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Posts Tagged ‘Joe Sitt’

Joe Sitt’s Gang Punches Holes in Bank of Coney Island Building

Posted in historic preservation, Photography, Redevelopment, tagged Bank of Coney Island, Bruce Handy, Coney Island, demolition, Eric Kowalsky, Joe Sitt, Thor Equities on October 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Joe Sitt's Demolition Crew Punched Holes in the Bank of Coney Island's south wall. October 18, 2010. Photo © Eric Kowalsky

On Monday at 2 pm, “Mayor” Dick Zigun sounded the alarm on the Coney Island Message Board: “They have just started to punch holes in the Bank of Coney Island building’s south wall, facing the Bowery. The holes are being punched out from the inside via drills and jack hammers. Earlier today they erected scaffolding along the north and east facades.”

Bank of Coney Island Demolition October 18, 2010. Photo © Eric Kowalsky

Coney Island photographers Eric Kowalsky and Bruce Handy have been documenting the demolition for the past two days. They’re made of strong stuff. We’ve put off posting the images because it was painful to see this 87-year-old building having holes– first two and three, and now eleven– punched through its walls. We know a building is not a human being, but this is torture. The building looks as if it faced a firing squad and is a dead man standing.

Bank of Coney Island Demolition. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Bank of Coney Island Demolition. October 18, 2010. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

A poster on the Coney Island board claims that the holes are for shoring up the upper part of brick wall while they build the scaffolding from the inside, so as not to disturb what’s left of the fire-damaged arcade next door. But the bank building was built to last and isn’t going to come down easily. On the first and second day of Joe Sitt’s 40 Days of Demolition, the worst is yet to come.

ATZ promised to live-tweet the demo to keep Sitt’s ongoing desecration of Coney Island in the public eye. But we have no idea how we’re going to weather the ordeal if the first two holes in a wall look like wounds to us. If we could have picked one building to save, the Bank of Coney Island would have been the one. For more info, read “A Rare Peek Inside Endangered Old Bank of Coney Island,” (ATZ, October 9, 2009).

Bank of Coney Island Demolition. October 19, 2010. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Saved or Not? Signs from Coney Island’s Henderson Building

Posted in art, historic preservation, tagged Creative Time, Faber's Fascination, Henderson Building, Joe Sitt, Shoot out the Star, signage, Steve Powers, Surf Hotel, Thor Equities on September 29, 2010| 5 Comments »

Saved? Surf Hotel's Vintage Signage. September 24, 2010. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

Saved? Surf Hotel's Original Hand-Painted Glass Signage. September 24, 2010. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

In an interview with NY1 in May, Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt talked about his redevelopment plans for Coney Island and the Surf Avenue buildings he plans to raze: “Every one of these buildings is just horrible, rundown relics with nothing exciting about them. I hate to say it, but the great buildings of Coney Island disappeared 80 years ago,” said Sitt.

What caught our eye in this four-month-old news story was not Sitt’s mischaracterization of the historic properties (please take a look at what the Henderson Building and Stillwell looked like before Sitt bought and blighted them), but what the real estate speculator had to say about the now endangered signs. According to NY1, “Sitt says he’ll re-use the vintage signs in a more modern setting.”

Faber's Fascination Sign Stripped of its Letters. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

The Morning After Faber's Fascination Sign Was Stripped of its Letters. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

Really? We hate to say it, but if Sitt is planning to re-use any signs, he’d better hurry up and save some. It’s already too late for Faber’s. As ATZ reported earlier this month, the light bulbs and letters of the fabulous 60-year-old Faber’s Fascination and Sportland signs were removed by the arcade’s most recent operator and offered for sale. The cannibalized metal signs remain on the facade because they couldn’t be removed before the tenant had to vacate the property. You can see the Faber’s Fascination sign lit up for the last time and the letters being removed in this video by historian Charles Denson.

Last Night at Faber's Fascination. Henderson Building, Coney Island. Sept. 6, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

It’s too bad Joe Sitt didn’t recognize that Faber’s signage was a valuable piece of Americana worth saving and re-purposing. In a similar situation, another New York City real estate developer, the Durst Organization, did a much better job. Durst saved the Peep-O-Rama sign from the last peep show in Times Square when they demolished the building it occupied to make way for the Bank of America Tower. Vanishing New York recently featured the story of the neon sign’s restoration and return to Times Square, where the sign lights up the visitors center. Reading the story made us think of the Faber’s sign and wish it could have enjoyed a similar fate. As we noted in a comment on the VNY post: The reference to the Times reporter asking if a case could be made for preserving Peep-O-Rama or its facade for Times Square posterity, and not receiving a reply from Landmarks, the NYHS or the Mayor’s office is telling. There seems to be very little official appreciation for signage. Basically they leave it up to the building owners to do as they please.

Lettering from Faber's Fascination. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

In last week’s “Demolition in Progress! Coney Island’s Surf Hotel in Henderson Building,” ATZ wrote: “We’re told that the original Surf Hotel sign pictured above was removed, though its fate remains unknown. Was it saved, scavenged or thrown out with the windows?” Since then ATZ has received messages and comments that the “Sign is Saved!” as in saved from demolition.

On Friday morning a tipster wrote: “I am here at the building now. I saw the Surf Hotel sign inside a door on the east side of the building resting on the floor leaning against the wall. They are back working on the west side on a ladder cleaning up under the vacant windows. One of the workers was showing me how heavy the sign is and asked it I wanted to take it. The supervisor said we should call the owner about the sign.”

No one has been working in the Henderson Building this week. Is the sign still there or has it walked away? ATZ calls upon Joe Sitt to donate the Henderson signage to the Coney Island Museum or the Coney Island History Project, where these historic artifacts can be viewed by the public.

On the Henderson Building: The original frame that held the Surf Hotel sign. September 24, 2010. Photo © Anonymouse-deux via Amusing the Zillion

On the Stillwell side of the Henderson Building: Shoot out the Star’s iconic signage is endangered. It’s the work of Dreamland Artist Club founder Steve Powers, who also painted the Cyclone roller coaster seats, the Coney Island Museum steps, and the Bump Your Ass Off sign for the Eldorado. In 2003, 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 Jones 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.” Thor Equities has already removed the game signage on the Bowery side of the Henderson. We suggest that Powers and Creative Time come out to Coney and rescue their work! Don’t the signs actually belong to Creative Time? Last spring, a Dreamland Artist Club mural estimated to be worth $250,000 was destroyed when Feltman’s kitchen building was demolished by the City to make way for Luna Park.

Henderson Building: Thor Equities banner dwarfs shuttered Shoot out the Star. Photo © Tricia Vita//me-myself-i via flickr

Joe Sitt Is Prez of Heritage Museum, But It’s Not in Coney Island

Posted in historic preservation, history, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, heritage museum, Joe Sitt, Joey Coney Island, Thor Equities on September 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

Thor Equities phone # dwarfs Shoot out the Star. Jan 1, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Thor Equities phone # dwarfs Shoot out the Star on Henderson Bldg. Jan 1, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

News to us: Joe Sitt, CEO of Thor Equities, the real estate speculator whose destruction of four historic buildings in Coney Island is currently underway, is into history after all! Today we learned that Sitt is president of a history museum. The Sephardic Heritage Museum, incorporated as a “non-profit or religious entity” in Delaware in 2005, had nearly $3 million in assets according to last year’s filing. The address listed for the museum is the same as Thor Equities office. The museum is not yet open to the public, we were told by a gentleman who answered the phone at a Lakeland, New Jersey number listed on the web. The filing states: “When the museum opens, it will maintain and publicly display objects of historical, cultural and religious significance to persons with Sephardic Jewish descent and their heritage.”

ATZ was tipped off to the existence of the fledgling museum via an invitation to a film screening at Lincoln Center that was forwarded by a reader. The invite says: Joseph J. Sitt & The Sephardic Heritage Museum present a premier screening of “The Syrian Jewish Community.” The first ever documentary film tracing our history. October 24, 2010. 6:00 PM screening of the film. LINCOLN CENTER, Avery Fisher Hall. Tickets on sale now $30 to $150. All proceeds go to The Sephardic Heritage Museum. All tickets are tax deductible.

Founding a museum and supporting a documentary film devoted to one’s heritage are commendable efforts. We just wish Joe Sitt showed a similar interest in the historical and cultural significance of Coney Island’s amusement district and the properties that he owns there. The Grashorn Building, Coney Island’s oldest structure, built in the 1880s; the 1923 Bank of Coney Island, the 1903 Shore Hotel and the former Henderson Music Hall have a date with the wrecking ball.

Coney Island's Oldest: Built in 1880s, Grashorn Building in 1969. Photo © Charles Denson via Coney Island History Project

In “Four Coney Island Buildings to Fall,” Friday’s Story of the Day on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website, Thor spokesman Stefan Friedman said, “These are ramshackle structures, eyesores.” Historian Charles Denson countered by citing the Parachute Jump, which had been described by detractors as “an eyesore” and “dangerous” in the years prior to its rehab and landmark designation. In the article, Juan Rivero of Save Coney Island noted that an engineer has offered to assess the buildings’ structural integrity free of charge, if Thor Equities is willing to grant access to the buildings. How about it Joey Coney Island?