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Thor’s Coney Island: Aqueduct Flea Vendors Make Dismal Debut

Posted in Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged Aqueduct flea market, BK Festival, Coney Island, flea market, Joe Sitt, Thor Equities on May 16, 2011| 8 Comments »

The BK Festival brings Aqueduct Flea Vendors in Coney Island. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

The BK Festival featuring displaced Aqueduct flea market vendors opened for the first time on Saturday in Coney Island. The new flea market is located on Thor Equities Stillwell property adjacent to Scream Zone and Nathan’s, site of Thor’s Flea by the Sea in 2009. Check out our flickr slide show. We took pix of everything that was there, to be fair and square. Unfortunately the opening day event was dismal. It was not in any way “like a state fair,” as hyped by the BK Festival management in advertisements, nor did it feature “upscale product,” as hyped by the New York Times in a puff piece on Joe Sitt. Not surprised. Just sayin’.

Like Thor’s “Festival by the Sea,” the new flea market bills itself as a festival because a flea market is not a permitted use on this property in Coney Island. In response to ATZ’s query last month about the zoning, Purnima Kapur, Brooklyn City Planning Director, wrote in an email: “The C7 zoning district in Coney Island does not permit Flea Markets as a permitted use; however small scale retail and restaurants are permitted in addition to amusements.” There are Use Groups A, B and C, with A being for Amusements, and a formula for their allocation.

As we’ve said before, it’s a little tricky to figure out how “OVER 100,000 SQUARE FEET OF SHOPPERS DELIGHT!” is permitted when Sitt failed to win 10,000 square foot retail and the City’s own zoning says “Use Group C [Retail] uses shall be limited to 2,500 square feet of floor area and 30 feet of street frontage, except that on corner lots one street frontage may extend up to 100 feet.” Of course the city has long failed to enforce its own zoning. The furniture stores on the north side of Surf have continued to exist for years in defiance of the amusement zoning. The only example of a flea market in Coney Island being closed that we’re aware of is when Mayor Giuliani shut down the flea on the north side of Surf prior to the opening of his new ballpark in 2000.

Cooking spices, cleaning products, car mats, and tools looked incongruous in the amusement area. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

Saturday’s rainy forecast kept some of the Aqueduct vendors away, yet the locations were said to be completely booked for the season. Assigned numbers were painted on the blacktop. It was depressing to see miscellaneous items arrayed in rows of cardboard boxes–tape measures, sharpies, notebooks, cleaning brushes, sandals, toys, balls, what have you. It was a typical market, with signs advertising prices starting at $1. Or 3 for $5.

Booths selling household cleaning products, personal care products, tools, automotive accessories and cooking spices looked incongruous in the amusement area. It felt jarring to see the new Soarin’ Eagle roller coaster against a backdrop of signage advertising “Dresses For Less.” There were just a few vendors with what might be called “upscale product” displayed to advantage–snazzy belt buckles, some lovely clothing near the front of the flea market, and a booth with strollers, skateboards and kids toys. We found one item that we liked and purchased it for $10.

One of the best looking booths featured strollers, skateboards & kidz toys. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

The majority of space is taken up by flea market vendors, so it’s reasonable to say this event is indeed a flea market and not “like a state fair.’ The amusements consisted of a pony ride, a very small petting zoo, one inflatable bounce for kids (a second one was deflated), and two mimes. The Coney Island Dancers, who had brought in their sound system and were playing music, said they had been hired by the BK Festival. A few people were dancing on the sidewalk.

BK Festival's amusements include a small petting zoo and a pony ride. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

According to the Coney Island Rumor Mill, the BK Festival’s contract with Thor precludes them from bringing in mechanical amusement rides. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, considering that Sitt first evicted Norman Kaufman’s amusements from the property in 2006 and has failed to lease to several different carnivals and amusement operators who have tried to negotiate deals. As we wrote in Thor Equities Touts Coney Island as “RETAIL RIDE of a LIFETIME” (ATZ, May 4), we believe that the flea market or “shopping experience” is part of a strategy to win a variance for 10,000 square foot retail from the City’s Board of Standards and Appeals in a future administration. Having rides wouldn’t help that plan at all.

Why does the City allow Thor Equities to put flea markets that are festivals in name only on precious pieces of property in the C-7 amusement zone where the Tornado and Bobsled Coasters once thrilled? And not just once, but twice. It calls to mind the adage “Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.”

BK Festival on the west side of Stillwell. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

“Last Summer at Coney Island” Airs on PBS, DVD Offers Epilogue

Posted in film, Redevelopment, video, tagged Coney Island, JL Aronson, Last Summer at Coney Island on May 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

A 60-minute cut of JL Aronson’s documentary “Last Summer at Coney Island” will air on public television starting May 15 at 10 pm and May 16 at 2:30 am on WNET Channel 13. We recommend watching it and then buying the DVD with the full 90-minute version and a host of extras, including “Since Last Summer,” in which the film-maker narrates a candid update. “The City bought the land from Thor that they could have purchased at the start for less money, but then they would have been the ones to evict old timers who had been in Coney Island for decades,” he says.

When “Last Summer at Coney Island” premiered in August at BAM, the audience got teary eyed during the scene in which Astroland’s lights were extinguished, ride by ride, for the final time, and the illuminated Astrotower made its last descent. Many of us had attended the amusement park’s closing ceremony on September 7, 2008 after rallying unsuccessfully for one more year.

The next summer felt like another last summer for Coney Island. Real estate speculator Joe Sitt held Coney Island hostage as the City’s rezoning plan, which would approve high rise hotels on Sitt’s land on the south side of Surf Avenue, moved inexorably toward approval.

“Last Summer at Coney Island” chronicles Coney Island’s redevelopment hoopla with riveting scenes featuring Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt and Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert, as well as historian Charles Denson, Lola Star Boutique owner Dianna Carlin, City Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr, and then-CIDC president Lynn Kelly, among others. Aronson’s film ends with the City Council passing the rezoning in July 2009.

“The rezoning plan quickly became a sideshow itself, if not the main attraction,” says Aronson in the epilogue. “After shooting for a couple of years, I had to conclude the story at some point, and at a point that made sense, without waiting to see what might inevitably get built. If past lessons of Coney Island development tell us anything, it is that this process can take a very, very long time.”

Other extras on the DVD include an “Easter egg” with Coney’s “Unelected Mayor” Dick D Zigun. We found the hidden feature –it’s Zigun’s fiery speech at a hearing on the rezoning at which he resigned as a Director of the Coney Island Development Corporation in protest of “a deeply flawed plan.”

“Astroland” has interviews with longtime employees of the park, who consider themselves brothers and sisters, while “The Cyclone” focuses on Gerry Menditto, the now-retired manager of the landmark roller coaster. “The Friendly Butcher of Mermaid Avenue” is Jimmy Prince, who retired in 2009 after 60 years at a meat market beloved by the neighborhood. “The Ward family” features Jack Ward, who passed away last year, and whose family was the oldest property owner in Coney Island before selling their parcel to the City.

In fact so much has changed since “Last Summer at Coney Island,” about the only places in the film that look the same are the Thor-owned Grashorn building with its perpetual “for lease” sign and the landmark Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and Parachute Jump. Since Luna Park opened last summer followed by Scream Zone this spring, it feels like the beginning of a new Coney Island, though the future depicted in the City’s renderings, with hotel towers on Surf Avenue and glittering high rise condos to the west and north of MCU Park, is still a long ways off.

The hour-long cut of “Last Summer at Coney island” is scheduled to air on the following PBS stations:
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Sunday, May 15 – 10pm
WNET/Thirteen – New York – Monday, May 16 – 2:30am
NJN – New Jersey Public Television – Tuesday, June 21 – 10pm
WLIW/21 – New York – Tuesday, June 28 – 10pm
KQED – San Francisco – Saturday, July 23 – 6pm
KQED – San Francisco – Tuesday, July 26 – 11pm
More stations to be announced.

Coney Island 2011: Summer Photography Workshop

Posted in Photography, tagged Coney Island, Kevin C Downs, photography workshop on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Photographer Kevin C Downs annual summer photography workshop in Coney Island is going into its fifth year at Coney Island USA. ATZ has learned a lot about photography from looking at Kevin’s photos and those of his students, which may be viewed in this flickr group.

We especially admire Kevin’s empathetic portraits of Coney Island regulars. Our favorite is probably a classic image of a “sailor” and his gal at Ruby’s, which we featured in last year’s post about the photography workshop.

The Saturday sessions begin on June 4 with a review at noon in the Coney Island Museum and go through the evening. Tuition is a very reasonable $300. From the course description:

Students will be asked to think of a specific documentary essay that is a combination of art and journalism to focus on for the entire 8 sessions. The class will work on a narrative essay that will focus on telling a story through a sequence of events or actions. They may follow an individual or activity over a period of time and present this story in chronological order. A thematic photo essay focuses on a central theme (e.g. homelessness, the environment, Amusements, The Economics of Coney Island, etc.) and presents photos relevant to that theme.