Photo Album | Amusing the Zillion

Archive for the ‘Photo Album’ Category

Photo Album: Coney Island Reliefs by Deborah Masters

Posted in art, Photo Album, Photography, tagged Arts for Transit, Bruce Handy, Coney Island, Deborah Masters, MTA, Ocean Parkway, relief sculpture on April 29, 2011| 1 Comment »

Deborah Masters' Coney Island Reliefs on Ocean Parkway Viaduct. October 2, 2009. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

See Queen Mermaid, sideshow performers, sunbathers and Cyclone riders in cast concrete on the gateway to Coney Island! On Saturday, April 30th, MTA Arts for Transit is hosting an event from 2 to 5 pm to celebrate the completion of Deborah Masters’ Coney Island Reliefs at Ocean Parkway Viaduct. The station is on the Q line at Ocean Parkway and Brighton Beach Avenue. Masters was awarded the commission in 1992 and the piece was completed in 1994, but the viaduct needed repair before the concrete panels could be hung on its facade. The reliefs were in storage for 15 years!

Coney Island photographer Bruce Handy’s series of photos of the Ocean Parkway sculptures were taken when the installation began in 2009. “They look much nicer now with painted borders and the screw holes filled in,” says Bruce who plans to take a new series of photos this weekend.

UPDATE April 30…Here’s a link to Bruce Handy’s flickr slide show of the finished installation. Just beautiful!

Deborah Masters' Coney Island Reliefs on Ocean Parkway Viaduct. September 25, 2009. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

According to the MTA’s Arts for Transit page on the work…

Sculptor Deborah Masters created the Coney Island Reliefs in cast concrete. The 1260 sq. ft. of relief panels fit within existing recesses in the viaduct. Tinted a terracotta color to harmonize with the sandstone color of the Ocean Parkway viaduct, a massive structure that carries the subway across six lanes of traffic and an Olmstead parkway, the reliefs portray scenes from the history and legends of Coney Island, including Neptune, a mermaid, beach, boardwalk, and amusement park scenes. The designs are based upon photographs, drawings, and interviews by the artist with local residents and visitors to the famed amusement park.

Deborah Masters' Coney Island Reliefs on Ocean Parkway Viaduct. October 2, 2009. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

The original commission was for the inside of the subway station, but when the artist looked at the Viaduct surface, she noticed indentations she felt sure were intended for reliefs. She felt that the Olmsted Parkway, the widest old road to the beach, and the Art Deco Viaduct decorated with red, green, blue, yellow, and orange deco tiles from 1915 was intended by Frederick Law Olmsted, the founder of landscape architecture, to be the “Gateway to Coney Island”. She proposed adding 1650 sq. ft. of reliefs about Coney Island to the viaduct.

Deborah Masters' Coney Island Reliefs on Ocean Parkway Viaduct. October 2, 2009. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Target the Coney Island Arcade Cat & His Friend Pretty

Posted in Animals, Photo Album, tagged cat, Coney Island, Coney Island Arcade, Photography, Target the Cat on February 21, 2011| 6 Comments »

Target the Cat, Coney Island. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Last week ATZ dropped by to visit Coney Island Arcade & Game operator Manny Cohen and his world-famous cat. Even during the off-season, Target the Coney Island Cat can be seen making his rounds on the Bowery. We found him sitting on the hood of Manny’s car.

Pretty and Target, Coney Island Arcade Cats. February 11, 2011. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Last May, Target’s shy sister Targette aka Targeretty died in the terrible fire that destroyed the Coney Island Arcade. For weeks, Target kept searching for her in the ruins of the building and crying. A few months ago, Manny took in another cat to keep Target company. Pretty is a calico who roamed the amusement area. She’s not shy like Targette, but she is skittish. No one has been able to pet her yet, though we’re going to keep trying. In these photos, Pretty reminds us of our calicos Lola and Nadja, who are in cat heaven.

Pretty the Cat, Coney Island. February 11, 2011. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

When the games are open for business, the gregarious Target is most likely to be found sitting on the counter of the Balloon Dart helping out Jimmy. Over the past couple of years, we’ve taken enough pix of our favorite Coney Island cat to make a flickr set called Target the World Famous Coney Island Arcade Cat. His photo has also been featured in a New York Times slide show about Coney Island and magazines all over the world.

Target the Coney Island Cat. February 11, 2011. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Photo Album: Joe Sitt’s Bulldozer Crushes Henderson Building

Posted in Demolition, Photo Album, tagged Coney Island Redevelopment, Eric Kowalsky, Henderson Music Hall, Joe Sitt, Thor Equities on January 6, 2011| 13 Comments »

Coney Island photographer Eric Kowalsky, who documented the demolition of the Bank of Coney Island in November, has eloquently captured the destruction-in-progress of the historic Henderson Music Hall in this series of images.

Eric put his camera through the gate on Henderson Walk to take the above photo of the crushed remains of part of the Henderson Building formerly occupied by Faber’s Fascination. “They took the front and side of the building down. The Bowery is still standing,” he said this morning.

Last week we posted historian Charles Denson’s video tribute to the Henderson Theater. As we previously noted, the City aided and abetted Joey “Bulldozer” Sitt by rezoning the Henderson parcel for a high rise hotel. There are however no immediate plans to build a hotel on the site. The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission denied landmark designation and also declined to create a historic district, which would have created tax incentives to rehab the building.

The Henderson Building is the first sight you see on Surf Avenue when you step out of Stillwell Terminal. It is at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues. We should probably use the past tense, though the demolition is still underway. The first sight you see when you step out of Stillwell will soon be another empty lot to add to Joe Sitt’s collection of empty lots.