Abandoned Zip Line on Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island. December 5, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr
The strange saga of the zip line that came to Coney Island last summer and never opened (except for an hour-and-a-half) due to a permitting snafu with the City is about to end. The attraction was supposed to be part of the BK Festival and was set up on Thor Equities Stillwell Avenue lot behind Nathan’s, where it was left standing after the festival closed. Bob Rigsby, Project Manager of Scaffold King Rentals, Inc. of Rockville, Indiana, the company that rented the scaffolding to independent operator CAT 5 Zipline, has come to Coney Island to reclaim it.
“There’s $80,000 worth of metal, if we had to replace it,” Rigsby says of the two towers, which survived Superstorm Sandy just fine. “Right now we’re $60,000 in the hole.”
Scaffold King has hired a local crew to take down the towers starting this morning. It took five months for Rigsby to prove ownership of the scaffolding and get the necessary permits to dismantle it. The actual zip line is from a company in Boston that Scaffold King works with frequently, he says. Rigsby added that they will be installing a zip line elsewhere in New York that will go over the rooftops. We’re jealous. It’s too bad Coney Island never got to see this attraction in action. Based on the astronomical number of hits on ATZ posts updating the status of the Coney Island Zip Line and the emails and comments from people eagerly waiting for it to open, it would have been very popular and could have been a year-round attraction.
In January 2012, Scaffold King erected the launch and landing towers for the first-ever Super Bowl zip line, which was the single-longest temporary one ever constructed. Here’s a video of the 800-foot zip line at Super Bowl XLVI Village along Capitol Street in downtown Indianapolis.
UPDATE May 5, 2013
Tangled Up in Red Tape Department: First the zip line couldn’t open because of City permitting issues, now it’s stuck here because of permitting issues. The dismantling of the zip wires got underway as scheduled on Monday, but before the scaffolding could be taken down, work was stopped due to the wording on the permit. “The I’s have to be dotted and the T’s have to be crossed,” Rigsby said before he went home to Indiana without his company’s zip line, leaving Thor Equities to work out the details of the permit to take it down this week. (It was finally dismantled and trucked away.)
Still wanna zip line in New York City? Last year, a 160-foot portable zip line was added to the Summer Streets Program, run by the City’s DOT. Locations included Union Square and Foley Square in Manhattan. The annual event is on three consecutive Saturdays in the summer. The zip line was offered free of charge and was very popular. Will it be back this year?
Related posts on ATZ…
August 19, 2012: BK Festival Vendors Back in Business, Coney Zipline Isn’t
August 10, 2012: Steeplechase Plaza Under Construction in Coney Island
August 5, 2012: Coney Island Zip Line Still Under Construction
June 28, 2012: Zip Line Coming to Coney Island’s Stillwell Avenue in July
Amusing the Zillion 