Summer Fun: Urban Beaches: Coney Island, the peoples' fun spot at the end of the line in NYC

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Originally published on May29,2k6 on refWrite page 3.
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As all the beaches in all the world are tooling up for the heat of summer and the crowds that the heat of the summer will bring to spend their money, none is so etched in urban folklore and conveyed in movies and poetry as is New York City's famous and long-forlorn Coney Island. But there are stirrings afoot. Nothing less than renovation, at least that's what Associated Press's Larry McShane tells us in "Renovation to take Coney Island on a wild ride to relevance" (May29,2k6).

A soft ocean breeze rolls off the Atlantic -- but by next summer, the winds of change will blow hard through the venerable Brooklyn beachfront, where millions of Americans have frolicked and where both the hot dog and the roller coaster debuted.
After a half-century of neglect, Coney Island is targeted for a $1 billion renovation aimed at creating a year-round attraction to compete against the theme parks that nearly obliterated the neighborhood. The work is at least a year off, but it's already the buzz of the beach.

Summer Fun, by Anaximaximum:

"Coney Island seemed like it was in a time warp and would never change," said Dick Zigun, operator of the local Sideshows By the Seashore attraction. "Why not have a bigger, better, more exciting Coney Island?"

Fortunately, for those of us who retain sosme fragments of memory and some literary/movie lore, it's a comfort that the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel, and the Parachute Jump will be retained, while run-down and vacant lots will attract new attractions, investment, even a luxury hotel (presumably in a shape suggestive of a roller coaster ... wonder who the architect will be for that one?).

Coney Island once was something special, the most popular resort destination in the country. But "America's Playground" suffered a long post-World War II decline.

When the Cyclone opened in 1927, Coney Island already was the apex of American entertainment. Charles Lindbergh came to ride the great roller coaster. Sigmund Freud stopped by the Dreamland amusement park.

However, a 1944 fire destroyed one of the great amusement areas, Luna Park. Developer Robert Moses, no fan of Coney Island, designed highways that made it easy to bypass the city beach.

City housing sprang up in the 1960s and '70s -- towering "vertical slums," as the locals called them. Crack arrived in the '80s.

City officials also are betting on a revamped Coney Island. A new $240 million subway station was opened at Stillwell Avenue, once one of the dingiest stops in the transit system.

And $83 million -- including $73 million from the city -- has been pledged to create better parking, new streets and open space. A new cultural center is expected to open by 2009.

The grand idea seems to be one of diversification, multiuse, and year-round use. One of the chief agents in the capital planning is a wily native of Brooklyn who still does his daily run on the boardwalk of boardwalks ... at Coney Island. - Anaximander

Coney Island: Lost and Found, by Charles Denson
A Coney Island of the Mind, poems by Lawrence Ferlingetti