Brooklyn | Amusing the Zillion

Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn’

Will MTA Ever Fix Burned out “E” in Coney Island Sign at Stillwell?

Posted in Coney Island, Photo of the Day, tagged Brooklyn, maintenance, MTA, MTA Chairman Jay Walder, Stillwell Terminal, subway station on March 12, 2010| 3 Comments »

CONEY ISLAND is CON_Y ISLAND! Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

CONEY ISLAND is CON_Y ISLAND! March 11, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

How many MTA employees does it take to change a light bulb? How many months or years does it take them to get the job done? Or did alphabet lights get slashed from the MTA’s budget?

Last night we took this photo of the entrance to the MTA’s Stillwell Terminal, the largest above-ground subway station in the world and the gateway to Coney Island. It would be a postcard perfect shot except for the fact that the “E” in CONEY ISLAND is burned out and has been burned out since last summer. We con you not: the photo below of CON_Y ISLAND was taken in July 2009.

When we phoned the MTA’s customer service line in June, the rep dutifully took down the info. But he just didn’t get it: “You can still read it,” he said of the burned out “E.” Personally we think it ruins an iconic photo op. We called up a friend who has a job at the MTA and asked him to pass the word along to the correct department. He wouldn’t and couldn’t. Told us it was against protocol.

Dear MTA Chairman Jay Walder, please send a crew over to fix the “E” and replace the other burned out bulbs asap before Coney Island’s opening day! That will be March 28th, just 16 days away. And while they’re here, get them to straighten out the “L” in ISLAND, which looks like somebody gave it a whack. Millions of visitors will arrive and depart via Stillwell Station this year. We want the new Coney Island to put her best face forward. Burned out lights say who the hell cares.

UPDATE March 17, 2010:

Yesterday we received a message that the “E” in CONEY had finally been fixed and was two-third’s lit! And the crooked “L” in ISLAND had been straightened out, too! Yay and hooray! We’re almost tempted to say the repair of the Stillwell Terminal’s signature sign after months of neglect presages the rebirth of Coney Island. See “Photo of the Day: The “E” is Relit in Coney Island Sign at Stillwell”

Welcome to Con-y island! All Aboard! Coney Island, NY. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Welcome to Con-y island! All Aboard! Coney Island, NY. July 25, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

In Memory of Bob Guskind: Journalist, Blogger, Brooklyn’s Blogfather

Posted in Blogging, Blogs, In Memoriam, tagged Blogfather, Blogger, Bob Guskind, Brooklyn, Gowanus Lounge, In Memoriam, Journalist, Source of Inspiration on March 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Today marks the one year anniversary of the death of Brooklyn journalist and blogger Bob Guskind. His influential Gowanus Lounge blog inspired and nurtured many fledgling bloggers, hence his honorary title “Brooklyn’s Blogfather” in a borough that has been called the bloggiest place on earth.

As a foreign student in Japan, we learned the Japanese custom of honoring and celebrating a loved one on the first anniversary of death. In lieu of placing items on a household altar, we offer our thoughts and a video produced by Steve Duke of Blue Barn Pictures

We were a devoted reader of Gowanus Lounge and a regular tipster since we work in Coney Island. Before March 4, 2009, ATZ wasn’t even a glimmer in our mind. Bob’s death left a void in coverage of Coney and other Brooklyn neighborhoods. As we wrote at the time….

Coney Island is in desperate straits. No one cares as much or could give it as much in depth coverage as Bob did. Yesterday I watched an old vid of Bob on Brian Lehrer in which he said “I started Gowanus Lounge a few years ago because mainstream media had pretty much abrogated its responsibility to Brooklyn.” That’s pretty much how I feel as a former journo and why I admired Bob and his work.

In regard to Coney, I’m sad and afraid that many of the large and small stories that Bob would have covered will go unreported this season. The fact that he was an experienced journalist with his own blog, doing 10 or more posts a day, plus another 10 or so in his paying gig for the real estate blog curbed, and the fact that he cared so much, all came together to make it possible.

The NY Times City Room blog regularly linked to his stories instead of covering what was happening in Coney Island and other Brooklyn nabes. Bob broke many Coney news stories—too numerous to list here!– that were consistently “picked up” (often without credit) by New York’s daily newspapers and TV news. Bob’s work made a huge difference in our lives and he will be missed more than I can say.

Bob’s passionate coverage of all things Coney and the void left by his death inspired the launch of ATZ in April 2009. We dedicated our first news-breaking post to Gowanus Lounge, saying if Bob were still here, he would undoubtedly be covering this story and we would be at the beach.

When a juicy rumor comes our way, we always think “Omigod, Bob would have loved this one!” We like to think he will be smiling down on Coney Island this summer when the former Astroland site, whose last days he chronicled on AstroMania Monday (Feb. 2, 2009), will be reborn as the new Luna Park.

Yet Joe Sitt’s desecration of his Coney Island properties continues unabated. What would Bob have to say about it? Yesterday’s ATZ post about Thor Equities’ Coney Island led off with a link to a Gowanus Lounge post from May 2007 decrying “the Sitt-created blight along Stillwell Avenue.” It’s shocking that one could take any graf from Bob Guskind’s May 25, 2007 blog post and use it today because Joe Sitt is still “sitting” on what’s left of his empty lots waiting for his next $100 million payday!

Rest in peace, Bob Guskind. Journalist, Blogger, Brooklyn’s Blogfather. Coney Island misses you and your work continues to be a source of inspiration.

Note to readers: The archives of Bob Guskind’s Gowanus Lounge can be found at http://www.bobguskind.com/ and http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/

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Made in Brooklyn: The World’s Only Jet-Powered Merry-Go-Round

Posted in Amusement ride, art, tagged Brooklyn, Hackett, homemade carousel, Jet Ponies, jet-powered ride, Madagascar Institute, Made in Brooklyn, pulse jet engine on February 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In the early 20th century, Brooklyn was home to master carousel builders and carvers Charles Looff on Bedford Avenue, MC Illions and Sons Carousell Works on Ocean Parkway, and Stein & Goldstein and William F Mangels in Coney Island. Alas, the golden age of the carousel ended in the 1920s. It was news to us that anyone was building carnival rides in Brooklyn in the 21st century, much less a jet-powered merry-go-round! We first learned about “Jet Ponies” this week when Hackett, the founder of the Gowanus-based Madagascar Institute and the ride’s inventor, gave a talk at Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg. If you missed “FIRE IT UP: The Secrets of Backyard Jet Propulsion w/Hackett,” take a look at these vids…

Here’s the homemade carousel in its fiery glory at a 3 am test run in September 2009. The vid was shot in the backyard of a crew member.

The jet-powered merry-go-round had its inaugural spin with human riders the very next day at Gadgetoff 2009, a festival at Snug Harbor in Staten Island. A representative from Popular Mechanics volunteered to be one of the first riders. The ride operators use a leaf blower and a blowtorch to ignite the pulse-jet engines. BOOM! One YouTube commenter says, “You guys are frigging nuts. You used two ‘pulse-jets’ to make a merry-go-round. You get two thumbs up just for not killing yourselves.” But another commenter says, “This demonstrates what we can do when we put our minds and our scavenging abilities to work. What a great ride. When will it show up in the traveling carnivals? I know my kids will clamor for a ride or three.”

Hackett is an expert on valveless pulse-jet engines who has built a jet-powered bike, a jet-powered fish and is working on a jet pack. In an interview with The Faster Times, he says…

The motive power behind the Jet Ponies are pulse jet engines (more specifically: Valveless pulse jet engines, more more specifically: Hiller- Lockwood patent Valveless Pulse Jets). We did not invent them- the concept has been around for maybe a hundred years. They heyday of pulse jets was in the 1940s, when they provided the thrust that threw V1 rockets up from Holland, into gravity’s rainbow, and down onto England….

I do not know of any jet-powered carnival rides that were not built by us, and I feel that if they did exist, I would have heard about it. My hope is that some smartass punk nerd kids somewhere see the video on YouTube and say to themselves “I can do better than that,” and then do.

“Jet Ponies” is an art project of the Madagascar Institute, an “art combine” who create large-scale sculptures and rides, live performances, and guerilla art events. The carousel’s most recent appearance was at 2009 NYC Burning Man Decompression at Aviator Sports/Floyd Bennett Field. Any chance Jet Ponies will show up in Coney Island? As soon as we hear back from Hackett, we’ll let you know.