Drink, history, tagged bar, Brooklyn Beach Shop, Maya Haddad, menu, rathskeller, Under the Boardwalk on January 31, 2012| 12 Comments »

The renovation of stores on the Coney Island Boardwalk has already uncovered the ghost lettering of an arcade and signage for Club Atlantis. The latest discovery is a remnant of one of the rathskellers that thrived under the Boardwalk in the 1940s and ’50s. The menu for the long-lost bar was found on a basement wall by Maya Haddad of Brooklyn Beach Shop, which will soon begin rehabbing the first-floor space formerly occupied by Coney Island Souvenirs.

Vintage Ad: Coney Island Rathskeller for Lease

Decades before the Army Corps of Engineers pumped sand under the Coney Island Boardwalk in the 1990s, rathskellers (council’s cellar in German) were popular with beach goers. ATZ found an ad from 1957 looking to lease an 80-foot Boardwalk frontage with an 80-foot rathskeller below with direct frontage on the beach.

The name of the rathskeller whose menu was rediscovered remains unknown, but its prices appear to date back to the 1940s. Beer and milk were 10 cents, coffee was a nickel. The sandwich menu included hamburger, egg, cream cheese, American cheese, Swiss cheese, Sardine or Salmon, Ham, Salami or Liverwurst, Ham & Egg, and a Western. Could this be the place where the boy in the 1953 movie The Little Fugitive returned soda bottles to collect money to go on the rides?

Brooklyn Beach Shop’s new location next to Ruby’s Bar is in a building that dates back to 1940. The original tenant was Moe’s Fascination, which occupied the upper story until 1965. Brooklyn Beach Shop, a spinoff of Coney Island Beach Shop located behind Nathan’s and in Stillwell Terminal, will feature their own brand of Coney Island-themed clothing and souvenirs. The Boardwalk shop is expected to open in April.

The End of Paul’s Daughter As We Know It–Will They Return?

Posted in Food & Drink, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, Gregory & Paul's, Paul's Daughter, Zamperla on November 13, 2011| 7 Comments »

Paul Georgoulakos, 82, the oldest operator on the Coney Island Boardwalk, in front of the now vacant Paul's Daughter. The store was founded as Gregory & Paul's

On Friday, Paul Georgoulakos and his help began the sad task of removing the hand-painted vernacular signage from Paul’s Daughter’s storefront, which he co-founded on the Coney Island Boardwalk in 1962 as Gregory & Paul’s. It was heartbreaking to see the cavalcade of beloved characters and foods torn from their home on the Boardwalk: Mr Shrimp, Chiefito and Chiefita (the Nice N Sweet/Fluffy Cotton Candy Kids), Shish Kebab (“Made with Love”) and other enticements. Some of the signage has been here since the restaurant’s earliest days and was meticulously restored a couple of years ago. The restaurant equipment was also cleaned, wrapped and carted off to storage.

Signage being removed from Paul's Daughter. November 11, 2011. Photo © Eric Kowalsky

We have to warn you that the set of photos taken today by Bruce Handy is very distressing to look at. Paul’s Daughter as we know it no longer exists. If redevelopment is hell, we have probably entered the tenth circle of the inferno. In Bruce’s Coney Island Photo Diary slide show, you’ll witness the facade of the Boardwalk icon gradually stripped down to ghost signage. The burger statues on the roof, which we wrote about in “Photo of the Day: Coney Island Americana Looking for New Beach” (ATZ, October 13, 2011) are expected to come down this week. Will somebody please make a video? It will be a suitable companion piece to the video of the Astroland Rocket being removed from the roof.

A new version of the iconic restaurant may or may not return to this spot, depending on how lease negotiations go with Zamperla USA. We’ll get to that in a minute and hope the possibility consoles you a little. There’s a rendering, which was shown at the AIA forum the other night–if you must see it now, scroll down. But first we’d like to pay our respects to the original Gregory & Paul’s, which became Paul’s Daughter in 2008. Here’s a photo taken in 2005 by James and Karla Murray from their celebrated book STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York. Today another legendary New York City store front has disappeared thanks to redevelopment and gentrification.

Gregory & Paul's with Astroland Rocket on the roof photographed in 2005 for the book STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York. Photo © James and Karla Murray

The beloved seaside restaurant and its signage were featured in the 1999 music video “Summer Girls,” in which the band LFO danced on the boardwalk as well as on the roof in front of the Astroland Rocket. Taken as a whole, Paul’s store is a sublime example of the midway maxim “It’s the front of the show that gets the dough!” It’s a lesson that their new neighbor Coney Cones, which has a store front that would look at ease in Manhattan or Miami, but doesn’t stand out in Coney Island, is apparently unfamiliar with. Savvy restaurateurs are not necessarily successful Boardwalk concessionaires.

In 2012, Paul’s storefront would have been fifty years old and eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. (Yes, there are examples of roadside architecture on the Register.) Now that will never happen. Instead Paul’s, Ruby’s and the other Boardwalk businesses are required to renovate and pay the high cost of the rehab–reportedly half a million to a million dollars–if they want to be part of the new Coney Island. Here’s our flickr slide show of photos of Paul’s Daughter that we’ve taken over the past few years.

The removal of the signage does not necessarily spell the end of Paul’s Daughter in Coney Island, since Zamperla recently did an about-face from last year’s evictions and offered eight-year leases to Boardwalk favorites Paul’s Daughter and Ruby’s Bar. Negotiations continue with the store owners and a decision is expected after Thanksgiving, perhaps sooner, ATZ has learned. A number of clauses in the leases, which we previously described as onerous, have caused the negotiations to be extended beyond the original November 14 deadline, according to the Coney Island Rumor Mill. “It could go either way,” is the phrase we keep hearing in reference to both Paul’s and Ruby’s.

The two Mom and Pops were offered leases after a Miami restaurateur pulled out of a $5 million dollar deal to redevelop the Boardwalk. According to the New York Post story by Rich Calder, Coney Cones co-owner Michele Merlo said business at his new store had been “very disappointing” because of the bad weather and told other Boardwalk vendors “they can’t make money off Zamperla’s existing lease offer.”

Will Paul's Daughter Be Back? Architectural rendering for the new Paul's Daughter shown at November 11 Coney Island Panel at AIA. Photo via Amusing the Zillion

At Friday night’s panel on the Future of the Coney Island Amusement Area at the AIA, we were surprised when Zamperla’s Valerio Ferrari showed slides of the business owners’ renderings for their proposed stores, despite the fact that leases have yet to be signed with some of them. We hope this is a sign that Zamperla is motivated to negotiate a fair lease deal with the Mom and Pop businesses. As we wrote last month:

Each of the Boardwalk Mom and Pops has been paying $100,000 per year rent, plus a $10,000 surcharge initiated this year to help keep the Boardwalk restrooms open later and for sanitation and fireworks. Believe it or not, $100,000 is also the base rent that CAI/Zamperla USA pays annually to the City. In addition, they also pay a small percentage of the gross receipts. For example, ten percent of gross receipts over $7 million. According to the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s lease with CAI (which ATZ obtained last year through the Freedom of Information Act), the City will receive 15% of the fixed rent paid by any subtenant. Zamperla gets to keep the other 85%. We think they have a pretty sweet deal with the City and should pass the sugar.

We were pleasantly surprised by the renderings for Ruby’s and Paul’s Daughter. The Boardwalk will not after all be rethemed as an orange-and-blue advertisement for Luna Park as previous drawings have suggested. Paul’s Daughters’ rendering for their proposed store shows the spruced up Burger People on the roof and what appears to be new hand-painted signage along the bottom. Stay tuned for our report on the AIA panel and the renderings of the other Boardwalk businesses.

From Zamperla's Slide Show at AIA Panel: An early rendering of 'Phase III: Improving the Coney Island Boardwalk' shows Luna Park's themeing applied to Coney Cones and Paul's Daughter. Photo via Amusingthezillion.com

Ruins of Coney Island’s Beer Island & Ghost of Hey Joey!

Posted in Food & Drink, Redevelopment, tagged Anthony Berlingieri, Beer Island, Bruce Handy, Coney Island, Shoot the Freak, small business on November 6, 2011| 13 Comments »

Coney Island’s Beer Island is no more. The popular bar that sold a wide variety of beer on a sandy beach adjacent to the Boardwalk was trashed yesterday as you can see in the above photo. ATZ called Anthony Berlingieri, the bar’s co-owner, to ask what happened. “I wouldn’t say it’s trashed, it’s scrapped,” he said of the bar. “I told people, take whatever you want.” On Saturday and Sunday treasure hunters were combing through the ruins, picking up signs, plastic trophies and other souvenirs. The bar was one of the Boardwalk businesses evicted from City-owned property that had until November 4th to vacate the premises.

“The last thing I wanted to see was them use that bar that I built with my own hands,” said Berlingieri, who believes that Zamperla USA, the company that leases the City’s property in Coney Island is “looking to copy it and not give me a chance to run it. They would not even sit down to talk with me.”

After hearing the news that fellow evictees Ruby’s Bar and Paul’s Daughter were offered leases when a Miami restaurateur suddenly pulled out of a deal to develop the Boardwalk, Berlingieri phoned to pitch his proposal. But he says Valerio Ferrari, president of Zamperla, replied that it was time for him to move on. “If he would have said it in front of me, you would have read about it in the paper,” says Berlingieri, noting that he and his partner offered to pay for a redo of Beer Island, conforming in every detail to Ferrari’s “vision.” “I told him, just send me the blueprints. We will go partners, 50-50, on the gross. Not a dollar out of your pocket.”

Beer Island was launched in partnership with the owner of Cha Cha’s and a local arcade in 2008 on the site of the miniature golf course evicted by Thor Equities. When ATZ wrote about the bar last month in “Butterflies and Beer Island,” we discovered some reviews on Yelp that entertainingly convey its appeal. More than a decade ago, Berlingieri created another original, Shoot the Freak, which was evicted last year to make way for the new Scream Zone entrance. At the time of last year’s evictions, Zamperla issued a statement saying “We look forward to creating an incredible new experience on the boardwalk, while continuing to honor Coney Island’s magnificent past.”

“We kept Coney Island a place people came to all these years,” says Berlingieri. “The City gave it to a bunch of people who never stepped foot in Coney Island.” He is bitter that Zamperla pays only $100,000 rent and a small percentage of receipts for all of the City property they lease in Coney Island. Each of the Boardwalk businesses has been paying $100,000 per year rent, plus a $10,000 surcharge initiated this year. “Where do we go? It’s like a death sentence,” he says. “It’s not like there’s twenty amusement parks to move to. You’ve heard of the American Dream. It doesn’t apply in New York.”

The current tally is 7 out of the 11 businesses that were Hy Singer’s or Astroland’s and then Thor Equities tenants before the Boardwalk property was bought by the City of New York in 2009 are now goners–closed, moved, put out of business. Four businesses closed and moved out by the deadline of November 4th: Beer Island, Cha Cha’s, Gyro Corner Clam Bar and Coney Island Souvenir Shop. Steve’s Grill House has to move out within ten days. In addition, John’s Deli, which subleased from Steve’s, and Maritza’s Souvenir Shop (formerly in the now-demolished Henderson Building) on the Stillwell side of Cha Cha’s had to move out. Pio Pio Riko did not join the Coney Island 8 in contesting last year’s evictions and its location became the site of Coney Cones. Four Boardwalk businesses were invited back, but lease deals cannot be confirmed: Nathan’s, Lola Star Boutique, Ruby’s Bar and Paul’s Daughter. Some deals are still being negotiated and could go either way, according to the Coney Island Rumor Mill.

Asked if he planned to relocate his two businesses, Berlingieri said Beer Island is over because Zamperla plans to copy it. As for Shoot the Freak, he would reopen it if he could get a lease that wasn’t year to year. “I took two empty lots and turned them into the coolest things in Coney Island –Shoot the Freak and Beer Island. I can’t build it and not see it stay.”

Another casualty of the eviction of the Boardwalk businesses is the L.A. based Gents of Desire’s famed mural “Hey Joey!” A couple of days ago, Hey Joey’s face and plate of clams were scraped off and made into ghost signage by persons unknown. We expect that this sad but apt transformation will make it less painful when the mural is inevitably painted over to make way for the new. Many thanks to photographer Bruce Handy for these photos from his Coney Island Photo Diary.