Coney Island Redevelopment | Amusing the Zillion

Posts Tagged ‘Coney Island Redevelopment’

Save Coney Island Holds Strategy Meeting Tonight, Launches New Website!

Posted in Coney Island, tagged Coney Island, Coney Island Redevelopment, Save Coney Island on May 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

On the eve of an “It’s Now or Never!” meeting to strategize ways to convince the City Council to oppose the City’s rezoning plan or to convince the City to change it, Save Coney Island has launched a new website. The group’s new url is www.saveconeyisland.net. Bookmark it!

The first blog entry on May 17 says:

Save Coney Island will be holding an organizational meeting to plan our final strategy and decide the events for the summer. We need to turn this into the city-wide issue it deserves to be!

This is our last chance!

Please attend this meeting:

WHEN: Tuesday May 19th at 7PM
LOCATION: Downtown Brooklyn at FUREE Headquarters
ADDRESS: 81 Willoughby Street, Ste. 701 (7th Floor)

We’ll fill you in on the background to the fight to save Coney Island, and help you get involved.

Want to get involved but can’t make the meeting?

E-mail us at Info@SaveConeyIsland.net and introduce yourself. Let us know if you have any special skills, connections or ideas that might be help us Save Coney Island!

The new website’s “Fix the Plan” page urges the city to expand the acreage allotted to outdoor amusements, keep high-rise towers out of Coney East, and provide safeguards against the displacement of small businesses and local entrepreneurs by chain operations.

Another page features comments on the city’s current plan from the New York Times editorial board, The Municipal Art Society, Dick Zigun of Coney Island USA, Charles Denson of the Coney Island History Project, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, among others.

The New York Times editorial board on the current plan: “This zoning proposal would allow a row of four hotels between the Stillwell Avenue subway stop and the outdoor entertainment area. The hotels could too easily become a wall, blocking public access to the sideshows and the rides, the boardwalk and the ocean. The hotels also squeeze the outdoor rides into a narrow strip of about 12 acres — an area that is simply too small to attract enough rides and attractions to bring back the big crowds.”

Save Coney Island’s redesigned website also features a discussion board, but the site is so new there aren’t any posts yet. Yours could be the first one!

Save Coney Island was founded by Lola Staar boutique owner Dianna Carlin in 2007 with a rally on the steps of City Hall and a MySpace page . Since then the grassroots group has grown to over 4,000 members and captured media attention with rallies at last May’s Opening of the Beach and New Year’s Day 2009 on the Beach and Boardwalk.

Save Coney Island! On The March, Jan 1, 2009 Save Coney Island Rally/Polar Bear Swim. Photo by Michael O’Neil

photo via revbilly, flickr

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No C of O for Thor Equities Tents, Coney Flea Fest Postponed!

Posted in Coney Island, Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, Coney Island Redevelopment, Festival by the Sea, flea market, Joe Sitt, Thor Equities on May 17, 2009| 2 Comments »

On Friday afternoon I swung by Thor Equities’ Festival by the Sea site on Stillwell (Sittland West) to see what was going on. Not much.

Tourists stand in sunshine and snap photos of Thor's Coney Festival by the Sea Closed Due to Threat of Bad Weather Sign

Tourists stand in sunshine and snap photos of Thor's Festival by the Sea "Closed Due to Threat of Bad Weather" Sign

photo by Tricia Vita via me-myself-i, flickr

The Brooklyn Paper reported on Thursday that Joe Sitt’s flea market set to open on May 15 had suffered a setback. Instead of an indoor market, vendors would be “exposed to the elements due to a tent mishap.” But when I walked by there looking for a photo op, nothing was going on. There were no vendors. Instead I took pix of tourists taking pix of Thor’s vacant festival lot.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Coney Island Rumor Mill had been sayin’ since last week that Thor Equities would postpone the much publicized grand opening of their Dreamland park, or is it their Festival, oh well whatever it is…for a week or two because the rides aren’t arriving in Dreamland and the Festival tents are the wrong tents and they have to be taken down!

Anon VIP Invite, including styrofoam straw hat, sits forlornly on chair, unused....Thor Equities Festival by the Sea Opening on May 15 and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on May 17... POSTPONED!

photo by Tricia Vita via me-myself-i, flickr

When I went to the DOB website and clicked on the C of O Summary tab for Sitt’s permit for his “temporary fair,” it said in big red letters THIS JOB HAS NO C OF O APPLICATION ON FILE. A new building cannot be legally occupied until a Certificate of Occupancy has been issued.

On Thursday workers removed the brightly striped roof and sidewalls leaving the structures open to the air. On Friday, Sitt employees wearing “Festival by the Sea” hats & T shirts were on site answering questions from visitors and potential vendors.

When I asked the employees what happened and when the festival would open I was told the following: The Festival by the Sea opening is postponed till next weekend (May 22) when it will be an open air flea market. Weather permitting, of course. The tenting material would not be replaced till the following weekend, May 29th, because the roof structure needed to be reinforced. A festival employee mentioned the collapse of the Dallas Cowboys practice tent in heavy winds earlier this month as a reason for the reinforcement.

According to the Rumor Mill, the DOB is requiring that the festival tents be able to withstand hurricane force winds. It’s a good thing too, if you look at the vid of the collapsed Dallas tent. Or if you look at some of the photos taken over the months of Thor’s collapsed construction fences.

Collapsed construction fences afford a view of Thor Equities vacant Stillwell property in Coney Island, New Years Day, 2009. This is the site where the festival tents are set up.

photo by Tricia Vita via me-myself-i, flickr

It’s important to note that Thor Equities’ Festival by the Sea is not just a summer flea market. The festival website says they plan to be open through Christmas. The permit is valid till January, so the tents will be subject to windy, stormy, snowy weather. I don’t know if the city’s DOB revised the regulations for tents after the Dallas Cowboys tent accident or if the rules were already in place, but the Dallas tent collapse is the subject of a federal investigation.

The Coney Island Rumor Mill has also been speculating about the validity of the permit for a flea market disguised as a “temporary fair” in the C-7 amusement zone. It is distressing to see gi-normous enclosed structures for retail booths set up where amusements rightfully belong. The batting range, go karts, bumper boats, mini-golf and other popular amusement attractions thrived here before Joe Sitt bought the property and evicted them to deliberately create his empty lots.

My guess is the “Festival by the Sea marketplace” is an incubator project for Thor Equities proposed 10,000 square foot retail spaces in a rezoned Coney Island. Fortunately the City as well as Borough President Marty Markowitz said NO to big box style retail in Coney, yes to Mom & Pops in Coney. Now it’s up to City Planning and the City Council, which will hold a public hearing on the Coney Island rezoning this summer.

Thor Equities tent structure under construction. Shoot the Freak is visible at the far end along with the sign for the batting range which occupied the site along with other amusements until evicted by property owner Joe Sitt.

photo via me-myself-i, flickr

How did Sitt obtain the permit to make a flea market in the C-7? I’m guessing it’s some kind of loophole based on the fact that he says there will be some entertainment. Sitt’s agents advertised for variety acts and bands on craigslist. Thor Equities calls it a festival and brings in strolling entertainers as an amusement because their original application for a flea market was disapproved. If you look at the subway sign for the “festival” you’ll even see the phrase “uniquely entertaining and amusing” and a cartoon of a fire eater and a snake charmer. Oh, and there’s also a vendor selling lamps!

Some of Friday’s tourists weren’t sure what there was to do in Coney Island since they’d come here for the postponed Festival by The Sea. I told them there’s plenty to do! I sent them over to ride the Eldorado bumper cars, the Cyclone and McCullough’s kiddie rides.

McCullough's Kiddie Park, Bowery and 12th Street

photo by Tricia Vita via me-myself-i, flickr

The kiddie park was especially busy on this weekday afternoon. I sent the tourists over to see Target the Cat, who was working the Basketball game on the Bowery, and Jimmy, who was running his Balloon Dart. Despite Thor Equities prediction of threat of bad weather, it was a sunny, delightful Friday in Coney Island’s C-7 amusement zone. Let’s keep it that way! As my friend Spidora says, “Carnival Stalls, Not Mega-Malls!”

Target, the Coney Island Arcade Cat, is the Official Mascot of the flickr group Coney Island is Alive and Kicking and Welcomes Visitors in 2009!

photo by Tricia Vita via me-myself-i, flickr

Amusing the Zillion

Posted in Coney Island, tagged Amusing the Million, Coney Island, Coney Island Redevelopment, Municipal Art Society, rezoning plan on May 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The title of my new blog takes its inspiration from John Kasson’s Book Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. The author was referring to the turn of the 19th century, when as many as 200,000 people a day came to Coney. Kasson’s title comes from a 1908 quote by Fredric Thompson, manager of Luna Park, who claimed 5 million paid admissions in a season and said Coney Island was in the business of “amusing the million.”

One hundred years later, I’d wager that Coney Island along with other amusement parks, theme parks and fairs have amused not merely millions but zillions of people. How many people will visit the new Coney Island that’s being planned? That depends on the size of the open-air amusement district.

The Municipal Art Society recommends “25 acres of amusements, excluding retail and hotel uses, to support a minimum of 3.4 million annual visitors. The refined vision should include a signature, iconic ride that re-establishes Coney Island as world-class destination and enough rides to support up to 15,000 visitors at any one time.”

The stats are David Malmuth’s of the real estate advisory firm RCLCO, which was commissioned by MAS to identify the characteristics that would ensure a successful new amusement area in Coney Island. I agree with his assessment. In order for Coney Island to continue to amuse the zillion, the area devoted exclusively to outdoor amusement uses must be expanded from the 12 acres in the City’s current plan.