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Thor’s Coney Island: Burst Water Pipes & Onerous Deal at Grashorn for Freak Museum

Posted in Real Estate, sideshow, tagged Coney Island, Grashorn Building, John Strong, Jones Walk, Surf Avenue, Thor Equities on February 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Burst Water Pipe in the Grashorn Building - The Oldest Building in Coney Island. February 4, 2010. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Yesterday a water pipe burst on the second floor of the Thor Equities-owned Grashorn Building, Coney Island’s oldest building. Water poured down the front of the vacant building, covering it in a sheet of ice and leaving an icy pile on the sidewalk by the end of day. We are of course worried that the leaking water may have done a significant amount of damage to the interior of the historic circa 1880s building. According to Coney Island: Lost and Found, the former Grashorn hardware store served Coney Island’s amusement businesses for more than 60 years. Will water damage plus onerous lease terms put the kibosh on John Strong’s deal to rent the building?

As first reported by ATZ on Monday, Texas-based sideshow operator John Strong came to New York and made a deal with Thor to rent the building at Surf Ave and Jones Walk for his freak and oddity museum. Sources told ATZ that when John Strong learned about the burst pipe, he phoned Thor Equities, which had already been notified of the problem. Strong also indicated that he might walk away from the deal because he had just received a copy of his lease from Thor and it contained a 30 day vacate clause. This clause means if Thor wants Strong out he’d have to leave within 30 days though he has offered to pay the entire season’s rent up front.

Can anyone explain the reason for a 30 day vacate clause on this seasonal lease? We’re told this clause was also in the leases that Thor gave to the Boardwalk businesses last year. Thor Equities onerous leases are infamous in Coney Island. But John Strong has a lot of work to do on both the interior and exterior of the vacant building to prepare it for his freak museum. The extra added attraction for Strong is the apartment on the upper floors of the Grashorn. Strong reportedly said he’d been told it would be up to him to get rid of the squatters and the garbage in the building!

Leak is from the second floor, dribbling down the front gates. Note Private security guard in Jones Walk. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

All we can say is if this is the way Thor Equities makes a deal with John Strong, who was instrumental in bringing rides and attractions to Sitt’s Dreamland last summer and has been one of Joe Sitt’s biggest boosters, newcomers beware. Oh yeah, that’s right: business is business. We hope that Thor Equities works out a more equitable lease agreement with John Strong so that the long vacant Grashorn Building will be “Alive!” and open for business this summer.

UPDATE 6:20 PM…ATZ has learned that Thor Equities had the water turned off in the Grashorn Building, salted the icy sidewalk and sent a locksmith to change all the locks. A security guard is now parked in front of the building keeping watch 24 hours a day. Our source speculates that instead of a burst water pipe, squatters who had been occupying the apartments on the upper floors turned all the faucets on and left the water running out of spite. If that’s the case, perhaps they got the idea from “the wet bandits” in the movie Home Alone. Their trademark was to leave the water running after they’d pulled a heist. Anyway, ATZ is glad Coney Island’s oldest building has its own personal security guard while we wait for it to be calendered by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. UPDATE FEB 6: A Little Publicity Doesn’t Hurt Dept: In response to ATZ’s email, John Strong writes: “As of today my concerns have been met and changed on the lease. I am moving forward coming to Coney Island.”

UPDATE April 29, 2010:

John Strong’s deal to rent the Grashorn is off! We’re sorry that rumors of Joe Sitt’s plans to demolish historic buildings which we reported in last week’s post “Thor’s Coney Island: Tattered Tents, Deathwatch for Historic Buildings” (ATZ, April 21, 2010) have turned out to be true. This is one time we would have preferred for the rumors to have remained just rumors.

Today, in response to a flurry of queries from reporters about Sitt’s still unleased empty lots and vacant properties, Thor Equities pr flack Knickerbocker SKD issued a press release announcing Sitt’s intention to begin demolishing the buildings and to replace them with other structures by May 2011. According to the release, “These structures will be replaced with more attractive, retail-friendly and up-to-code shops for the type of retailers Coney is famous for.” See “Thor’s Coney Island: Joey “Bulldozer” Sitt Is Baaack Playing Games!” (ATZ. April 29, 2010)

Translation: More Bull-Sitt from Thor Equities. More deliberately created empty lots.

Aerial view of Grashorn Building and 24 hour security guard. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Aerial view of Grashorn Building and its 24 hour security guard. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

Thor’s Coney Island: Freak Museum to Lease Coney’s Oldest Building

Posted in Real Estate, sideshow, tagged Coney Island, freak show, Grashorn Building, John Strong, Jones Walk, Oddity Museum, oldest building, Thor Equities on January 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Thor Equities Shuttered Grashorn Bldg, Surf Ave & Jones Walk, Coney Island, August 15, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

ATZ has learned that sideshow operator John Strong has made a deal with Thor Equities to return to Coney Island for the 2010 season. In lieu of last year’s location in the former Astroland arcade, which was sold to the City, Strong’s freak museum will occupy Thor Equities’ owned 1104 Surf Ave at Jones Walk. Known as the Grashorn Building after Henry Grashorn’s Hardware store, which was in business in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the building is Coney Island’s oldest. The Texas-based showman flew into New York last week for a meeting with Thor Equities.

The building fronts Surf Avenue and extends along the west side of Jones Walk. Yet this prime location remained vacant and devoid of activity in 2009 (see photo above) due to Thor CEO Joe Sitt’s soaring rents. Last summer, a business owner who had leased a small stand on the Walk from Thor in 2008 told us the 2009 rent had tripled from $8,000 to $24,000. He declined the space and left Coney Island.

John Strong was mum on the cost of his lease for the Grashorn but is said to be happy with the deal. His museum of live and preserved freaks and oddities will occupy a prime location between Zamperla’s new Luna Park on the former Astroland site and Coney Island USA’s Sideshow and Museum at Surf Ave and 12th Street. The extra added attraction for Strong and company is the apartment on the upper floors.

Grashorn Building, April 19, 2003. Municipal Art Society via flickr

As ATZ reported in “John Strong Sideshow Aims for Coney Island Comeback” (Jan 13, 2010), Strong also proposes putting his ten-in-one sideshow as well as a circus on Thor’s Stillwell property. But several carnivals and amusement operators, including the also rans for the City’s RFP, are vying to lease what remains of Thor’s lots on Stillwell. A decision is expected by mid-February.

In Coney Island: Lost and Found, historian Charles Denson writes that the building at 1104 Surf dates back to the 1880’s and the Grashorn hardware store served Coney Island’s amusement businesses for more than 60 years: “The clapboard façade, dormers, cast iron resting, chimneys and fish-scale shingles were removed when the building was renovated in the 1980s but the mansard roof retains its shape.”

Grashorn Building in 1969. Photo © Charles Denson via Coney Island History Project

The Grashorn is one of six historic structures proposed for city landmark designation by Coney Island USA, the Municipal Art Society and Save Coney Island. In 2004, Coney Island USA received a grant from the JM Kaplan Fund to hire an architectural historian and research old buildings in Coney Island. The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has delayed calendaring the buildings during the rezoning process.

MAS’s Melissa Baldock makes a plea for the Grashorn Building’s landmark designation: “The building could be restored to be a wonderful showpiece of Coney Island’s historic vernacular architecture. It is remarkable that this building, which predates Coney Island’s first enclosed amusement parks and was built around the same time as Coney Island (and America’s) first roller coaster, survives in 2009. However, without landmark status, there is no guarantee that this piece of Coney Island history will be part of its future.”

UPDATE April 29, 2010:

Translation: More Bull-Sitt from Thor Equities. More deliberately created empty lots.

Coney Island 2010: Good Riddance to Thor Equities Flopped Flea Market, Hello Rides?

Posted in Real Estate, Redevelopment, tagged amusement park, Coney Island, Coney Island Redevelopment, flea market, Joe Sitt, Stillwell Avenue, Thor Equities on January 8, 2010| 5 Comments »

Good riddance to the tube socks, cellphone accessories, shoe stores and automative supplies of Thor’s Flea in-fest-ation of last summer! Welcome back amusement rides on Coney Island’s Stillwell Avenue? We hope so….

New Sign on Stillwell. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

On Thursday the Coney Island Rumor Mill was abuzz as new signage advertising the property “For Lease” was going up at Thor Equities flea market on Stillwell behind Nathan’s. Photographer and ATZ contributor Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 snapped a photo as dusk fell over the wind-ripped tenting that housed Joe Sitt’s flop of a flea last summer. “Maybe the second highest bidder for city land would be interested in this parcel,” Handy speculated. “Gets a lot of traffic from Nathans and the subway.”

Our guess is that several bidders, including the soon-to-be designated winner, have already made inquiries about leasing Thor’s Stillwell property. During the reply period for the City’s RFP for a Coney Island Amusement Operator to bring rides and attractions to land newly purchased from Joe Sitt, potential bidders asked the City about the adjacent vacant lots. The contact info for Thor Equities and Horace Bullard was posted on the City’s Q & A for all potential bidders to see.

Land for Lease by Thor Equities: The Stillwell parcels north of the city-owned Parcels B & C and south of the Bowery. Parcel A is the former Astroland, which is now owned by the City and was up for bid in the RFP. NYCEDC Map.

The timing of Thor’s signs couldn’t have been better. The short-listed respondents to the City’s RFP were reportedly in the City yesterday and today for meetings with the NYCEDC. If the bidders who didn’t make the short list have fire in their belly to come to Coney Island, now is the time for them to deal with Sitt or Bullard. Given Thor Equities’ history of sky-high rents and onerous lease terms, we think the parcels will go to the most highly motivated bidder.

We think the winner of the City’s 10-year lease on their newly acquired 6.9 acres will want to get control of all of Stillwell and keep other amusement operators from gaining a foothold in Coney Island. Joe Sitt sold approximately half of his Stillwell property to the City. But what good is half a sandwich? It’s not enough if you’re an amusement operator with ambitions of becoming the City’s single operator in Coney Island at the end of the 10-year lease.

Summer 2009: At Thor Equities Flea by the Sea, "Tons of Fun" = Lots of Schlock. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

A RECAP OF THOR’S UNAMUSING FLEA IN-FEST-ATION

After we reported “Memorial Day Weekend Mania: Thor Equities Coney Flea In-Fest-ation Is a Flop” (May 27, 2009), Thor brazenly went back to calling the so called fest “Flea by the Sea,” both on their website and ads. And why not? “Festival by the Sea” was indeed a flea market by the sea. Even though the permit was for a “temporary fair” because the original application for a flea market was disapproved by the DOB, the City did not enforce its own zoning against the illegal flea market in the amusement zone. “Tons of fun” it was not. A salsa band playing two sets on Saturday and Sunday was the sole entertainment at what was wrongfully billed as “A uniquely entertaining and amusing flea market in Coney Island.” We are not exaggerating. If you can stomach it, please view our complete flickr set of Thor Equities Flea Market.

We were not amused by auto supplies at Thor Equities Flea Market in Coney Island. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

May 31, 2009: We were not amused by auto supplies at Thor Equities Flea Market in Coney Island. In the background: Shuttered Balloon Racing Game in Thor-owned Henderson Bldg. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Yet we saw police towing away ice cream carts belonging to vendors who lacked licenses. The little guys get their businesses shut down while Thor gets this incubator project for his shopping mall. To people who say to us, the tents are pretty or it’s better than an empty lot, we say Thor Equities deliberately created the empty lots on Stillwell in 2007, when they evicted or bulldozed thriving amusements. Remember the batting cages, go karts, bumper boats, mini golf, and climbing wall? Let’s bring ’em back to Coney Island in 2010.