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“Last Summer at Coney Island” Airs on PBS, DVD Offers Epilogue

Posted in film, Redevelopment, video, tagged Coney Island, JL Aronson, Last Summer at Coney Island on May 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

A 60-minute cut of JL Aronson’s documentary “Last Summer at Coney Island” will air on public television starting May 15 at 10 pm and May 16 at 2:30 am on WNET Channel 13. We recommend watching it and then buying the DVD with the full 90-minute version and a host of extras, including “Since Last Summer,” in which the film-maker narrates a candid update. “The City bought the land from Thor that they could have purchased at the start for less money, but then they would have been the ones to evict old timers who had been in Coney Island for decades,” he says.

When “Last Summer at Coney Island” premiered in August at BAM, the audience got teary eyed during the scene in which Astroland’s lights were extinguished, ride by ride, for the final time, and the illuminated Astrotower made its last descent. Many of us had attended the amusement park’s closing ceremony on September 7, 2008 after rallying unsuccessfully for one more year.

The next summer felt like another last summer for Coney Island. Real estate speculator Joe Sitt held Coney Island hostage as the City’s rezoning plan, which would approve high rise hotels on Sitt’s land on the south side of Surf Avenue, moved inexorably toward approval.

“Last Summer at Coney Island” chronicles Coney Island’s redevelopment hoopla with riveting scenes featuring Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt and Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert, as well as historian Charles Denson, Lola Star Boutique owner Dianna Carlin, City Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr, and then-CIDC president Lynn Kelly, among others. Aronson’s film ends with the City Council passing the rezoning in July 2009.

“The rezoning plan quickly became a sideshow itself, if not the main attraction,” says Aronson in the epilogue. “After shooting for a couple of years, I had to conclude the story at some point, and at a point that made sense, without waiting to see what might inevitably get built. If past lessons of Coney Island development tell us anything, it is that this process can take a very, very long time.”

Other extras on the DVD include an “Easter egg” with Coney’s “Unelected Mayor” Dick D Zigun. We found the hidden feature –it’s Zigun’s fiery speech at a hearing on the rezoning at which he resigned as a Director of the Coney Island Development Corporation in protest of “a deeply flawed plan.”

“Astroland” has interviews with longtime employees of the park, who consider themselves brothers and sisters, while “The Cyclone” focuses on Gerry Menditto, the now-retired manager of the landmark roller coaster. “The Friendly Butcher of Mermaid Avenue” is Jimmy Prince, who retired in 2009 after 60 years at a meat market beloved by the neighborhood. “The Ward family” features Jack Ward, who passed away last year, and whose family was the oldest property owner in Coney Island before selling their parcel to the City.

In fact so much has changed since “Last Summer at Coney Island,” about the only places in the film that look the same are the Thor-owned Grashorn building with its perpetual “for lease” sign and the landmark Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and Parachute Jump. Since Luna Park opened last summer followed by Scream Zone this spring, it feels like the beginning of a new Coney Island, though the future depicted in the City’s renderings, with hotel towers on Surf Avenue and glittering high rise condos to the west and north of MCU Park, is still a long ways off.

The hour-long cut of “Last Summer at Coney island” is scheduled to air on the following PBS stations:
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Sunday, May 15 – 10pm
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Monday, May 16 – 2:30am
NJN – New Jersey Public Television – Tuesday, June 21 – 10pm
WLIW/21 – New York – Tuesday, June 28 – 10pm
KQED – San Francisco – Saturday, July 23 – 6pm
KQED – San Francisco – Tuesday, July 26 – 11pm
More stations to be announced.

Thor Equities Touts Coney Island as “RETAIL RIDE of a LIFETIME”

Posted in Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged BK Festival, Coney Island, flea market, Joe Sitt, Retail, Thor Equities on May 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

Thor Equities New Signage at Corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island. April 30, 2011. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via Amusing the Zillion

On Friday, Thor Equities put up new signage atop the blue construction fence at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues, the gateway to Coney Island’s beach and Boardwalk: “CONEY ISLAND – The RETAIL RIDE of a LIFETIME – for leasing contact…”

Ain’t it just like Joe Sitt to tout retail when Coney Island, the birthplace of the amusement industry, is expecting its best season yet because of the success of Luna Park on land purchased by the City from Thor? The new slogan is a slap in the face to Zamperla’s Scream Zone, which has four real rides of a lifetime just down the block, including the eye-popping Sling Shot and Coney Island’s first new major roller coasters in nearly 40 years.

New rides –and not retail–on Stillwell are cause for celebration because this is where the now legendary Tornado (1927-1977) and Bobsled (1941-1974) Roller Coasters once thrilled and where Norman Kaufman’s Batting Range and Go Kart City amused the zillion until Joe Sitt bought the property in 2006 and emptied out the amusements.

Thor Equities New Signs Atop Street Artists Mural at Corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island. April 30, 2011. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via Amusing the Zillion

Surf and Stillwell is also the gateway to Joe Sitt’s successor to 2009’s failed Flea by the Sea. This year’s BK Festival, originally billed as “NYC Largest Flea Market with a Festival Style [sic]” has dropped the phrase flea market from its marketing material. Set to open ~~this month~~ next weekend, the festival is now being advertised as “like a state fair for the whole family with attractions to include inflatable world, concerts, shopping experience, pony rides and petting zoos, and much much more.” And with good reason, a flea market is illegal in Coney’s amusement zone, though in the past the City has failed to enforce its own zoning.

In response to ATZ’s query about the zoning, Purnima Kapur, Brooklyn City Planning Director, wrote in an email: “The C7 zoning district in Coney Island does not permit Flea Markets as a permitted use; however small scale retail and restaurants are permitted in addition to amusements.”

According to the zoning documents, retail uses are complementary to amusement uses and beach activities, and these uses are limited in size and frontage.

Coney Island Illustrative Development Plan, Department of City Planning

We’re not convinced small scale retail is the Coney Island ride of a lifetime that Joe Sitt has in mind. At his Flea by the Sea in 2009, stands selling clothing and shoes were a reminder that Thor’s pitch book unsuccessfully used to lobby BP Markowitz for 10,000 square foot retail touted flagship retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap/Banana Republic, and DSW (“Thousands of shoes…prices you love”).

We believed then as we believe now that the flea market or “shopping experience” is part of a strategy to win a variance for 10,000 square foot retail from the City’s Board of Standards and Appeals in a future administration. In Coney Island, Joe Sitt is just as infamous for “sitting” on property as he is for flipping it.

Thor’s empty lot at Surf and Stillwell is the site of the former Henderson Music Hall, one of three historic buildings which Thor CEO Joe Sitt ordered to be demolished last year. The Henderson site was rezoned for a high-rise hotel in July 2009.

Flickr Slide Show: DNALSI YENOC –> CONEY ISLAND

Posted in Photography, Redevelopment, tagged Amy Dreher, Barry Yanowitz, Bruce Handy, Coney Island, DNALSI YENOC, flickr group, Joe Sitt, Lindsay Wengler on April 12, 2011| 2 Comments »

DNALSI YENOC is CONEY ISLAND spelled backwards. The letters frame the view as visitors exit Stillwell Terminal onto Surf Avenue. “After seeing two of my flickr contacts take amazing shots of this within a week, and having taken a photo of it myself, a flickr group was inevitable,” writes photographer Barry Yanowitz, who started the group almost a year ago. Contributors include Coney Island photographers Bruce Handy, Amy Dreher, Lindsay Wengler, agent j loves agent a, and me-myself-i.

In recent months, the favorite view of this flickr group has changed irrevocably due to Thor Equities demolition of the century-old Henderson Building and the Shore Hotel. As I commented on Lindsay Wengler’s latest photo in the pool: The emptiness where Henderson used to be is hard to look at, but I also dread whatever Thor will put there next.

Buried in today’s NY1 interview with Joe Sitt about the Aqueduct flea market that he’s bringing to his lots on Stillwell Avenue was one sentence about his newest empty lot: “This week he will give the site a new start, laying in foundation for a one-story building to use as an indoor amusement and retail space next summer.” Next summer? What about now? No reason was given for the long delay in construction.

As we wrote last week in “Thor’s Coney Island: Building Plans ‘Disapproved’ by DOB” (March 31, 2011), Sitt has yet to break ground because the DOB “DISAPPROVED” the building plans as many as 16 times over the past six months. Sitt also says in the interview that his dream is to build a hotel, but it will take seven years to put in the electricity and the utilities and the infrastructure that’s needed. Sounds like another excuse by the real estate speculator to keep the lot empty. Zamperla managed to build the new Luna Park in just 100 days.

Enjoy the view, both present and past. Here is one of my favorites by photographer Amy Dreher. The Fascination sign, which greeted visitors year round for over 50 years went dark and will never be seen again, except in photos and videos.