Historian Charles Denson, author of Coney Island: Lost and Found, shot this video of the Faber’s Fascination sign on September 9th and 10th. An employee of the arcade lit up the Faber’s sign one last time before all of the letters were removed from the facade. As ATZ reported last week, the arcade, which has been in the Henderson Building since the 1930s, closed on Labor Day 2010.
Denson says in the video’s intro: “The iconic sign was the last remaining example of Coney’s bare bulb Electric Eden illumination that began with Luna Park in 1903. It is also the latest victim of predatory real-estate developer Thor Equities’ self-described summer of demolition, spurred on by the City’s rezoning of the site for a 30-story high-rise hotel that will most likely never be built. These images are from the sign’s last night of illumination.”
In “Four Coney Buildings to Fall,” Friday’s Story of the Day on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website, Denson cited the new Luna Park and the rehab of the Parachute Jump as the kind of direction we should keep going in. “Coney Island is really down to a handful of what you could call ‘landmark’ buildings,” Denson said in the article. “It would be good if Thor Equities would at least save one of them.”
Related posts on ATZ…
September 9, 2010: Thor’s Coney Island: Faber’s Fascination Goes Dark After 50 Years
April 29, 2010: Photo of the Day: Interior of Coney Island’s Doomed Henderson Music Hall
April 21, 2010: Thor’s Coney Island: Tattered Tents, Deathwatch for Historic Buildings
March 3, 2010: Thor’s Coney Island: What Stillwell Looked Like Before Joe Sitt
Amusing the Zillion 