Neil deMause: The Website

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s long-awaited rezoning plan for Coney Island was finally released yesterday. But while most news outlets were distracted by the pretty pictures, they largely missed the bigger story - the city’s plan to use a never-before-tried zoning ploy to stick a fork in developer Joe Sitt’s condo dreams:

The reverberations from Mayor Bloomberg’s bombshell announcement that he intended to remap Coney Island’s amusement district as parkland were still echoing Thursday night when neighborhood denizens piled into Our Lady of Solace Church on Mermaid Avenue to hear Coney Island Development Corporation president Lynn Kelly give her board—and the public—the lowdown on the city’s plans.

The upshot, two hours of Powerpoint later: Bloomberg is moving ahead with plans to revamp the amusement district, but Joe Sitt’s condos-by-the-boardwalk plan is off the table—and the city plans on salting the earth to make sure things stay that way… [read more]

It’s official: Coney Island amusement park Astroland will be open again in 2008.

The pirate ship will take flight again: In what seemed inconceivable only a few months ago, Astroland operator Carol Hill Albert and her landlord Thor Equities have agreed to a new lease that will keep the 45-year-old Coney Island institution open for another season.

“I’m very pleased for my employees and I’m very happy to be part of another tremendous year for Coney Island,” Albert tells the Voice… [read more]

Yesterday was the last day for Coney Island’s Astroland amusement park, possibly forever. I stayed to the bittersweet end to deliver this report.

Yesterday was the official last day of business for Astroland, and supporters of the 45-year-old Coney Island institution turned out in hopes of sparking an 11th-hour reprieve that would keep the park’s 23 rides and three game arcades open into 2008. Brian Gotlieb, the former Community Board 13 chair who formed Save Astroland last month, came bearing an estimated 9,000 petition signatures calling on all parties involved to broker a deal; he told the few dozen Coney fans who rallied outside the gates at noon, “The idea behind this is to keep things open until the plans for Astroland’s successor are finalized.”… [read more]

It’s the last weekend of the season for Coney Island - okay, really the next-to-last, and some attractions will stay open into October - and the start of what should be the most momentous winter in the neighborhood’s history. Locals are hoping for a reprieve from the wrecking ball, but girding for the worst, as neither the city nor developer Joe Sitt will tip their hands as to what comes next.

The coming Labor Day weekend marks the traditional end of summer at Coney Island, the final blowout before the ride operators pack up and fly south for the winter. And if it’s more a theoretical than an actual milestone—Astroland and Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park will still be open for business next week, not to mention the Cyclones haven’t held their Brooklyn Bridge Bobblehead Night yet—it packs more emotional punch this year for one simple reason: No one knows what the beachfront will look like when the warm weather returns… [read more]

New York City makes would-be Coney Island condo developer Joe Sitt an offer he’d be stupid to refuse.

In a Coney Island summer that has mostly been devoted to rumors and the report of rumors - Carol Albert is putting Astroland’s rides on the block! Now she’s taking them off again! - yesterday’s report of an attempted deal between the city and developer Joe Sitt has more intrigue than most… [read more]

Joe Sitt offers to swap his condos for timeshares, but the city calls it a mere bait and switch.

Developers Thor Equities dropped a bombshell yesterday afternoon, sending out a terse two-paragraph e-mail declaring that it had “completely eliminated the residential component of its proposed plan” and will instead offer “a plan that is compatible with the City’s strategic plan.” In other words, no condos for Coney… [read more]

A forum on the future of Coney Island bodes ill for the beach’s oldest amusement park.

Last night, the somewhat unlikely pairing of the Municipal Art Society (representing white-haired Manhattan urban planning geeks) and Coney Island USA (representing a different kind of geek) sponsored “Coney Island On the Cusp of Change,” a panel discussion on the uncertain future of the city’s traditional low-rent amusement zone. [read more]

Most of last month for me was spent on one story, but oh, what a story. As I detailed at length in the April 11 Village Voice, most of Coney Island’s historical amusement district is at risk of being shut down and left vacant for years, as the result of a game of chicken between New York City and a developer who wants his land rezoned to allow condos on the boardwalk. Astroland is already slated to close after 45 years this fall, and if developer Joe Sitt goes through with his threats to wait for a friendlier mayoral administration, as I wrote, “Coney Island’s already diminished amusement district could spend years as a torn-up wasteland, leaving only the Cyclone, Dino’s Wonder Wheel Park, Sideshows by the Seashore, and Nathan’s standing amid a vast empty plain.”

In the weeks after my article ran (and a Save Coney Island protest that preceded it), Sitt began sounding conciliatory notes, allowing some store owners he had evicted to move back in - and, as I reported for the Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog, even showing up at the reopening party of one of them and chowing down on sausages and beer. A local arcade owner, meanwhile, posted a mock tombstone presenting Sitt as a dictator signing the area’s “death warrant.” All of which can only be described as very Coney Island.

My one other piece of newsprint on the month was an op-ed in everybody’s favorite free paper (if you know what’s good for you), Metro New York, on some more appropriate ways of celebrating Jackie Robinson Day than having scores of players wear his uniform number. I’m sure Bud Selig has it taped to his computer monitor for future reference.

I have a bunch of other stuff in the works for coming weeks, including my debut as a judge for World Hunger Year’s Harry Chapin Media Awards (I think I’m allowed to reveal that, anyway). Watch this space for further developments, and see you next month at the free Television show in Central Park.