Local Officials Propose Big Changes to City's Coney Plan
A local politician with sympathies for Thor Equities and a poor grasp of English grammar is trying to throw a wrench into the City’s plan for the revamp of Coney Island. Community Board 13 is supporting a recent plan proposed by City Councilman Domenic Recchia to increase the size of retail stores that would be…
A local politician with sympathies for Thor Equities and a poor grasp of English grammar is trying to throw a wrench into the City’s plan for the revamp of Coney Island. Community Board 13 is supporting a recent plan proposed by City Councilman Domenic Recchia to increase the size of retail stores that would be allowed along Surf Avenue from 2,500 square feet to 10,000 square feet. Responding to critics’ fears that the amusment area will end up looking like a suburban strip mall, Recchia said, “We don’t want no Walmarts in Coney Island.” Ouch! The retail boost is only one of about 20 changes that Recchia has put on the table; others include opposing the city’s plan to reserve 12 acres of land for amusements, increasing parking at KeySpan Park and banning any new construction that would block the Parachute Jump. A Thor Equities spokesman called the proposals “the beginning of an attempt to make a bad plan better” and a Bloomberg flak described some of the changes, including the retail suggestion, “problematic.” What a mess.
Local Officials Call for Major Revamp of Coney Island Plan [NY Daily News]
Photo by dietrich
wasder – it’s very cool that people actually lived in that house! I assumed it was Woody’s imagination. I moved to Bklyn in ’86 and don’t remember ever seeing the Thunderbolt during my CI visits. Looking forward to seeing your photos.
Honestly- I would have loved to live in that house. But I’m kinda odd anyway 🙂
mscrotchety–there was never a house under the Cyclone but there most definitely was one under the Thunderbolt. It was never operational in the years I used to hang out there alot but there were definitely still people living in the house underneath it.
Please do post a picture wasder…the Woody Allen movie was “Annie Hall”. When he has flashbacks to his childhood the family is living in a house that shakes from being right under a loop in the roller coaster…but I always assumed it was the Cyclone.
I can’t even really face telling my daughter about what happened to Coney Island. I have this fantasy that by this summer or next some rides will be back and we can go. She adores it and so do I. sigh.
wasder- I love the old building details and signs. Any of those? Childs has some of he mose wonderful terracotta I’ve seen.
“don’t you think gentrification is both a 2 way street and a double-edged sword?”
Completely agree. I am obviously of the “gentrifier” demographic (ie white, upwardly mobile etc) but have very working class Brooklyn roots and have lived all over the borough at one time or another. I appreciate a beer at the seaside in one of those divy russian bars on the boardwalk in Manhattan Beach and also a very fine and expensive Martini. It is so easy on the internet to force people into boxes. There are many things that have been lost in NYC over the years that weren’t necessarily sexy or lucrative or even safe that I miss none-the-less. then again well planned out urban renewal such as what seems to have occurred in the Myrtle Ave corridor (I am sure many will disagree with this) improves the city. Nuanced positions are a tough thing to defend on the internet, that much I know is true.
Ditto–will scan a shot or two of the Thunderbolt for you.
wasder – post a pic!
And I wish I had that attitude too, rob! 🙂
Thanks wasder- don’t you think gentrification is both a 2 way street and a double-edged sword? I don’t blame people- if you loook at New Yorkers they always pull together, they live their lives and deal with change all the time. But then you get politicians who never miss an opportunity to mess it up. Coney Island would have come around. Keyspan Park was the beginning. All the groundwork laid with the Coney Island museum and the Coney Island hisptory project, and the Wall of Remembrance- not to mention the wonderful ocean- people were beginning to come back. Now politicans have once again ruined the cycle.
What I find so very painful about losing Coney Island is that NYC is losing a part of something so integral to its soul. Coney Island was the classic kids fantasy (adults too!), it always had such magic to me. Maybe all the great memories I have of going there as a kid- I don’t know. Maybe I’m just the kind of person who gets left behind in thses tings.
ditto–it was called the Thunderbolt. I was so sorry when it was knocked down. Have a bunch of cool photos of it though. It was also the basis for a house that Woody Allen fictionally resided in in one of his films (can’t remember which). When I first moved to NYC as an adult I lived with my grandmother in Sheepshead Bay and there was still a family living in that house.