Out and Back

The latest from Coney Island

I'm as late as can be on this bit of news and my favorite Brooklyn/Coney Island blogs have had much better coverage, but I would like to acknowledge that there have been some semi-positive developments in the Coney Island redevelopment saga recently:

On November 8, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a new plan for Coney Island. Bloomberg announced that the city has plans to acquire all the land between KeySpan Park and the Cyclone (basically the existing amusement area), re-zone it, and lease it to a developer who will keep it as an amusement zone.  So your favorite megalomaniac and mine, Joe Sitt, is OUT (at least out of that section.)  That's the nice part.  Based on what I've read, Joey Coney will still have something to do with Coney Island since it sounds like the city might offer to swap parcels of land with him.

Bloomberg went on to unveil some more extensive plans for the neighborhood, including a section west of KeySpan that will be zoned for residential development.  So while the city won't entirely purge the residential element from the plan, I suppose the good news is that at least it's going to be in a better spot -- west of the amusements in an area that doesn't have a whole lot going on right now anyway.

I'll be curious to see how this all plays out -- I'm glad to see the amusement zone pried from Joe Sitt's control, but I still have my doubts about the city's redevelopment plans.  The Gowanus Lounge had a lot of excellent posts on the subject throughout the month of November; this one, in particular, was especially good.  Kinetic Carnival has some great posts, too, about the opposition that has sprung up in the face of the city's announcements.

The end result remains to be seen, but I do find the city's plan marginally more appealing than Sitt's and am hopeful that my favorite neighborhood will finally get the TLC it needs.

More story

Here's some more of the story I started a couple of months ago. I posted the first part here.

The smell of mildew and god-knows-what-else was starting to bug me, so I walked outside into the early autumn sunshine and took a few deep breaths. As I looked around the almost-deserted street, I was surprised to see my father tottering down the block, leaning on the beechwood cane that had become his regular companion in recent years. He was nattily dressed in olive slacks, a crisp white shirt, and a tweed blazer that I knew was ancient but still looked brand-new. His only concession to age was a more comfortable pair of shoes: comfort mocs from L.L. Bean instead of the Chelsea-style boots he'd always worn when I was a kid. His bifocals were smudge-free, as usual, and a gray wool cabby cap covered what was left of his white hair. On his face, he wore his usual grouchy expression.

"Dad!" I strode toward him, my voice a mix of pleasure and irritation. "I'd have picked you up if you wanted to come down here! Why didn't you call me?" I gestured toward my car, a mid-80s Chevy El Camino that I really only used for hauling stuff. I paid more to garage it than I did to maintain it, but I couldn't make myself sell it. Besides, it came in handy from time to time.

He waved his hand, dismissively. "I took the bus," he rumbled, clearing his throat. "I'm not totally helpless, you know."

I knew better than to argue with him. Still, the thought of him on the 68 bus made me chuckle to myself.

"Is this it?" he asked, looking at my building like it was radioactive.

"Yep."

"You paid money for this piece of shit?"

Every so often, my father dispensed with the professorial comportment and cursed like a sailor.

"Hey!" I replied, sharply. "I told you that the only way you could have anything to do with this undertaking was if you kept your opinions to yourself." I smiled, sweetly. "Don't start talking shit about my building."

"Stella Gail!" he admonished me. "I wish you wouldn't use language like that."

"Like father, like daughter," I retorted.

He bade a verbal retreat from our little confrontation with a pointed harrumph and a sulky expression.

"Come on," I murmured, dragging the metal shutter down over the window. "Let's get a hot dog."

"Heartburn, Stella…." He warned.

"Oh, quit fussing. If you didn't insist on loading it up with sauerkraut it might not be so bad."

He gave an exasperated sigh and began following me slowly up the block. Once we got to Nathan's, he opted for clam strips and onion rings and I got a hot dog, sprucing it up with my condiments of choice: ketchup and chopped onions. We carried our food up Henderson walk to the boardwalk and found a bench. I balanced my beer on the bench beside me as I settled myself, slouching into my favored half-sitting, half-reclining position with my feet propped on the railing opposite us.

I took a big bite of my lunch and noticed my father staring at me with a somewhat baffled expression on his face.

"What?" My mouth was full of hot dog, so the word came out sounding fatter and lower than usual, a greasy syllable punctuated only by the sound of a seagull crying out as it passed.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Honestly, I thought to myself as I chewed. Am I always going to be six years old to him? A tiny dribble of ketchup landed on the napkin I'd spread across my lap.

"Careful, don't spill your food. I really don't know why you insist on sitting that way."

"Dad, this is the only way to eat a hot dog," I replied. "The best part about the meal is the seating and the view." I gestured toward the ocean that rippled in the distance. "Where else can you put your feet up and eat a hot dog?"

Dad didn't say anything.

"Look around, Pop," I prodded. "This is our living room!"

The boardwalk was more or less deserted. Earlier, I'd heard the unmistakable sound of an NYPD cruiser rumbling over its perpetually feeble surface, and a few elderly power walkers were out, but that was it save for a couple of tiny human-shaped dots at the end of the pier that I assumed were people fishing. It was a beautiful autumn day – cool, but still sunny. To a casual observer, it could have passed for just another summer day at Coney Island, save for the fact that the Wonder Wheel had been stripped of its cars for the season and most of the rest of the amusements were similarly shuttered.

The faintest trace of a grin appeared on my father's face.

"You really love it here." It was a statement, not a question.

"You know I do," I replied, chewing my way through a few more inches of my hot dog and washing the food down with a swig of beer. "Don't you?"

I should mention that when I saved this section in plain text format (for ease of posting) I just went with the default file name, taken from the first sentence: "The smell of mildew and god." Might not be a bad title for the whole story....

My life wasn't always like this

Back in June, on a flight from Miami to Charlotte, the title of this post -- and the start of the fictional story below -- got stuck in my head.  I pulled out my laptop and started writing.  Here's a snippet:

My life wasn’t always like this.

That thought looped around and around in my brain, like the rickety carnival rides that were still surviving just up the street from where I now stood.  Every day during the summer, at least two or three people got sick from the Breakdancer, one of the more brutal ones.  I’d ridden it once, years ago.  I barely escaped with my lunch still in my stomach.  The operator would let it run for the standard amount of time, at the standard speed.  Then he would stop it and let anyone who was feeling queasy disembark, and treat the stalwarts who remained aboard to another spin.  The second time, though, he sped the fool thing up and let it run a little longer.  If the first go-round didn’t make you sick, the encore was bound to.  Sadistic bastard.

Idly, I wondered how many queasy people per day would stop by my shop once I opened for business… queasy people desperate for ginger ale or cola after one too many trips on the Breakdancer or the Cyclone.  I was already planning to sell both, along with mint and ginger tea.  If nothing else, my own uncooperative digestive system had made me an expert on quick remedies for an upset stomach.

I wasn’t sure when I would open for business, but I was hoping it would be in time for opening weekend in April.  My beloved Coney Island had been getting a lot of attention in the press due to some of the unsavory developers who had been threatening to demolish what was left of the amusement zone, so I guessed a lot of people would show up to see what all the fuss was about.  I wanted to be there to sell them a good, cheap cup of coffee.  At the height of summer, people weren’t going to be much for hot coffee, so my plan was to have cold drinks on hand, too, along with the standard coffee shop fare like bagels, pastries, and sandwiches.

Unless the aforementioned unsavory developers got their way, I had a feeling a certain national (and mediocre, in my opinion) coffee shop chain wouldn’t deign to open a store in Coney Island, so I figured I was safe from competition for the time being.  My little storefront was squished in between a couple of mangled, run-down buildings on Surf Avenue.  That morning, I had signed the papers and officially taken ownership of my own little piece of Coney.  The building was a wreck.  The roof leaked, it was drafty, and it smelled horrible.  One of those decrepit metal shutters rolled down over the entire front entrance, and the graffiti tags covering it reminded me, oddly, of a Jackson Pollock painting.  I was certain, too, that the electrical was shot to hell, despite the fact that the lights still came on about 90% of the time when I flipped the switch.

I had put down more money than I cared to think about for the privilege of owning this diminutive disaster area.  As I stood in the middle of the space, gazing dispiritedly around and thinking about all that I needed to do to get ready for April and about how much money I was going to have to spend in the process, I wondered, for the millionth time, if I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

My life wasn’t always like this.

I was born a suburbanite, on the west coast.  My father was a university professor and my mother had been a nurse.  Both worked for the same university, my father in the sociology department and my mother in administration at the student health center.  Until my mother passed away, my parents had lived in the same house I had grown up in, a split-entry 60s era house in one of Seattle’s many bedroom communities.  After Mom died, Dad didn’t know what to do with himself.  He was in his early 80s, and although his body was starting to fail him, he hadn’t done much other than slow down a bit.  His mental acuity was still thoroughly amazing.  He still talked like a professor.  But without my mother, his life was more or less meaningless.  So I brought him to Brooklyn to live with me.

There's more, but it's on my other laptop.

Nathan's not-so-famous?

So my husband and I stopped at one of the many dollar stores in our little corner of South Carolina tonight.  Hubby was looking for some inexpensive scissors for pruning our aquarium plants, and I'm never one to pass up the chance to see what kind of unusual, off-brand items are hiding in the dollar store.  We browsed for a bit, and my husband found some "Japanese peanuts" (peanuts in a rice cracker coating) and some stuffed olives that struck his fancy, and I nosed around the candy aisle to see if there was anything good.  I'm always on the lookout for good gummy candy, in particular... gummy colas are my favorite, followed by gummy cherries and gummy bears.  (I suppose if I ate a gummy cola and a gummy cherry at the same time it might be kind of like a gummy cherry cola, huh?  I'll have to try that sometime.)

Alas, I found neither gummy cherries nor gummy colas, but I did find gummy Nathan's hot dogs.  If you think I'm lying, look here.  They come complete with gummy relish and gummy ketchup, but they were just a little too weird for me so I didn't buy any.  Do they actually try to make them taste like hot dogs, I wonder?  I guess they wouldn't be bad with a few gummy colas...

Next thing you know you'll be able to get gummy Totonno's pizzas and gummy Coney Island Lager!

Back 2 Skool

All right.  I recently commented on the Gowanus Lounge that I was going to school Joe Sitt on the finer points of historic preservation and the economic advantages thereof.  I'm putting my money where my mouth is.  I went straight to my darlin' hubby, my resident authority on all things HP, and he did not disappoint.  I asked him, "Sweetie, if you were going to put together a syllabus for Joey Coney, what would be on it?"  His reply: "Well, any pact between historic preservationists and real estate developers is a deal with the devil."

(Isn't he a badass?  I'm so glad I married him.)

As I was saying, the huzbin' came through for me.  He put together a bang-up list of articles and books especially for Joe, and made the very salient point that if we want to get real estate developers to give two hoots about preservation issues, we have to appeal to their wallets.  Any preservation argument that's going to carry any weight with a developer must, by definition, be an economic one.  So, without further ado, here's some light reading for Joe to take to the beach, conveniently categorized by subject:

Economic arguments
Rypkema, D. (2005). The economics of historic preservation: a community leader's guide (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C: National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Mason, R. (2005.) The economics of historic preservation. A Brookings Institute Report available at http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050926_preservation.htm
Cunningham, S. (2002). The restoration economy: the greatest new growth frontier: immediate & emerging opportunities for businesses, communities & investors. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Sustainability/environmental arguments
Rypkema, D. (2006). Historic preservation as sustainable development. Preservation Perspective : NJ, 25 (1): 1, 3, 7.
Elefante, C. (2007). The greenest building is...one that is already built. Forum Journal, 21 (4): 26-38.
Jackson, M. (2005). Embodied energy and historic preservation: a needed reassessment. APT Bulletin, 36 (4): 47-52.
Parks, S. (1998). Sustainable design and historic preservation. CRM bulletin, 21 (2): 13-16. Available at http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/21-2/21-2-4.pdf

General books on historic preservation
Stipe, R. E. (ed.) (2003). A richer heritage: historic preservation in the twenty-first century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Tyler, N. & Tyler, N. (2000). Historic preservation: an introduction to its history, principles, and practice. New York: W.W. Norton.
Murtagh, W. J. (2006). Keeping time: the history and theory of preservation in America (3rd ed.). Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley.
Tung, A. M. (2001). Preserving the world's great cities: the destruction and renewal of the historic metropolis. New York: Clarkson Potter.

Put that in your bookbag and smoke it.

P.S.: The main branch of the New York Public Library is located at 498 5th Ave.  Do you need me to draw you a map?

Joey, Joey, Joey.....

The latest from the "Joe Sitt Sux" Newsdesk: Apparently, Thor Equities has abruptly ended negotiations with Coney Island USA over the latter's desire to use city grant money to purchase the Grasshorn building from the former.  The Gowanus Lounge has more coverage and analysis of the story which appeared in amNY yesterday.

As for me, I have to say that this kind of thing just makes me want to cry.  There is precious little left of Coney Island's historic fabric, and a greedy developer with no concept or appreciation for that fact is just going to rip it all down rather than sell a property to an organization that has a commitment to preserving the area's traditions and culture.  It boggles the mind -- I can't decide if Joe Sitt is a bully, a well-intentioned moron, or a con artist.  Maybe a mix of all three.  All I know is that he could potentially contribute tremendously to the revitalization of Coney Island.  If he or one of his PR minions should happen across this post, so much the better.  Maybe if I actually get to talk to the guy he won't seem like such an elitist tyrant.  Here are my suggestions for him:

* Promise to keep Astroland open for at least another season and follow through on that promise.

* Sell the Grasshorn building to Coney Island USA.

* Get rid of ALL the residential components in your plans. News flash: time shares are still residential, dude.

* Build on a HUMAN scale.  Don't dwarf the parachute jump with generic high-rises.  Build with the existing landscape, not against it.  Like it or not, there are at least four landmarked structures within spitting distance of your property.  Respect them.

* A hotel or two might be OK.  I'm thinking "boutique motels"... low-slung structures so kitschy it'll blow your mind.  Check out the StarLux in Wildwood, NJ or Kate's Lazy Meadow in Mt. Tremper, NY for inspiration... then take the concept and do it up Coney style.

* Encourage a diverse mix of retailers, restaurants, and services in whatever buildings you may build.... more independent businesses, fewer homogeneous chains.

* Keep Coney Island "the people's playground."  If the people who can afford to visit Coney now won't be able to afford to after your redevelopment is done, we have a problem.

* Keep the focus on amusements.  If you insist one more time that amusement parks aren't profitable by themselves, I'm going to throw myself out a window.  If a business isn't profitable, you're not running it right.  At least have the decency to show us your feasibility studies that suggest that amusements aren't profitable by themselves.  Back up your statements with some evidence, already.

* Talk to the experts.  Learn about things like historic preservation and adaptive re-use.  Read up.  I'll even point you toward some good books and case studies to get you started.

* Listen more.  Treat the neighborhood's stakeholders with the respect they deserve.  (As in, don't pull any more stupid stunts like evicting Dianna Carlin or holding Astroland hostage until you get your zoning variances.)

And finally... if you can't or won't redevelop along these (or similar) lines, then get out.  Sell your properties to someone who will.

Obsession

I stayed up far too late last night doing research on a building located on Surf Avenue in Coney Island.  It's not a fabulous architectural gem like the Child's building or the Shore Theatre, but I noticed it as I was hunting through books and satellite photos, looking for a visual on a suitable building I could use as a "model" in the work of fiction I've been trying to write since last fall.  My husband agreed that I had found a good specimen of beat-up, run-down, re-muddled Coney Island architecture.  Last night, over whipped-up ice cream at Spill the Beans (a local ice cream parlor/coffee joint not too far from our home) I asked my resident architectural conservation expert all kinds of hypothetical questions about my hypothetical building in the name of research.  Our conversation went something like this:

"Say the building's been abandoned for ten years.  What would be wrong with it?"

"The roof would be leaking, badly," he replied. "And there would be plaster all over the floor.  It would fall from the ceiling wherever the water leaked through."

"Keep going."

"On the third floor, you'd probably be able to see sky through the holes that had started to form, and there would be some pretty serious dry rot in the floor, too.  Especially if the roof sloped down from the front of the building to the back."

"Anything else?"

"Your electric would have been shut off, most likely, and you'd have to get the building back up to code before the utility company would turn it back on for you.  Oh, and there would be pigeon shit everywhere."

"Seagulls," I corrected him.  This was Coney Island we were talking about, after all.

"Maybe, but pigeons, too."

"Sounds like a mess.  Why in hell would someone buy a building like that?"

"You tell me," he replied.

"Oh!" I exclaimed.  "Don't forget the mildew."

Coney Island cover story

I am really going to have to re-christen this blog, "Out and Back: All Coney All The Time" pretty soon.  (Although I still think "Musings from the Mayor of Bitch City" would be a pretty fly tagline, too.)

I promised to expand on the comment I made at the end of my last post about the fact that Joe Sitt and Thor Equities could potentially save Coney Island, but it's getting late and I am in Miami for work and my brain is just about zapped for one evening.  (Really, I should be downing mojitos somewhere in South Beach, but instead I'm here in my hotel room blogging about Coney.  You can thank me later.)  Anyway, I will save my thoughts and (dare I say it?) constructive comments for Joey Coney for when I am more coherent and leave you with this instead:

Coney Island made the cover of the latest issue of Preservation Magazine, the National Trust's semi-monthly publication.  That's crazy cool! Both my hubby the architectural-conservator-cum-Ph.D.-student and I (the shameless Coney Island devotee and guerrilla preservationist) have been wondering when the Trust would throw its hat into the ring on the subject of Coney's latest proposed attraction, Joe Sitt's Condos of DOOOOOOM. Check out an excerpt from the article here.  It's good stuff.

And also, check out the awesome roundups of this past weekend's Mermaid Parade at both Kinetic Carnival and The Gowanus Lounge.  Both blogs provided wonderful vicarious thrills for poor folks like me who were not in Coney this weekend.  Big kisses to both of them for the generous coverage.

Snort!

(Hat tip to the Gowanus Lounge for inspiring me to create the above.)

I recently checked the email account that I use for Out and Back-related correspondence, and noticed that I too have been deemed worthy of communication from Thor Equities' PR firm.  There was an email in there this morning from The Marino Organization about the Town Hall meeting Thor's holding on Tuesday night at the United Community Baptist Church on Mermaid Avenue.

I'm flattered, in a way, that my little blog with, like, two readers is attracting attention from Thor's PR minions.  It's nice to be in the loop, and I'll continue to share the news as I get it (along with a healthy dose of my signature snark, because everyone knows by now that I'm the kind of girl who will hold a developer's feet to the fire if I don't like what they're doing!)

Hotels and timeshares do not an amusement zone make, and using the future of Astroland as a bargaining chip to get the city to capitulate on the zoning variances is totally reprehensible.  (Gowanus Lounge just reported on this latest bit of news today.  Go here to check it out.)  All the news about the "dropped residential component" is just Thor Equities scrambling to start smelling like a rose in time for the Mermaid Parade this weekend if you ask me.  Ain't buyin' it!

And no matter how many emails I get from The Marino Organization, I'm still not going to shy away from saying exactly what I think about Joe Sitt, Thor Equities, and their insidious plans to gentrify Coney Island.  What is saddest, to me, is that Mr. Sitt is in a position to contribute tremendously to the revitalization of the area, yet he just refuses to admit that he might have the wrong idea.

More thoughts on this later.

A Coney Island primer

It appears to be Coney Island Week here at Out and Back, although I suppose my banner makes it pretty clear that the place is never far from my mind.

I've had a couple of visitors echo my sentiments about Joe Sitt's uncalled-for racial stereotyping (see the NY Times article - in which Sitt's offensive remarks are quoted - here), and on Tuesday Colleen stopped by to leave the following words in response to my post about it:

That's a pretty outlandish projection and stereotyped for sure. It makes me want to see Coney Island once before they change it. I've never been, but it would probably make me feel at home since I grew up with an amusement park (smaller one) in my town.

If you hop over to Colleen's blog and page through her wonderful posts (she's a great writer!) you will learn that she grew up in Hull, Massachusetts, which was once home to Paragon Park.  Guess what now stands on the land once occupied by Paragon Park?  Condos.  Sound familiar?

Colleen wrote, "It makes me want to see Coney Island once before they change it," and knowing her I think she would definitely get a kick out of CI as it is today, despite the fact that it's a bit worn out as a result of all the abuse it took in the latter half of the 20th century from Robert Moses, Fred Trump and their ilk.  It's still a fun place to go for a day by the ocean.  I still remember last year when my husband and I drove to CI from our then-home in Pennsylvania.  It was the Saturday of Easter weekend, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous... sunny, but not too warm.  We walked up and down the boardwalk, looking at the ruins of the bungalows, snapping photos of the terra cotta on the Child's building and then ate an entire Totonno's pizza between the two of us.  We had a great time... it was one of the nicest days I'd had in quite a while.

Anyway, seeing Coney Island before Thor Equities rips it up one side and down the other is definitely a good thing to do.  All the same, though, it's definitely a neighborhood that is hurting.  Crime there isn't exactly low, and the vacant lots and run-down buildings cover about the same square footage as the amusements (if not more!)  The spirit of what Coney Island used to be can be really hard to find, but it's still there in places if you know where to look.  It's easier to make sense of what Coney Island has become if you understand more about its history.

Colleen's comment inspired me to post a list of some of my favorite Coney Island "resources," so that people who can't go there in person can get a sense of what the place is about.  I've tried to organize them categorically and thematically, but the list is probably still going to be sort of scattershot, much like Coney itself is.

Coney Island History:
Coney Island: Lost and Found by Charles Denson - as books on Coney's recent history go, this is the Bible as far as I'm concerned.  Charles Denson grew up in Coney Island and was living there when Steeplechase park closed in the 60s.  His book provides a fantastic combination of personal experience as well as analysis of the forces (natural, political, and otherwise) that have shaped the area.

Good Old Coney Island by Edo McCullough - another good book that covers Coney's history.  I've heard this book criticized for being overly sentimental and maybe not completely factually accurate, but I think its heart is in the right place.

Coney Island: The People's Playground by Michael Immerso - this one provides a more basic overview, good if you want to get the big picture quickly.

The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements by Woody Register - the story of the man who created Luna Park, one of Coney Island's "big three" amusement parks (Steeplechase and Dreamland being the other two.)

Coney Island on the Web:
Coney Island, USA - the official website of Coney Island, USA, which bills itself as Coney Island's resident not-for-profit arts organization. I'm a card-carryin' memba'.

Kinetic Carnival - one of my regular reads for keeping up with the latest news about Coney.

The Gowanus Lounge - this blog is devoted to Brooklyn development in general, but there is always generous Coney coverage. (My husband and I are considering NYC in general and Brooklyn in particular as possible destinations once we are finally able to get the HELL out of South Carolina, and the Gowanus Lounge has served as a tremendous resource for not only keeping tabs on CI, but also for becoming much more familiar with the rest of the borough known as Brooklyn.)

Only Coney - wonderful photo blog.  They even featured one of my humble photos not too long ago! (Shameless plug, there. Sorry.)

The Coney Island History Project - Started by Charles Denson (one of the authors I mentioned above) in 2004.  The website is fantastic, with an online archive of all sorts of interesting images and artifacts.  On top of that, they just opened an exhibition center underneath the Cyclone roller coaster this summer.

The Coney Island Development Corporation - The group whose vision, depending on who you ask, Thor Equities is steadfastly ignoring.  Check out the CIDC's strategic plan for Coney Island.  You'll like it.

Coney Island on Film:
The Warriors (1979) - I hate the term "cult classic," but it's appropriate in this movie's case.  It's an urban adventure story of a Coney Island street gang trying to make it back to their home turf from a gang-summit-gone-bad up in the Bronx.  The fight choreography is spectacular and the fact that it's loosely based on Greek mythology is a cool bonus.  In addition, it stars a young James Remar (Richard Wright for you Sex and the City fans) and the shots of Coney Island at the end of the movie are impressive.  "Warriors..... come out to plaaaaayay!"

He Got Game (1998) - Hands down one of my favorite Spike Lee "joints," and not just because the bulk of the movie takes place in Coney Island.  Distilled down to its most basic essence, this is a movie about fathers and sons, something anyone can relate to.  Denzel Washington is phenomenal, and the scene where he and Ray Allen (portraying his son) play a high-stakes game of one-on-one is especially powerful.

Went to Coney Island on a Mission From God...  Be Back By Five (1998) - A low budget, independent film that is hard to come by on DVD or even VHS, but if you have a chance to see it, it's well worth it. Jon Cryer and Rick Stear play two friends who go to Coney Island to find out what has become of a third friend of theirs from childhood -- he is reportedly mentally ill and living under the boardwalk.  It's a great story that explores friendship, mental illness, loyalty, second chances, and redemption.  Frank Whaley has a great cameo as a Coney Island "skeeball weasel," and Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior from The Sporanos) appears as a photographer.

Requiem for a Dream (2000) - This movie is a masterpiece but I've never been able to get the courage to watch it all the way through.  Its subject matter (drug addiction) and graphic, no-holds-barred depictions are upsetting to me.  It is set in Coney Island and captures the urban decay of the place beautifully.

The Wiz (1978) - Kind of cheesy, but a fun retelling of The Wizard of Oz with an African American cast, set entirely in New York City.  The Coney Island Cyclone features prominently in one of the scenes.  Also, I love the music.

Coney Island in Literature:
Coney Island has found its way into a lot of books.  Even in The Great Gatsby, the title character implores the narrator, Nick, "Come on, old sport. Let's go to Coney Island."  Thought I would throw out some of my favorite works of fiction that involve my favorite neighborhood.

Dreamland by Kevin Baker - this is so well-researched and incorporates so many historical incidents that it's easy to forget that it's fiction.  The story is epic... like Gone With The Wind but in turn-of-the-century New York.  The book even has a glossary, for goodness sake, for translating everything from Yiddish to gangster-speak.  I'm waiting for the movie adaptation... whoever can recreate the Dreamland fire on screen will be my favorite filmmaker for the rest of my life.

Witch in the House by Ruth Chew - I first read this book as a child, and it's the first book I remember containing any references to Coney Island.  The story revolves around a young Brooklyn girl who discovers a witch in her backyard.  The witch is in trouble, though, for the laws of gravity no longer apply to her.  The girl hides the witch in her bedroom closet (where she sits on the ceiling) and helps her by collecting the ingredients the witch needs to turn herself right-side-up again.  One such expedition involves the main character and her best friend taking a magic carpet ride (on an enchanted pink bathmat) to Coney Island to catch a jellyfish.  Once I read that passage, I started to dream about flying to Coney on a pink bathmat.  I think one time I even got out one of my mother's bathmats and set it in the middle of the living room floor, hoping when I sat on it that it would take flight and bear me to Brooklyn.

The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall - I haven't actually read this one yet but it is on my "to read' list.  It sounds like a good story... about a tattoo artist in Coney in the 1930s.

That ought to be enough to get you started... but here are a couple of bonus items in case nothing I've mentioned so far excites you: Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind, and Harvey Stein's wonderful book of photographs, simply titled Coney Island.

That sneaky little bastard...

The latest plans for Coney Island are an improvement, but it still sounds to me like Sitt is trying to repackage his condo plan more than he is trying to revitalize the area's history.  Time shares?  Are you @#$&ing kidding me?

Read about the newly-unveiled plans in today's New York Times.

*sigh*

Here's a quote:

The hotels, Mr. Sitt said, would offer black residents not only jobs, but careers. The Russian immigrants, who enjoy a “quality of life and activity by the water,” would flock to the hotels and nightclubs. Jewish and Italian-American residents would get the “quality retail, bookstores and entertainment venues” that they want. As for everyone else, “what’s better than having fabulous restaurants, catering halls, shows and concerts?”

“Tell me, what issue any one of these constituencies would have with our plan,” he said. “We’re asking for motherhood, motherhood. Apple pie, Chevrolet and Coney Island.”

Pause for breath.

“Maybe I sound like a salesman,” Mr. Sitt said, “but I’m passionate about this.”

Sounds like the same old megalomaniac Joe talking, with a healthy dose of ethnic stereotyping thrown in.  Good grief.  Motherhood?  Apple pie?

Ludicrous.  Gentrification blows.

It's a Coney Island miracle!

This evening, while perusing my two favorite Brooklyn blogs, Kinetic Carnival and the Gowanus Lounge, I discovered this wonderful piece of news:

Thor Equities has dropped its plans for a residential component in Coney Island!

Hallelujah!!!  According to the info on both blogs, the word is that they plan to continue with their redevelopment plans for amusements and retail, but minus the housing component.  I'm shocked and delighted by this latest announcement, but at the same time I have to say that I'll believe it when I see it.  Thor Equities' (and, by extension, Joe Sitt's) treatment of the area's stakeholders going forward will influence my support for the project a great deal.  I await the newest particulars of the plans eagerly, and like so many other Coney-philes, I have had many dreams about what it must have been like in its glory days.  Maybe now all of us who love CI will be able to experience a taste of that in the future.

I have no illusions... Coney Island is still going to change a great deal, I imagine.  But now (perhaps) it is changing for the better.

One thing that impressed me, in particular, was that the email sent to the Gowanus Lounge from a Thor spokesman included the following language: "After listening to the comments, questions and concerns of members of the Coney Island community, as well as people all over the country and throughout the world, Thor Equities has completely eliminated the residential component of its proposed plan. "  I was impressed by the language I underlined above because I have always felt that Coney Island's stakeholders stretch far beyond the neighborhood itself.  Coney Island is more than just a stretch of beach in Brooklyn -- it's a kind of universal shorthand for what it means to have a rollicking good time.  Without Coney Island, there would be no Disneyland, no Cedar Point, no Wildwood or Seaside Heights.  There would be no hot dogs and no crazy thrill rides upon which to upchuck them.  "Under the Boardwalk" wouldn't exist, and all the sideshow freaks would have had to find some other way to earn a living.  Coney Island is a microcosm of the best kind of history... the people's history.

I can't begin to describe how happy this news makes me (despite my initial "I'll believe it when I see it" skepticism.)  I guess the feeling is akin to how a person might feel if their home was spared from a wrecking ball or something like that.  I'm a west coast girl through and through, but as I've said before, CI is my spiritual home.  And it is sounding more and more like my home just might get the TLC that it needs.

Best of luck, Joe.  Keep listening.

Here's a thought...

Regular readers know I was in Los Angeles last week for a few days.  I freakin' loved it, but I wasn't sure why.  It's smoggy, the traffic is wretched, and there are more overpriced eateries and fake boobs than you can shake a stick at.  Why would I love such a place?

Then it hit me.

Los Angeles is the Coney Island of the west.  Hear me out for a second before you start insisting that I'm wrong, that that title rightfully belongs to Las Vegas.

First of all, there is no place like Coney Island so I do recognize the faint sacrilege in even comparing L.A. to it.  All the same, though, here's my reasoning:

* Both are a bit sketchy in places.  I swear there are sections of Sunset that are interchangeable with Stillwell.

* Both are filled with people of all stripes, from all walks of life... some of whom are freakier than others.

* Both are near the ocean.

* Both are full of interesting sights, sounds, smells, and architecture.

* Hardly any shade to be found in either place on a sunny day.

* Both places have served as filming locations for movies, TV, and music videos. (OK, so maybe L.A. has a slight edge here.)

* L.A. may not have a bunch of amusement rides, but try cruising down Mulholland as fast as your car can safely go on a road that curvy and see how it compares to a spin on the Cyclone.  Also, L.A. has its own knockoff of the Wonder Wheel.

* Q Train?  101 at rush hour?  Same difference.

* Nathan's?  In-N-Out Burger?  Yeah.  (C.I. still wins in this category, though, because there's nothing in L.A. that even comes close to Totonno's.)

* Lola Staar would fit right in on Melrose Avenue, I think.

Maybe my argument is a little weak, but the only place on the west coast I've ever been that makes me feel like I'm not really that far away from my beloved Coney is Los Angeles.  Both places are infused with that same sense of popular history, and both places make you feel like there's nowhere else on earth quite like where you are right now.

(And unfortunately, perhaps Coney will soon be catching up to L.A. on the overpriced condominium front, as well.) *sigh*

My birthday in a parallel universe

I turned 31 earlier this week.  The day itself was pretty low-key, which was fine with me.  Now that I'm in my 30s, my birthdays are cause for introspective contemplation as opposed to partying like there's no tomorrow.  My husband gifted me with a copy of The Crack-Up by you-know-who, along with a DVD of what is arguably VK's sappiest movie (but oh how I love it so.)  My auntie sent me a $20, and my brother gave me a copy of Sherman Alexie's latest book. 

My parents were visiting from Seattle, and they gave me a pair of diamond earrings.  Long story short: I had purchased a pair for myself about two and a half years ago -- my rationale being if I waited around for my husband to buy stuff like that for me I'd be waiting for the rest of my life -- and I wore them constantly because they went with everything.  Then, tragically, this past September as I was preparing to check out of the scummy Quality Inn in Allentown, PA, I left one earring sitting on the counter beside the sink and didn't realize it until I was well on my way down the road.  I was bummed out by the loss, but thoroughly touched that my parents decided to surprise me with a replacement pair for my birthday.  I'm too afraid of losing them again to start wearing them just yet, but I'll get over that soon enough, I suppose.

I baked my own birthday cake (with a little help from Mom) and we went to Sonic for a lunch of chili-cheese Coneys and onion rings.  (I can't quite get over the fact that Sonic calls their hot dogs "Coneys," but I appreciate the reference nonetheless.)  I thought to myself that a better birthday lunch would have been a Nathan's dog, some clam strips, and a beer on the boardwalk at the real Coney Island, but I was happy with my fast food chain facsimile.  We had dinner at a local pizza joint (again, not Totonno's, but still delicious) and then headed back to my apartment for peppermint-fudge birthday cake, which was also quite tasty.

Sitt's got cojones, if nothing else...

Read this bit in the Village Voice this morning, found it amusing.  Since he's so fond of showing up unannounced in CI, maybe Joe Sitt should just join the Coney Island Circus Sideshow and let his freak flag fly.  ("Ladies and gentlemen!  Step right up and see the Landgrabbing Megalomaniac Developer!  The only color he can see is GREEN!")

What a wacky dude.  In a strange way, I admire his chutzpah.

In other news, greetings from the cigarette capital of North America (if not the world): Winston-Salem, NC (home of RJ Reynolds!)  I'll be here all week.

Lola Staar is BACK!

I'm a little late with this news, but Dianna Carlin has returned to her shop on the Coney Island boardwalk!!  That's right, kiddies, Lola Staar is open for business for at least one more season.  The Gowanus Lounge and Kinetic Carnival have the details.

This is fabulous news, but I still don't trust Joe Sitt further than I could throw him.  (Jerk.)  There was a excellent post on the GL this week about the practice of "blighting" by developers in Brooklyn.  If you want to know why I am so riled up about what's happening in CI, just read this post.  It goes a long way toward explaining the rampant exception I've been taking to Sitt's treatment of my favorite nabe.

In other, more positive news, Omar over at Kinetic Carnival had a great write-up this week on the most recent Coney Island Development Corporation meeting.  Sounds like the CIDC has a lot on its plate, but I am glad they are around.  Were I in the neighborhood, I would offer to help out with the fundraising they've got to do.... I did make a career out of raisin' cash, after all.

Anyway, congratulations to Dianna on her triumphant return to the boardwalk.  Between my frequent flier miles and vacation time, I just might make it to NYC this summer after all.  I hope to pick up a couple more "I Heart Coney Island" bumper stickers from the Lola Staar boutique, because my car's already been rear-ended once since I moved to SC and I am afraid the current bumper sticker is not long for this world!

What a morning

I watched The Hours over the weekend and it moved me enough to dig out my copy of Mrs. Dalloway, the Virginia Woolf novel that inspired Michael Cunningham's novel and, in turn, the movie.

This early sentence struck me:

And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning -- fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

I went right to these photos, taken last year at Coney Island.  (The first one was taken in April and the second one was taken in August.)

Freaks and mermaids raising hell!

The "No Condos in Coney" demonstration is scheduled!  Details are as follows (mad props to Kinetic Carnival):

Friday, March 30th

11:00 - Parade to City Hall
11:30 - Performers
12:00 - Speakers
12:30 - Performers
1:00 - After Parade up Broadway

Check out Save Coney Island for additional information. 

Fight the power!!!!

Hey Joe Sitt, put away your wrecking ball
The last thing Coney needs
Is condos and a shopping mall

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...

(With sincere apologies to Joni Mitchell!)

Looks like I'm not the only one invoking Joni Mitchell

Check out this article from the Brooklyn Papers.  Here's a picture for you visual types, from the same article:

I'm sad about this.  Can you tell?  If I had the kind of money Joe Sitt has, I'd be buying him out right about now and redeveloping CI in a responsible, respectful way that takes ALL of the neighborhood's stakeholders into account.

More on Lola Staar

Read this, boys and girls.  This is why we don't trust Joe Sitt further than we could throw him.

I've met Dianna Carlin and she is fabulous.  Her boutique is fabulous... my Sodom by the Sea t-shirt came from there, as did the "I Heart Coney Island" bumper sticker that rides proudly on the back of my car.  (Thanks to Dianna, everyone between Greenville and Charleston now knows how much I love CI.)  I also have a snowglobe, a magnet, and a bunch of postcards that I got at her shop.  She reflects the wonderful entrepreneurial spirit that has permeated Coney Island for the past century and I am mad as hell that she got evicted.

Check out her stuff... www.lolastaar.com.... if you support creative, innovative, independent businesses like hers, let her know by spending a few bucks in her store.  She deserves it.

A portrait of the artist

Out of curiosity, I went to MapQuest and calculated how far it is from my front door here in South Carolina to the intersection of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island.  Turns out it is just shy of 800 miles.  If I started driving right now, I could probably get there by about 10:30 tonight, maybe later depending on traffic, bathroom breaks (no astronaut diapers for me), and stops to fill up the teeny gas tank of my pregnant roller skate.

In some ways, knowing the mileage makes the distance seem shorter.  I feel less homesick.  (I don't know why I use the term "homesick" to describe my feelings for a place that has never been my home.... but Coney Island is my spiritual home so I guess it's OK to say that I'm homesick.)  In other ways, though, the distance between me and Coney Island feels endless.  I wish I could be there every single day, to absorb and enjoy all the wonderful things about that neighborhood that will, in all likelihood, be gone before too long.  But I'm here, Coney is there, and it isn't likely I will see it again for a while.

I want to use this post primarily to draw attention to some great Brooklyn/Coney Island-related blogs that have helped me to feel closer to my favorite neighborhood, Kinetic Carnival and The Gowanus Lounge.  There is also an awesome new photoblog out there called Only Coney, which features some fantastic photogrpahy of CI.  If you're curious, check out any of these three blogs for images and words related to Coney Island (or, in the case of Gowanus Lounge, Brooklyn at large.)

Of particular note today is a terrific post over at Gowanus Lounge about a man named George Wallace who paints signs in Coney Island.  It's a great read.  The final paragraph, in particular, struck a chord with me:

If you read GL and you wonder what the big deal is about tearing down Coney Island and replacing it with luxury condos and chain retailing and eateries because it's such a "Shit Hole" now, here's your answer: We're going to lose Wallace and all the people like him that make Coney Island what it is. We're pretty certain there will be no place in the new Coney Island for a sketchy guy with a paint brush who makes signs. Because there won't be any place for those signs in the first instance.

Amen to that.

In my lone post from last week (my posting has slowed quite a but due to my new job, but I'm hoping to start posting more regularly again soon) I quoted Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" with regard to the redevelopment plans for CI.  The other day, the song was running through my head and I remembered that Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton had collaborated on a cover of it not too long ago.  Guess where they filmed the video?

Oh, the irony.

Lola's out

Read the distressing news about the Lola Staar boutique on the Gowanus Lounge today.  Apparently she's been kicked to the curb by her new landlord, Thor Equities.

For a while, it was looking like the city of New York might actually fight Joey and his megalomaniacal plan to put up condos where amusements used to be, but now they're backing down.  I have a sinking feeling that we're going to end up with about three square feet of amusements and an urban jungle of beachfront condominiums.  To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, I think they really are going to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Coney Island needs a shot in the arm.  But not at the expense of its wonderful history or of the hardworking entrepreneurs who have made it what it is.  If Lola Staar is replaced by the Gap and Ruby's is replaced by House of Blues or the Hard Rock Cafe, it just won't be the same.  There are a hundred ways to revitalize and revamp that neighborhood without destroying its uniqueness.  Someone on the Coney Island message boards (which I often refrain from reading -- it's just too damn depressing) referred to the "future" Coney Island as "Phoney Island" and I'm inclined to agree.

One of my favorite musicians, Peter Mulvey, has a great song called 29 Cent Head, and a portion of it speaks perfectly to the situation at hand in everyone's favorite Brooklyn neighborhood:

You can't tell one place from another all across this land
Where's the architect? Wouldn't you like to shake his hand?
The shops are full of nothing, the streets are full of fear
And if we're all so connected, why can't we just get near?
But you just don't get it,
Uh-uh you just don't get it,
You just don't get it,
But you can't get there from here.

I'm sorely tempted....

...to send a copy of this book to Joe Sitt at Thor Equities.  I really think he should read it, as should anyone who is interested in seeing responsible redevelopment happen in CI.

If you don't feel like reading the book, check out the web site.  Interesting stuff.  Storm Cunningham knows what time it is.

More good stuff from the Gowanus Lounge

I'm a regular reader of the Gowanus Lounge, and I was really impressed with this post about the implications of the sale of Astroland.  If my readers are wondering why I went completely berserk in my own post yesterday, here's a snippet from Gowanus Lounge that echoes my thoughts on the situation:

So, what's wrong here? Let's start with a project driven by a single developer and firm and move on from there. Projects of this magnitude that would literally place the fate of a huge part of an entire neighborhood in the hands of one firm or entity are a bad idea. It's led to a mega-project of massive density in Atlantic Yards and it will likely yield something unsettling in Coney Island. If Thor's model is something of a Times Square by the Sea (with rides looping in an out of buildings), it neglect one fact: The Time Square redevelopment never went anywhere until it was an organic process in the hands of multiple interests. Generations of top-down schemes crashed and burned.

Yes, Coney Island needs to be redeveloped and needs to regain some of its former glory after so many years of neglect and decline. However, destroying every remnant of its history and stripping away yet another bit of the Brooklyn we love--and one of our earliest life memories is going to Coney Island, where a good part of the family lived--is not the way to do it.

I absolutely want to see a revitalized Coney Island, but not at the expense of the amusements or historic landmarks.  And let's not forget about the people who call the neighborhood home. 

It is entirely possible to revive an area without pushing out the businesses and residents that have made it what it is.  It would be nice if Joe Sitt and Thor Equities would think about something besides the almighty dollar, but I'm not holding my breath.

The beginning of the end

A major shoe has dropped in the redevelopment plans for Coney Island... Astroland has been sold.

Thanks to Brouhaha for dropping by last night with this link.  More details are available over at the Gowanus Lounge, too.

I'm trying to stay positive.  Coney Island's history is cyclical -- over the years it's gone through countless transformations, so perhaps this will just be another "phoenix moment" for the area.  And anyway, the job's not done yet -- there are still zoning variances to slog through before "Joey" and his mallrats can do anything.  To those who oppose what Thor is proposing, find out when the variance hearings are and SHOW UP.  You might not be able to stop the wholesale gentrification and obliteration of Coney Island's history, but I know from experience that a few angry villagers can at least create some headaches and slow the process down.

Now is the time to be annoying, folks, so get out there and annoy!

A great article about my favorite neighborhood

The New York Times had a terrific article this past weekend about Coney Island and what's been happening there lately.  An excerpt....

In June, the Mermaid Parade kicks off the summer. Then, until September, baseball fans flock to KeySpan Park to cheer on the Brooklyn Cyclones, a Mets-affiliated team that has developed a rivalry with the Staten Island Yankees.

KeySpan is also a concert site, having showcased Bjork, the White Stripes and the Across the Narrows music festival in the last few years.

Coney Island quiets down considerably in the winter, when the amusements shut down and the Cyclones hibernate. But the locals still flock to Totonno’s, opened in 1924 by Anthony (Totonno) Pero and still a beloved pizzeria. Gargiulo’s, a fancier Italian restaurant on West 17th Street, also has a broad following.

Kaiser Park, with baseball fields, tennis courts and views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, is a neighborhood favorite. And a community center, to include an Olympic-size pool, is in the works.

The New York Aquarium moved to Coney Island in 1957. Last month, city officials unveiled three finalists in a design competition that could bring man-made sand dunes or an enormous glowing jellyfish to the aquarium’s exterior.

Read and enjoy!

The battle for the boardwalk

I found this article yesterday about the recent goings-on in Coney Island and thought I would share it here because it gives a decent overview of what's been happening, although they don't quite have all of their facts straight (see after the first quote, below).  Still, it's worth a read if you're curious.

Even the game operators who will be able to stay, thanks to formal lease agreements, had spite to share.

“[Thor Equities] says Coney Island is their pet project, but it’s my life,” said Cesar Rafel, who operates five games on Henderson Walk and lives nearby.

“I own a small business, pay taxes and support my kids. All a new hotel or some shops is going to do is turn me back into a worker.”

In new renderings released this week, [Thor Equities' Joe] Sitt’s domain will be transformed by super-size street furniture styled after circus elephants and the mermaids that come out each year for [Dick] Zigun’s trendy Mermaid Parade.

“We want jaws to drop,” said the developer’s spokesman, Lee Silberstein. “This is going to be the largest expansion of the amusement district that Coney has ever seen. There will be jobs, restaurants at every price point, all kinds of retail, the water park, a hotel where people could hold trade shows.”

But in order to turn a profit, the complex must be at least two million square feet and attract at least 13 mil