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Oct 31: Last Day of Season for Boardwalk Businesses, Some Won’t Be Back

Posted in Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged Boardwalk, Cha-Cha's, Coney Island, dive bars, Last Day of Season, Ruby's Bar on October 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

Halloween at Cha Cha's 2009. Photo © Coney Gal/Mindy via flickr

On October 31st, Ruby’s Bar will host their annual closing party. “Come celebrate Halloween at Ruby’s, wear a costume and get a free beer,” Rubys Host says. The Grill House will have Coney Island band Neptune Jam’s Halloween Jam on the Boardwalk from 1- 5 pm. Cha Cha’s, which is decorated for Halloween year round, will celebrate from 2:30 pm with music by Killer Joe and the Warriors. Come out to playyy! It’s the last day of the season for Coney Island’s legendary dive bars as well as for the other Boardwalk businesses, including Paul’s Daughter, Steve’s Grill House, Gyro Corner and Lola Star Gift Shop.

Lola Star Gift Shop and Gyro Corner. August 20, 2010. Photo © Mattron via flickr

The 11 Boardwalk businesses have leases with the City through Oct 31 for the 2010 season. Zamperla USA/CAI, which is taking over management of the City-owned Boardwalk properties, is expected to offer new 9-year leases to some, but not all, of the businesses after reviewing their business plans.

Paul's Daughter in Coney Island. September 24, 2010. Photo © SaucyPinkJesus/Christopher Duff via flickr

“Some will stay, some won’t. We’re exploring our options,” Zamperla USA CEO Valerio Ferrari told the Brooklyn Paper earlier this month. The catch is we don’t expect to find out who’s getting a new lease till the end of the month. Hey, it is the end of the month! Rumors abound, but an official announcement has yet to be made. If you have a sentimental favorite on the Boardwalk, come out on the last day of the season and show them some love. And don’t forget to take souvenir photos. UPDATE October 31….Business owners told us that they would find out on Monday whether or not they’d get a new lease from Zamperla/CAI!

Wild Women & Wise Guys. March 15, 2009. Photo © Justin Korn via flickr

ATZ will be in Coney on Halloween to hang out with friends and revisit old haunts. We’ll snap photos as if it were “last call” for the vernacular signage and gritty authenticity of these Boardwalk mainstays. Just in case. If they get erased from the Coney landscape, we’ll still have our memories and our photos. The oldest existing business is probably Paul’s Daughter, formerly known as Gregory & Paul’s. The family-run business has been at its Boardwalk location for more than 40 years. Cha Cha’s and Nathan’s satellite location are in the former Club Atlantis building,which requires extensive rehab to bring it up to code.

Behind the Counter at Ruby's Bar in Coney Island. April 16, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i

The namesake of Ruby’s Bar–Ruby Jacobs–bought the bar in 1975. That’s his portrait with the Parachute Jump amid the vintage photos on the oft-photographed wall. After Ruby’s death in 2000, West 12th Street was named Ruby Jacobs Way in his honor. His daughters and son-in-law continue to run the family-owned business.

Shoot the Freak (I felt like I had stepped back in time). October 7, 2010. Photo © Marniepix via flickr

The world-famous Shoot the Freak is a relative newcomer having arrived on the Boardwalk in 2002. By the next season, the game was world famous. ”Look, this is a country where there was the pet rock,” Shoot the Freak’s creator Anthony Berlingieri told a reporter for the New York Times. ”I always figure that after that, everything stands a shot.”

Last November, Berlingieri made headlines when he appeared at the City’s press conference about the $95.6 million land purchase from Thor and posed the question directly to Mayor Bloomberg: “Is there a place for us?” NYCEDC President Seth Pinsky gave a diplomatic reply: “Our intention is for the foreseeable future to keep all the tenants in place, certainly through next summer [2010]. And we’re going to be looking to work with each of you to figure out where it makes sense for the various tenants to remain as we build out the amusement park.”

Does this mean the EDC is committed to relocating the small businesses displaced by the redevelopment of City-owned property in the new Coney Island? Stay tuned.

Grill House Color. August 26, 2009. Photo © verphotoman/Joel via flickr

Oct 29 at Coney Island Library: Dragon and Mermaid Show & Tell with Takeshi Yamada

Posted in Events, sideshow, tagged Coney Island, free event, lecture, mermaid, rogue taxidermy, sideshow gaff, Takeshi Yamada on October 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

This Friday at 4 pm, Coney Island artist and rogue taxidermist Takeshi Yamada is giving his annual art talk at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Coney Island branch. Titled “Dragons and Mermaids: Coney Island Sideshow Special,” the free show-and-tell will feature rogue taxidermy specimens of dragons and mermaids created by the artist for his Museum of World Wonders. You’ll get to meet the six-foot-long mermaid pictured below at Secret Science’s Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest.

The Japanese-born artist and Neptune Avenue resident is one of Coney Island’s most recognizable eccentrics. In the summer, you’re apt to find Yamada clad in a black tuxedo and Mardi Gras beads strolling the Beach and Boardwalk with his taxidermied sea bunny Seara.

Takeshi Yamada with his Six Foot Fiji Mermaid. November 2, 2007. Photo © istolethetv via flickr

If you haven’t seen Yamada’s long-running “Museum of World Wonders: Cabinet of Curiosities” yet, the exhibition is on view through Dec. 31 at the Coney Island Library.

–“Dragons and Mermaids: Coney Island Sideshow Special,” Art Lecture by Takeshi Yamada, October 29, Friday, 4 – 5pm, FREE. The library is a five-minute walk from the Stillwell Avenue subway terminal.
–“Museum of World Wonders: Cabinet of Curiosities,” Coney Island Library, 1901 Mermaid Ave (at W 19th St), Coney Island, Brooklyn, 718-265-3220. Through December 31, 2010, FREE. Check library hours here.

Skull of the Sea Dragon by Takeshi Yamada. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Studio Visit: Philomena Marano of the Coney Island Hysterical Society

Posted in art, tagged Coney Island, Coney Island Hysterical Society, Philomena Marano on October 26, 2010| 4 Comments »

Philomena Marano with cut paper installation Giant Lolly

Earlier this month, we visited the Gowanus studio shared by Coney Island Hysterical Society co-founders Philomena Marano and Richard Eagan. In this two-part post, ATZ’s photos are interspersed with the artists’ own words about their Coney-inspired artwork.

Lately I’ve been considering one of the strains that run through both of our works- something I coined as a “Fool the Guesser” concept- Loosely defined: things seem like one thing, but may be another -perhaps bordering on “optical illusion” but not in the strictest sense- more like a form of visual play.

Eagan has a series of painted target constructions which take on a kinetic quality as one changes their point of view, and I have work in which it is really tough to decipher the medium it was created in- printed, paper or painted… thus summoning a sense of wonderment or an invitation to a guessing game.

We’re planning to group these selected works and hope to find a venue for an exhibition.

My new PLAY FASCINATION piece actually revisits an earlier set of works with the same name, but it’s more “unhinged.” In this piece I used a perception shifting ploy. What seems to be flat is actually sculptural. Is it caving in or blowing out? – there is no “one way” to view it.

To create it I made a cut paper composition which I then cut up into pieces. Next I reassembled them so that the pieces sit on different levels, some tilted inward, some outward and some level, thus adding dimension and delirium.

I originally borrowed the type face I use in my PLAY FASCINATION works from a decaying metal sign that hung on the side of the Faber’s Fascination building on Surf Avenue. In 1990 I recomposed the elements and created 5 similar works with the same title; one in cut paper and four hard edged paintings. I recall viewers engaged in examining the work as it hung side by side in an exhibit, wondering or “guessing,” is this paper, painted or printed?

This “fun house” or” magic show of illusion” concept appeals to me because it parallels my subject matter. I think it’s time to explore & embrace this unique Coney Island essence a bit further- to pay tribute to it.