Amusing the Zillion

Traveler: North American Midway’s Giant Vertical Swing at Super Bowl!

February 2, 2010 by Tricia

If you’re in Miami on Super Bowl Sunday, go for a post-game spin on North American Midway Entertainment’s Giant Vertical Swing. You can’t miss it—the Zamperla swing is 100 feet tall and illuminated in red, white and blue!

We learned about the thrill ride’s Super Bowl XLIV gig via an email from Amber Swedgan, NAME’s Director of Media and Communications…

Just when you thought your fantasy football season was over, ours at North American Midway is just getting started. NAME will kick-off our Twenty Ten season featuring the Zamperla “Swing Tower” at the NFL Pro Bowl at Landshark Stadium in Miami, FL on January 31st and at the XLIV Super Bowl on February 7th, 2010.

After Super Bowl we will head to Cajun Field for Le Festival de Mardi Gras in Lafayette, LA. North American Midway and Le Festival de Mardi Gras re-signed a new multi-year partnership. Mardi Gras features the best in local, regional and national live music, talents, food and parades. See you at Mardi Gras, February 12-16th.

Last year North American Midway Entertainment once again made the CarnivalWarehouse.com list of carnivals playing North America’s Top 50 fairs. NAME topped the list at #1 with attendance of 8,161,095 at ten top 50 events: CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), Calgary Stampede, Big E (Eastern States Exposition), Indiana State Fair, Illinois State Fair, Edmonton’s Capital EX, Miami Dade County Fair, Mississippi State Fair, Kentucky State Fair and South Carolina State Fair.

The Zamperla manufactured Vertical Swing is of course on ATZ’s radar because it’s one of the thrill rides that Zamperla will bring to their new Luna Park set to open in Coney Island on Memorial Day Weekend 2010. See you in the sky!

Thor’s Coney Island: Freak Museum to Lease Coney’s Oldest Building

January 31, 2010 by Tricia

Thor Equities Shuttered Grashorn Bldg, Surf Ave & Jones Walk, Coney Island, August 15, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

ATZ has learned that sideshow operator John Strong has made a deal with Thor Equities to return to Coney Island for the 2010 season. In lieu of last year’s location in the former Astroland arcade, which was sold to the City, Strong’s freak museum will occupy Thor Equities’ owned 1104 Surf Ave at Jones Walk. Known as the Grashorn Building after Henry Grashorn’s Hardware store, which was in business in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the building is Coney Island’s oldest. The Texas-based showman flew into New York last week for a meeting with Thor Equities.

The building fronts Surf Avenue and extends along the west side of Jones Walk. Yet this prime location remained vacant and devoid of activity in 2009 (see photo above) due to Thor CEO Joe Sitt’s soaring rents. Last summer, a business owner who had leased a small stand on the Walk from Thor in 2008 told us the 2009 rent had tripled from $8,000 to $24,000. He declined the space and left Coney Island.

John Strong was mum on the cost of his lease for the Grashorn but is said to be happy with the deal. His museum of live and preserved freaks and oddities will occupy a prime location between Zamperla’s new Luna Park on the former Astroland site and Coney Island USA’s Sideshow and Museum at Surf Ave and 12th Street. The extra added attraction for Strong and company is the apartment on the upper floors.

Grashorn Building, April 19, 2003. Municipal Art Society via flickr

As ATZ reported in “John Strong Sideshow Aims for Coney Island Comeback” (Jan 13, 2010), Strong also proposes putting his ten-in-one sideshow as well as a circus on Thor’s Stillwell property. But several carnivals and amusement operators, including the also rans for the City’s RFP, are vying to lease what remains of Thor’s lots on Stillwell. A decision is expected by mid-February.

In Coney Island: Lost and Found, historian Charles Denson writes that the building at 1104 Surf dates back to the 1880’s and the Grashorn hardware store served Coney Island’s amusement businesses for more than 60 years: “The clapboard façade, dormers, cast iron resting, chimneys and fish-scale shingles were removed when the building was renovated in the 1980s but the mansard roof retains its shape.”

Grashorn Building in 1969. Photo © Charles Denson via Coney Island History Project

The Grashorn is one of six historic structures proposed for city landmark designation by Coney Island USA, the Municipal Art Society and Save Coney Island. In 2004, Coney Island USA received a grant from the JM Kaplan Fund to hire an architectural historian and research old buildings in Coney Island. The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has delayed calendaring the buildings during the rezoning process.

MAS’s Melissa Baldock makes a plea for the Grashorn Building’s landmark designation: “The building could be restored to be a wonderful showpiece of Coney Island’s historic vernacular architecture. It is remarkable that this building, which predates Coney Island’s first enclosed amusement parks and was built around the same time as Coney Island (and America’s) first roller coaster, survives in 2009. However, without landmark status, there is no guarantee that this piece of Coney Island history will be part of its future.”

UPDATE April 29, 2010:

John Strong’s deal to rent the Grashorn is off! We’re sorry that rumors of Joe Sitt’s plans to demolish historic buildings which we reported in last week’s post “Thor’s Coney Island: Tattered Tents, Deathwatch for Historic Buildings” (ATZ, April 21, 2010) have turned out to be true. This is one time we would have preferred for the rumors to have remained just rumors.

Today, in response to a flurry of queries from reporters about Sitt’s still unleased empty lots and vacant properties, Thor Equities pr flack Knickerbocker SKD issued a press release announcing Sitt’s intention to begin demolishing the buildings and to replace them with other structures by May 2011. According to the release, “These structures will be replaced with more attractive, retail-friendly and up-to-code shops for the type of retailers Coney is famous for.” See “Thor’s Coney Island: Joey “Bulldozer” Sitt Is Baaack Playing Games!” (ATZ. April 29, 2010)

Translation: More Bull-Sitt from Thor Equities. More deliberately created empty lots.

Photo of the Day: Coney Island in Greenwich Village

January 30, 2010 by Tricia

Window to Coney Island. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

ATZ spotted these classic images of the Astroland Rocket atop Gregory & Paul’s roof and the Cyclone roller coaster in a shop window on Sixth Avenue at 12th in Greenwich Village. As we framed our shot, a couple walked by and the man sang out “Astroland!” We sang back: “Coney Island opens for the season on March 28th!” The gallery owner says he sells five or six of the canvas prints per month. The original photos are by Erin Clark.