The End Of Coney Island

January 19, 2009

I’m going to use the Current Projects category in order to show up some recent work that I’ve been doing. Most of this work is on my flickr account but here I can submit it as a coherent project rather than as an endless stream of images.

The End Of Coney Island?

The last two years has seen the closure of much of Coney Island’s amusement areas as a private developer, Thor Equities is currently locked in a struggle with the city, the Coney Island community, and the larger communities of Brooklyn and NYC as a whole over the future of the neighborhood. Thor holds title to much of the property along the boardwalk and is seeking zoning from the city to build several large hotels and big name stores. The city is currently refusing to grant Thor the zoning they desire and are engaged in talks to purchase the property from Thor. Local residents are currently caught in between Thor and the city as their area only recently began picking up economically and now they’re facing the closure of much of the amusement zones which brought in a steady stream of visitor into the neighborhood.

Save Coney Island

Vacant Lot, Coney Island

The future of Coney Island is entirely up in the air. Thor envisions a future as a resort destination with high end hotel towers, shopping, and reconstructed boardwalk. The community groups strongly oppose this vision as they feel it is at odds with the tradition of Coney Island as a local destination where the boardwalk and mom and pop scale amusements were the draw and present the public with a continuation of the experience that has defined Coney Island for the past 10 decades. They also argue that Manhattan already offers an endless array of hotels and shopping experiences so the draw to the very end of Brooklyn would be limited.

I don’t have the emotional ties that longer term and lifelong residents have with Coney Island but I’ve always enjoyed it. The Mermaid Parade is always a high point of my summer. I grew up going with my family to the boardwalk in Laguna Beach, CA so its a bit of happy childhood in my adulthood on the other side of the country. The one thing I do miss from Laguna is the daily Hare Krishna procession.

I’ve been visiting the boardwalk and amusement zone over the past several years so I hope to put together my own experiences of the area in a huge transistion as an occasional visitor and participant in the small joys it has to offer.

Category Posted in Current Projects, Photo Projects