Neil deMause: The Website

The Wall Street meltdown could have unforeseen pitfalls for New York taxpayers, thanks to past city development deals:

Well, that was quick. In the one week since Bear Stearns suffered its total existence failure, stories of developers bailing on office-tower projects came fast and furious: First J.P. Morgan Chase rethinking its building on the former Deutsche Bank building site, then Bruce Ratner admitting his Frank Gehry-designed “Miss Brooklyn” skyscraper would be delayed indefinitely (though he insists he’s going ahead with the accompanying Nets basketball arena)… [read more]

New York state has a new governor today (the old one was defective), and what better time to rethink the dumb ideas of past administrations?

Among the items topping David Paterson’s to-do list as he takes office today — get a budget done before June, remember not to sleep with hookers — is the looming disaster that is a trio of state development projects on Manhattan’s West Side. Thanks to a mix of soaring construction prices and overly rosy projections, the renovation of the Javits Convention Center, creation of a new Penn Station and extension of the 7 subway line to 11th Avenue all face uncertain futures.

All three, frankly, are good candidates for the scrapheap… [read more]

(A note on the headline: Yes, I know that David Paterson is governor, not mayor. No, I don’t know what the headline writer was smoking.)

My regular Monday op-ed schedule resumes, with a look ahead to tonight’s public meeting on the future of Coney Island that manages to avoid using the term “shell game”:

The announcement reads “community information session,” but “Fireworks at Coney Island tonight!” might be just as appropriate. After all, tonight’s public meeting at Lincoln High School on the city’s rezoning plan for Brooklyn’s summer playground is a do-over: The last time the city tried this, in November, state Sen. Carl Kruger bused in so many bewildered Brighton Beach residents to testify against the plan that the police shut the whole thing down.

It was only the latest twist in the yearlong circus that began when Joe Sitt, the developer who’s bought up large swaths of Coney (including the land under Astroland amusement park), threatened to raze everything in sight if the city didn’t let him build condos on the boardwalk… [read more]

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]

A demonstration against gentrification in downtown Brooklyn this weekend gave me a chance to revisit the scene of one of my previous articles:

A massive throng — well, let’s say a spirited assemblage — of about 100 residents of Fort Greene and surrounding neighborhoods marched through downtown Brooklyn on Saturday, protesting what they say is the demolition of a traditional African-American shopping district to make way for high-priced condos. The marchers, organized by the Brooklyn-based Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), chanted “Hell no, we won’t go!” as they followed behind East New York’s Approaching Storm marching band, which set off innumerable car alarms along Myrtle Avenue and Willoughby Street with its raucous beats… [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]