[Photo courtesy of Captain Nemo/Coney Island Message Board]
We woke up yesterday to a sad email from Tricia Vita of the Coney Island History Project, saying “my collage was stolen!!! thank you for posting info about the shrine. collage was stolen overnight. it happened overnight….” She directed to photos posted by Captain Nemo showing that the tie wraps had been cut. Was it a collector? Will it show up on eBay? Was it a supporter of developer Joe Sitt’s redevelopment plans? Was it someone who’s glad Astroland appears to be going to the Great Amusement Park in the sky? We have a funny feeling, though, that other things are going to show up. There were already a couple of things added as can be seen below. Two years ago, when Thor Equities was demolishing rides, we went nearly every weekend to document the process. A year ago yesterday, we took a long walk on the boardwalk with an old friend to document conditions. This year, we can’t even bring ourselves to photograph and document any of this depressing stuff. What is happening is the equivalent of kicking a dog when it’s down. We will simply say this our editorial voice: A pox on all those who are allowing this happen from developer Joe Sitt to the Coney Island Development Corporation to all the city bureaucrats who failed to develop a contingency plan to protect Coney Island while rezoning was going on. And, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, the credit market meltdown that has happened while the rezoning soap opera has been taking place, pretty much guarantees that NOTHING will be built for at least another five years. The issue is stabilizing, fixing and keeping Coney Island viable so that it does not become a total victim of developer and bureaucratic blight. The “redevelopment” of Coney Island is fast becoming a case study in an unfathomable and moronic failure of city government of the highest order.
[Photo courtesy of me-myself-i/flickr]
[Photo courtesy of Captain Nemo/Magical Theme Parks]
11 responses so far ↓
1 normal // Dec 29, 2008 at 9:35 am
it was probably the owner of the fence who doesn’t want your 4th grade art littering it, HELLO
2 james // Dec 29, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Enough with the demise of Coney already- Stop beating a dead horse.
3 Top Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven … - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com // Dec 29, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[…] pier is for sale, but someone took a five-finger discount on an Astroland Memorial collage made by the Coney Island History Project. [Gowanus […]
4 tricia // Dec 29, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I created the collage on Christmas Day as my personal sappy goodbye to Astroland. When I got ot the park to hang the collage the first thing I saw was the Dante’s devil on a crane being taken away! I’ll miss Dante’s Inferno most of all. I’ll also miss riding the log flume. I’ll miss sitting on the benches watching people ride the Breakdance and Topspin. I’ll miss that silly old shotting gallery on Surf. I’ll even miss just walking through the crowded park to get to the Boardwalk. I’m not an artist so yeah, the collage looks kind of amateurish and just the thing for a sidewalk shrine. It’s sad that anyone would remove anything from a steetside tribute. I’m amazed that anyone would go to the trouble to cut it off so carefully. I bet it’s hanging on their wall right now!
5 Tyler // Dec 29, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Coney Island will be dearly missed.
Hopefully it will return better than ever.
6 Jack // Dec 29, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@ 2james: What is your problem? Do you think Gowanus Lounge or anyone else would ignore positive development in Coney Island or elsewhere? Heck, I’d love to take my camera out and photograph great new rides and growth in the area.
But the reality is a part of NYC history and a part of American amusement park history is dying because of greed and incompetence.
The place is rundown, but it doesn’t deserve to be plowed over to make way for weed filled lots. The more people know about this the more hope that someone or something positive will happen before it’s really too late.
7 Eric // Dec 30, 2008 at 9:03 am
“normal?”
Misanthropy isn’t “normal,” except perhaps among anonymous blog posters.
Crawl back in your hole.
8 Daisy OMalley // Jan 16, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I went by there a few weeks ago and saw most of the stuff was gone. the Polar Bear club wouldn’t loan me a piece of paper or a pen so I could jot a few notes down and leave it there on the fence.
9 ConeyFanatic // Jan 30, 2009 at 10:03 am
Keep on blaming everyone else, Daisy… I guess this will have to serve as your new hangout, seeing as how you voluntarily got kicked off the CIUSA forum. Way to throw in another attack.
Tricia’s little memorial was a neat thing to do, and it’s a damned shame that it was stolen. This whole development war is a scandal – Joseph Sitt has a debt to pay when he meets his maker.
10 E. Nigma // Mar 28, 2009 at 10:23 am
So it was MY fault that some one stole the memorial?
Nice one.
I wanted to leave a message for THOR Eq.
Everyone should grow up.
11 The Sad Anniversary of Coney Island’s Astroland Going Dark « Amusing the Zillion // Sep 2, 2009 at 12:48 pm
[…] disclosure: I’m the Astro fan who created the Astroland collage which was stolen from the park’s gate. As I scrawled in the note begging for the icon’s […]