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The Sad Anniversary of Coney Island’s Astroland Going Dark

Posted in amusement park, tagged anniversary, Astro Tower, Astroland, Astroland Shrine, Coney Island, memorial, photograph, Thor Equities on September 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Original Astroland Shrine, December 26, 2008. Photo © Bruce Handy (Pablo57) via flickr

Photographer and Coney Island resident Bruce Handy aka pablo57 has created a set of images on flickr to memorialize the first anniversary of the closing of Astroland. Titled “Astroland Shrine,” the photos and videos have an elegiac beauty and are certain to break your heart all over again. Seeing the removal of the demon from Dante’s Inferno and listening to the wail of the Astro Tower amid the teardown enveloped me in sadness. From Bruce’s intro:

Once upon a time, in the southern part of Brooklyn, in the land of rabbits, named Coney Island, there stood a timeless amusement park named Astroland. Astroland went dark on September 7, 2008 and this is the tale of the boardwalk shrine sprung from our sorrow and grief.

The original shrine was created on December 26, 2008. Four items, a bouquet of flowers, the shrine iconic collage, a hand written note saying to add more items, and a large ink drawing of a ballerina holding an umbrella.

The photo is taken from the point of view of mermaids looking at the shrine from the slats in the boardwalk.

The images in Bruce’s flickr set date from the day after Christmas in 2008, when the Astroland Shrine was created, to March 2009. “I just feel like it’s the right time to post the photos, all in one spot. It’s the gates, again locked,” Bruce says, referring to the locked gates of Dreamland Park. Following a dispute with Dreamland’s manager, property owner Thor Equities abruptly shut down the temporary amusement area on the former Astroland site. “I guess that has brought this on and the anniversary of Astroland going dark coming up. It is very emotional, I don’t know why I’m torturing myself doing it. I will be finished on Sept 7th.”

The Associated Press released a list of highlights in history for Sept 7 that includes “Astroland, New York City’s world famous amusement park at Coney Island, closed after 46 years.” Do you have any special plans to commemorate the anniversary? “Bring MORE flowers. People are afraid to destroy flowers,” says Bruce. ATZ plans to bring a bouquet to the Coney Island History Project’s Astroland Archives Photography Exhibit

The New York Times article from September 8, 2008, “Astroland Closes, This Time, It Appears, for Good,” is worth rereading for the graf about Thor Equities:

Stefan Friedman, a spokesman for Thor Equities, said in a statement that the developer had been in touch with “numerous amusement operators” to discuss setting up “permanent year-round development.” The city and Joseph J. Sitt, the chairman of Thor Equities, which is now the largest landowner in the area, have yet to reach an agreement on how to redevelop Coney Island, though locals worry that the neighborhood will become awash in generic chain stores, condominiums and hotels.

One year later, Sitt has shut down the handful of mom-and-pop amusement operators brought to “Dreamland Park” this season to replace the evicted Astroland. Although the real estate speculator promised “more than 25 fun-filled rides” back in April to match Astroland’s ride count, only about a dozen rides came to Thor Equities’ Dreamland. The Coney rezoning passed in City Council at the end of the July, yet a deal to acquire Sitt’s property, including the former Astroland site, has yet to be announced. “Fundamentally, the deal with him is done,” Mayor Bloomberg recently told the Brooklyn Paper.

ATZ will be in Coney Island on Labor Day, September 7, to enjoy everything Coney Island has to offer in 2009: the 43 rides, the beach, the bars and the world-class people watching on the Boardwalk.

Full disclosure: I’m the Astro fan who created the Astroland collage which was stolen from the park’s gate. As I scrawled in the note begging for the icon’s return, which appears in one of Bruce’s photos: “Please put it back! It took me several hours to make it. I am not an artist, just made it to memorialize Astroland!” Put back Astroland, too! The park’s rides remain in storage.

This anonymous note disappeared within a day: Astroland R.I.P -- I Will Miss You 4-Ever. Photo © Bruce Handy (Pablo57) via flickr

Westchester County Fair Mementos

Posted in fair, history, tagged Bicycle merry-go-round, Conklin Shows, fair, Library of Congress, photograph, Westchester, Westchester County Fair, Yonkers on August 10, 2009| 2 Comments »

Parking permits from the last years of the Westchester County Fair. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The ride trailers parked behind Nathan’s in Coney Island came out of storage and still have the 1996-2002 parking permits for the Westchester County Fair. It’s a sad reminder of a fair that was cancelled in 2003 due to the construction of video lottery terminals at the Yonkers Raceway. Today the Raceway’s Empire Casino has 5,300 video slot machines which operate year round. The fading parking permits made me feel nostalgic for the county fair that never came back. I’m not the only one. The fair has a Facebook fan page with 3,712 fans and a recent discussion thread “who wants the fair back?”

Conklin Shows played the Westchester County Fair for as far back as I can remember. It was one of Amusement Business’s top 50 fairs. An AB article about the fair’s cancellation noted Conklin “posted a record $1.5 million gross for the 2002 fair, which came in at No. 38, up four spots, in AB’s 2002 list of top fairs.” Yet I could find only a few ride photos on flickr, here and here. Perhaps because the demise of the fair predates the rise of flickr! Does anyone have any memories or photos of the fair they’d like to share?

The president of Yonkers Raceway, who happens to be the same person who brought in the video gambling, is credited with starting the Westchester County Fair & Exposition in 1981. It was billed as “the first complete county fair in the New York metropolitan area in more than 30 years.”

George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

According to the Yonkers Historical Society, an earlier incarnation of the Westchester County Fair existed in 1888 on 50 acres at Tarrytown Road and Hillside Avenue…

“Here was a rack track—one of the best half–mile tracks in the country—bordered by a grandstand holding 3,000. Besides displays of cattle, pigs, needlework, fruits and vegetables, great tents held cowboy shows, bicycle races and baby shops; balloon ascensions were among the special events. The fair was climaxed by the Westchester County Ball, held at the Verein hall at Chicken Island. Six special trains brought the merry–makers to Yonkers.”

No mention of amusement rides, but I recall some wonderful old photos of a Bicycle Merry-Go-Round, sideshows and games in the Library of Congress Photo Archive.

Bicycle merry go round at Westchester County Fair. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

Westchester County Fair, Wild Rose and Rattlesnake Joe sideshow. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

Coney Island Is Alive and Kicking in 2009 Photo of the Day: New Boardwalk

Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged Boardwalk, Coney Island, photograph on May 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

New Boardwalk. Photo by Pablo57 via flickr group Coney Island Is Alive and Kicking and Welcomes Visitors in 2009!

photo via pablo57, flickr

ATZ’s Photo of the Day is from the Coney Island History Project’s flickr group pool Coney Island Is Alive and Kicking and Welcomes Visitors in 2009! Launched in January, the group’s purpose is “to showcase the best of the best images of attractions that will *definitely* be here to welcome visitors in 2009.” The group was started by the Coney Island History Project, a not-for-profit organization that aims to increase awareness of Coney Island’s legendary and colorful past and to encourage appreciation of the Coney Island neighborhood of today.

Today’s photo shows the new section of the Boardwalk in front of Ruby’s and Cha Cha’s. The photographer “Pablo57” is a Coney Island resident who describes himself as a street photographer in the footsteps of Garry Winogrand. He’s an alum of Kevin Downs Summer Photography Workshop at Coney Island USA and plans to take the workshop again this season.