Coney Island Awaits Wheel of Fortune's Turn

[GADVwow]

An autumnal spirit of gloom settled over Coney Island this past Labor Day weekend as New York's once-celebrated seafront resort reached the end of a summer season that saw further closures of its dwindling stock of fairground attractions.

Local operators and conservationists say the one-time "people's playground" that gave the world the hot dog and the rollercoaster is under threat from a combination of planning blight and a "flawed" plan by the city to rezone the district to include multi-storey hotels and luxury condominiums.

It is a pattern that has repeated itself elsewhere in New York where a property market recession and declining tax income has prompted developers and the city to scale back or delay urban renewal projects....

A very interesting article, best accessed from this "business English" page:

http://www.ftd.de/karriere-management/business-english/:business-english-coney-island-awaits-wheel-of-fortune-s-turn/50020390.html

[GADVwow]

More than 50 companies from 7 countries compete to develop Coney Island, including Premier Rides:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/12/06/2009-12-06_proposals_due_for_coneys_comeback.html

[AV Matt]

The future is looking brighter for Coney. It would be awesome to see it reborn looking like Morey's Piers. But they'd have to build hotels to support that I'm guessing.

[GADVwow]

Zamperla gets contract to operate at Coney of Brooklyn!:

Coney Island’s going back to the big time, as the city announced on Wednesday that the amusement wizards behind the popular Victorian Gardens theme park will begin running an amusement park by the Boardwalk this summer.

Zamperla, an Italy-based manufacturer of amusement park rides that has also gotten into the theme park business with its popular attraction in Manhattan’s Central Park every summer, has won the city contract for an unspecified, but up to 10-year, run as the faded funhouse’s newest, biggest draw.

The contract comes with big expectations: the Economic Development Corporation has a much broader vision of a revived Coney Island that will see the former People’s Playground transformed into a 24-7, all-year entertainment, amusement, games and retail zone — one that will take at least a decade to realize.

Until that Xanadu can be built, Zamperla will bring in its rides — though the actual amusements remain undecided — and begin operating by this summer....

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/5/33_05_ac_coney_interim.html?comm=1

[AV Matt]

This could be a really good thing. I was never a fan of the ghetto-ness of Coney. I hope it becomes a much more attractive place to visit.

[nitrorox1414]

^ Haha Ghetto-ness.

I have never been to Conney the weeekend that we planned to go, it T-Stormed

[AV Matt]

It is something to experience.