In Coney Island's Future, Looking to Past Glory

New York Times ^ | 4/18/05 | Joseph Berger

[saquin]

For decades, talk about a revival of Coney Island was shrugged off by the area's veterans as a distortion in a fun house mirror. Such talk was about a Coney Island of the Mind that did not match the reality of a shrunken and forlorn stretch of boardwalk concession stands and down-at-the-heels amusement rides.

But despite a long history of shattered dreams, there are signs that perhaps this time a rebirth is in the offing. Not only is a new stadium for the minor-league Brooklyn Cyclones drawing full houses, but the vacant lots that were the legacy of the arson-plagued 1970's are being snapped up at double the prices of five years ago.

One national mall developer, Thor Equities, is buying many of the hot-dog stands and honky-tonk arcades between the Boardwalk and Surf Avenue so it can build a colossal indoor complex that, rumor has it, will include a water park.

Landowners who held on to their properties for decades waiting for casino gambling or another white knight are finding Thor's prices irresistible, said Charles Denson, the author of "Coney Island: Lost and Found."

"It's really happening," he said. "For someone like me who studies Coney Island, this is it."

More than 10 million people streamed to the 2.7 mile-beach last summer - five times as many as in 1998, by Department of Parks and Recreation estimates - as the newest immigrants and European tourists discovered the bracing Atlantic surf and the gaudy anarchy of the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel and Nathan's Famous.

This year, beachgoers will arrive through a new solar-paneled Stillwell Avenue terminal for the D, F and Q trains that replaced one rank with urine. And even the restored Parachute Jump, a 262-foot Brooklyn icon, will soon be newly illuminated, though no entrepreneur willing to pay the sky-high insurance premiums for operating an actual ride has emerged.

To manage the growth, the Bloomberg administration will soon release a blueprint for turning Coney Island into a year-round pleasure site that would include shops and apartments facing the sea.

But some of these trends worry ride operators and concessionaires, who fear that sanitized chain restaurants will replace the more raucous outdoor joints where hot dogs are dished out by a crusty character, not a teenager trained to mouth formulaic pleasantries. They are concerned that the place will lose the flamboyant look of hand-painted signs with lurid block lettering advertising fried clams, cold beer and hot knishes.

"People come to this beach because they can't afford a vacation," said the manager of Gyro Corner, who gave his name as Joey Clams. "They bring their own food. They don't need expensive restaurants."

Dick D. Zigun, a tattooed impresario who runs what he says is America's last 10-act sideshow of sword swallowers, fire-eaters and snake charmers, says that a mall might prompt the city to abandon Coney Island's amusement zoning altogether and replace carnivals with condos. Coney Island would get too clean, upscale and homogenous.

He said he did not entirely believe assurances by the Coney Island Development Corporation, which is drawing up the renewal blueprint, that it will retain the old flavor. Not a single amusement operator is on its board, he noted.

"They say, 'Don't worry,' but everyone's worried," said Mr. Zigun, who is treated as Coney Island's unofficial mayor. "Coney Island has a rich history just like Times Square, and to lose that would be a shame."

Joshua Sirefman, president of the development corporation, said, "We've worked very hard to develop a strategy that balances new growth while respecting the core of what makes Coney Island Coney Island." He declined to provide specifics about what might be included in the plan.

The building that houses Mr. Zigun's Coney Island U.S.A. - a charmingly garish sideshow stage as well as a one-room museum with old carousel horses and fun house mirrors - is for sale, and Mr. Zigun has been given only a one-year extension on his expiring lease.

Ten years ago, Orestis Plaitis did his small part in the revival by buying Gyro Corner. The building he rents has now been bought up by Thor, and Gyro's manager, Joey Clams, said that Mr. Plaitis might become a casualty of renewal. "Now that it looks like something's going to happen , we'd like to be included in the future of Coney Island," he said.

When asked to confirm talk that the mall might include an indoor water park and hang-gliding rides, Lee Silberstein, a spokesman for Thor, which has a $2.4 billion portfolio, said only that it would include "a mix of amusements and retail that would build on Coney Island's history."

In the early decades of the 20th century, Coney Island was America's funfair, with fantasylands like Luna Park and Steeplechase Park drawing families hungry for release from daily solemnities.

But starting in the 1950's, as a result of air-conditioning, inexpensive travel, television, and the popularity of Jones Beach, Coney went into a decline as steep as the drop from the Cyclone's peak.

The city bulldozed tenements and modest houses and replaced them with housing projects, whose residents were sometimes blamed for a surge in crime. Coney Island had always had its sordid alleyways, but gangs, drugs, prostitutes, graffiti and arson took the fun out of the area, and it became more of a pathetic eyesore than a cotton candy treat.

There were dreams of rescue by gambling casinos or Disney. But as crime plummeted in the 1990's, Coney Island began turning around on its own. The New York Aquarium proved to be an irresistible lure, drawing almost 800,000 visitors yearly. The operators of Astroland, the Wonder Wheel and other amusements dug in their heels. "It's a business you get attached to because it's a business in which you make people happy," said Astroland's co-owner, Carol Hill Albert. She said that her business had doubled in a decade and that she had spent $1.5 million on new equipment in the last year.

Coney ringmasters like Mr. Zigun, 51, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and others introduced larks like the annual Mermaid Parade, drawing artists and bohemians. A more polyglot generation of immigrants began wondering what Coney's hoopla was about.

"Even if you don't speak English, if somebody swallows a fire or hammers a nail into their head, you're entertained," Mr. Zigun said.

To be sure, Coney has a long way to go. There are more than 50 vacant lots, many used for parking school buses. The stretch of boardwalk concessions is still just four blocks long, and the amusement corridor is no bigger than a heartland country fair.

But as Chuck Reichenthal, district manager of Community Board 13, showed this reporter around, signs of a rebound were everywhere: an almost elegant new Chinese restaurant, the steel frame of what will be an upscale gym, houses bought up by immigrants, bustling mom-and-pop shops on Mermaid Avenue that were once boarded up, and three new boardwalk bathrooms.

This summer, the parks department plans to start building a $1.2 million concrete cycling and skating path on the beach just below the boardwalk to tap another group of recreation lovers. Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, credits the transcendent lure of the beach his department maintains for the revival. "It's the world's largest natural air-conditioner," he said, quoting a onetime beach publicist.

"One gets the feeling that the magic of Coney Island, which had been reduced to a little ember, is now back," Mr. Benepe said.

[saquin]

I've only been to Coney Island once, a few years ago. Rode the Cyclone twice. Whoa, that first drop's a real doozy. The Wonder Wheel was great too, as long as you get a moving car.

It was a beautiful sunny day and though the place was a little seedy it felt perfectly safe and was full of people.

It's a shame it was allowed to fall into such disrepair for years though its great that icons like the Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and Nathan's Famous are still operating and the Parachute Jump is still there even though it's not operational. I hope the offbeat character of the place isn't lost in the process of renovation and reinvestment.

I've always had a nostalgic soft spot in my heart for the early-1900s "glory days" of Coney Island, even though it was decades before I was born. Don't know why but just looking at a picture of Dreamland or Luna Park circa 1905, all lit up with glittering lights, makes my heart ache a little. It's just one of those little unexplained obsessions we all seem to have a few of. There's a part of me that would love to travel back in time and experience it. It must have been a thrilling sight in those early days of electricity.

[Clemenza]

I don't know. I used to go to Coney Island frequently in the summer. I like the grungy atmosphere free of gentrification and the Ivy League Douchebag yuppies from Ohio and California that it brings with it. One of the last vestiges of the REAL New York.

Would be nice if they could get rid of the junk whores in the winter though.

Believe it or not, there are some NICE condos in the Brighton Beach section of Coney Island (yes folks, Brighton Beach IS part of Coney Island). Love the Russian cafes too.

[BrooklynGOP]

Brighton Beach/Manhattan beach condos are $$$. Have you seen this, yet?