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Zamperla-Ride-O-Rama: Swing in the Sky over Coney Island

Posted in Amusement ride, tagged amusement park, Coney Island, rendering, Vertical Swing, Zamperla on January 24, 2010| 1 Comment »

One of the new rides we expect to see in Zamperla-landia Coney Island in 2010 is the Vertical Swing. The tower ride is Zamperla’s version of the Star Flyer prominently featured in the CIDC’s renderings since November 2007. According to the company’s website, the Swing comes in both a 125-foot park model and a 102–foot portable model (top decoration included) that takes only half a day to set up.

We also found this spectacular 190 foot (58 meter) Vertical Swing (Kettenkarussell) in a vid of Wunderland Kalko amusement park in Germany. New for 2009, the ride is sited within the cooling tower for a proposed nuclear power plant which instead became an amusement park after widespread protests! The Vertical Swing is crowned with the park’s mascot Kernie. As you can see in a second video, the ride offers a 360 degree view of the surrounding area. Can’t you just imagine yourself swinging in the sky over Coney Island’s Beach and Boardwalk this summer!

Zamperla’s first portable Vertical Swing, pictured at left, was sold to Reithoffer Shows. It debuted at last year’s Florida State Fair where it was among the top ten grossing rides. The carnival calls it “The SkyFlyer.” The lighting scheme looks more colorful than our Parachute Jump! Other top carnivals that have purchased the new ride are Ray Cammack Shows (RCS) and North American Midway Entertainment (NAME). According to Zamperla’s website: “What makes the portable ride unique is the rotation made with the entire tower (instead of a rotating center only). It reaches a maximum speed of 12 r.p.m. The setup is easy and takes about half a day. Hydraulic extension: no cranes needed!!!”

The cost of the ride– $700,000 (park model) and $790,000 (portable model)– illustrates why Zamperla had an advantage over park and carnival operators going into the Coney Island Amusement Operator RFP. As the world’s largest manufacturer of rides, Zamperla doesn’t have to get financing to buy new rides or wait months for them to be built. If the ride is not already in stock, Zamperla can ramp up production in one of their factories around the globe. We expect the company to rotate the ride line up over the ten year lease, bringing in new pieces to keep Coney Island’s midway thrilling and profitable. As we wrote in “The Contenders from A to Z” (November 23, 2009), we also expect Zamperla to try out prototypes in Coney Island, an exciting prospect that calls to mind the heyday of Coney when the first models of any new rides would come here.

The Tower Swing Ride Was Prominently Featured in the CIDC's November 2007 Renderings of the new Coney Island Amusement Park

The Tower Swing Is Prominently Featured in the CIDC's November 2007 Renderings of the new Coney Island Amusement Park

Demolition Alert: Dreamland Artist Club Mural on Feltman’s Bldg

Posted in art, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, Creative Time, demolition alert, Dreamland Artist Club, Feltman's Kitchen, Rita Ackermann, Steve Powers on January 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In our recent post about Coney Island’s soon-to-be-demolished Feltman’s kitchen, one of the photos taken from Jones Walk shows the mural on the west wall of the historic building. Take another look because the Rita Ackermann mural is said to be worth $250,000 and the building is not long for this world. Yesterday the City’s contractors were observed removing the roof of the hot dog inventor’s kitchen.

Rita Ackermann Mural on west wall of Feltman's Kitchen Seen from Jones Walk. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Ackermann painted the mural in 2004 for the Dreamland Artist Club says the art project’s founder and lead artist Steve Powers.

“I co-curated the Dreamland Artist Club and have happy memories of working with Rita,” Powers told ATZ. “Although I would estimate the value of the mural at $250,000, it is but a fraction of what Steeplechase Park, Luna Park and a hundred other monuments in Coney Island have been worth. The mural may meet its doom but its memory will remind us how dumb progress can be sometimes.”

It’s ironic that public art which was created in response to real estate development changing the landscape and character of Coney Island is itself endangered by redevelopment. Powers teamed up with Creative Time, the non-profit public art agency, to bring artists to Coney Island to create new signage for the stands along the Walk and the Bowery. The first year’s funding was $80,000. When the murals and signage debuted in June 2004, Powers told the Times: “A large percentage of them will be up forever.” Powers own work, including the Cyclone roller coaster seats and “Bump Your Ass Off” signs for the Eldorado Bumper Cars are thankfully still with us and look like they’ve been here forever.

Detail of Rita Ackermann Mural and Wonder Wheel Signage.. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The Brooklyn Rail’s review of the Dreamland Artist Club included this description of Ackermann’s mural: “With an aura of danger and seduction, snake charmers, acrobats, and sword throwers return to Coney Island in Rita Ackermann’s 50-foot mural above Jones Walk. Graphically rendered in black, white, and golden yellow against the background of the Cyclone’s sweeping arcs, Ackermann’s femme fatales twirl and pose high above the crowds promoting a demonic carnival of darker, hidden attractions.”

ATZ contacted Rita Ackermann via her gallery, but we haven’t yet received a response. If you happen to know the artist, please tell her to get ready to add the word “demolished” to her resume.

Nathan Slept Here! Coney Island’s Feltman’s Kitchen Set for Demolition

Posted in Coney Island Redevelopment, history, tagged Charles Feltman, Coney Island, demolition, Feltman's, historic kitchen, historic restaurant, hot dog, Nathan's on January 19, 2010| 7 Comments »

Feltman's Kitchen on Astroland - Scheduled for Demolition. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

The old Feltman’s kitchen building on the Astroland site is among the structures set to be demolished to make way for new amusements on the City-owned parcel. This humble building is the last remnant of the fabulous block-long restaurant and entertainment empire owned by Charles Feltman, the inventor of the hot dog.

According to Ric Burns’s movie about Coney Island, Nathan Handwerker worked in Feltman’s kitchen and slept on the floor for a year before he went on to found Nathan’s Famous! Since Feltman’s consisted of nine restaurants, a beer garden, a maple garden and much more, we can’t be sure where Handwerker bedded down. But we think the phrases “Nathan Slept Here!” and “The hot dog was invented here!” have tourism potential. Shouldn’t the City be renovating Feltman’s Kitchen as a little museum and hot dog stand instead of tearing it down?

Asbestos abatement has already started according to“Capt Nemo,” who posted photos of the work site on the Coney Island Message Board. A notice lists the owner of the historic property referred to now as “Parcel A” as “NYCEDC, New York City Economic Development Corporation- Coney Island Amusements.” The Amphitheater building (site of Astroland’s Diving Bell), Westside building (Feltman’s kitchen), an electrical shed and a trailer are on the list of locations to be abated.

Tile floor in historic Feltman's kitchen on Astroland property, Jan 31, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The photos reminded us that last January we took pix of the tiles in the old Feltman’s kitchen for our friend “Coney Islander.” It was the last day of Astroland before the property was to be turned over to Thor Equities. “Coney Islander” wanted a tile as a keepsake, but we couldn’t find a loose one. Our friend said the tiles were not only Coney Island history, but American history too: “The first hot dog might have fallen on that floor!” Of course “the first hot dog” was invented by Charles Feltman in 1867 when he was pushing a pie wagon. But the building is all that remains of Feltman’s in Coney Island. The floor definitely has character. It has a story to tell. We just had to figure out what it was. Sometimes if the full story isn’t known, an apocryphal one fills the vacuum. The floor looks so old it’s easy to imagine the original hot dog falling on it.

One year later, we have the full story. It’s titled “Nathan Slept Here!” In 1915, Nathan Handwerker, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, went to work for Feltman, who was by then the proprietor of a palatial sit-down restaurant at Surf Ave and 10th Street. Handwerker’s job was slicing hot dog rolls and delivering the franks to the guys who toiled at the grilling stations. The young man lived on free hot dogs and slept on the kitchen floor to save his $11 per week salary. At the end of the year, he’d saved $300 and opened a competing stand–5 cents a hot dog instead of 10 cents. That was the beginning of Nathan’s Famous and the downfall of Feltman’s, which went out of business in 1952. The property was sold to the Albert family and became the space-age Astroland Park in the early 1960s. For nearly 50 years, Feltman’s kitchen has survived as a workshop for Astroland’s rides.