Reimagining the Coney Bank Building
The Bank of Coney Island, a neo-classical building at 1124 Surf Avenue, is slated for demolition by Thor Equities. The group Save Coney Island, which has fought tirelessly against Thor’s development plans, came up with this rendering to imagine its restoration. “The Bank of Coney Island could be restored and re-purposed as a Bowery-Ballroom-style event…
The Bank of Coney Island, a neo-classical building at 1124 Surf Avenue, is slated for demolition by Thor Equities. The group Save Coney Island, which has fought tirelessly against Thor’s development plans, came up with this rendering to imagine its restoration. “The Bank of Coney Island could be restored and re-purposed as a Bowery-Ballroom-style event space, says spokesman Juan Rivero. This would not only preserve one of Coney’s most attractive and historic structures, but also give new life to the amusement area and contribute to its revitalization. Thor hasn’t expressed any interest in the building’s preservation, and obtained a demolition permit in August.
Nope- we’re not. Like you and benson, we simply agree on a lot of of things.
At first I thought that sign said “The Wanker’s Ballroom”.
MM and bxgrl, are you guys roommates or something? It seems that whenever one of you posts, the other answers immediately.
Either way, I agree with Benson.
What Montrose said. And said well.
There is indeed rationale to what can and should be saved. You don’t agree with that rationale, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Preservation as a movement didn’t begin yesterday. It’s been a viable part of this country officially since the Historic Sites Act of 1935, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been around since 1949. Even before that, preservation had grass roots movements for specific places and structures.
No one is holding Thor equities up from doing anything. Since you prowl around there so much, surely you’ve seen the empty lots where his flea markets were. If he wanted to build, he’s got land. He’s holding back for his own reasons, probably foremost being the economy in general, and looking for more favorable tax breaks from the city. THis bank, and for that matter the other three or four buildings that he owns, are a pittance in his plans. This bank is on a side street, and could very easily be repurposed as the CI people would like. There is no reason to tear it down.
He’s not proposing some kind of altruistic hospital or middle income housing for this site, he’s a flipper who will build a Burger King and a strip mall while he figures out how to do a better deal. The idea that preservation is preventing him from conducting business is absurd.
Lastly, I know you wouldn’t spit on preservation if it was on fire, let alone donate. You loss. This city is a lot finer because people cared enough to save our architectural and cultural heritage. That includes the buildings and homes of the rich and poor alike, high culture and low.
The parachute jump, the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel and other attractions are historic, iconic parts of Coney Island. We are not speaking of such a structure here.
Rather, we are speaking of a run-of-the-mill bank building that is about as evocative of Coney Island’s hey-day as my dress shoes. I still maintain that no one paid attention to THIS building until Thor announced that it was planning to raze it. I have passed this building a number of times this summer, and still wonder what the fuss is about.
Regarding this statement:
“There’s a lot to save, all over the city and country, and time and resources have to be intelligently and carefully allocated, and unfortunately, sometimes attention can only be paid when it comes down to the wire.”
This again highlights my beef wrt the preservation movement, in two ways:
-again, there is no rationale for what should be saved.
-you are basically reserving the right to hold up development projects while the preservation movement figures out if the building is worthwhile. You are adding another risk to the development process, which will only serve to increase the cost of building in a city where costs are already sky high.
I think the preservation movement would serve itself well if it honed its mission in a more realistic fashion.
I do not plan to donate to the preservation movement. Sorry, it’s not one of my top causes.
What makes you think they only started up after Thor Equities bought property? The Parachute Jump was put on the National Historic register in the 80’s and I am not usre when the Cyclone was landmarked but it predates Joe Sitt. There have always been people fighting to preserve Coney Island’s unique character- just because you didn’t know about it, benson, doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening.
MM- benson donate to a preservation organization? Never happen. He likes to tear things down,and see them replaced with modern construction, fedders though it may be.
Benson, that’s a ridiculous standard that you are holding average people to. The Greg Connolly’s of the world are few, unfortunately.
I’ve met some of the people involved in the Coney Island Preservation movement, and none of them are rich. They’ve also been involved in preserving CI far longer than Thor Equities has had an interest in the place. Like most grass roots preservationists and organizers, they are mostly people of average means doing their best to provide for family, while volunteering to save their neighborhood. They can’t run out and buy buildings just because they want to. Most of them are the people you are always championing, the blue collar average Joe, and Coney Island is part of their family’s history, their parents worked and played there, and they’ve lived there their entire lives.
A couple of the historic buildings have been purchased and saved, but that took a lot of time, a lot of money and a fair amount of luck and serendipidy, and a hell of a lot of hard work. Volunteers can only do so much.
The movement to preserve and revitalize Coney Island is much, much older than Thor’s appearance. And the greater preservation movement has long known about these buildings, they’ve been on preservation watch lists for years. There’s a lot to save, all over the city and country, and time and resources have to be intelligently and carefully allocated, and unfortunately, sometimes attention can only be paid when it comes down to the wire.
If that doesn’t work for you, please donate money to the preservation organization of your choice so they can have more funds to get on projects much earlier, so buildings can be saved well before the bulldozers roll in.
As little as 10 years ago, land in Coney Island was pretty cheap. The reason? It was largely a down-at-the-heals kind of place. It would have been relatively easy for a “preservationist” type developer of modest means to swoop in, grab alot of buildings and shape it according to his vision. A good example is Greg Connelly in Red Hook. I tip my hat to him, even if I don’t necessarily agree with his “vision”.
In the case of Coney Island, we have a preservationist group that forms only AFTER another developer buys up the place. Did anyone in the preservationist community even know this bank building existed 10 years ago? I highly doubt it.
That is my beef with the preservationist community: I have never seen a rationale put forth on what should be saved, and what shouldn’t. Rather, what I often see on these pages is: “It’s an old building, we just learned that it will be knocked down by a developer, but it catches our fancy and therefore should be saved.”
Thor is not looking to build anything impressive. They want to clear the site for national strip mall chains like Rite Aid, Subway and KFC. Leasing to national chains is what Thor does.
I believe Thor has built one building in its history. It is all about the leasing and the flip.