Filming on Coney Island

 Posted by at 12:46 pm  Coney Island, Events
Apr 142011
 

Men in Black 3 will be filming in Coney Island from May 2 through 6, and the production has leased “the Grashorn” – Coney Island’s oldest building. A construction crew is working on the building located on Surf Ave to use as their location headquarters. The production company is decorating some of the buildings on Surf Avenue with a retro 60′s look, and there will be filming on the famous Boardwalk and in Wonder Wheel Park.

Some of the locals have been cast as extras. However, the film is not set for release until May 2012.

The Grashorn Building, which has been sitting unattended, is expected to be rented out afterward.

5 Borough Pizza Put Down Part 2: The Meanest Pie In Town

 Posted by at 2:01 pm  Brooklyn In Pizzas, Coney Island, Food & Drink, Not Brooklyn
Apr 122011
 
What Totonno’s lacks in basil (and kindness) they make up for in pure pizza goodness
Patsy’s service proved pleasing; their pie peculiarly premature

This is it. The culmination of countless afternoons spent devouring the best pizza we could find. This is the 5 Borough Pizza Put Down. In our never-ending quest to find the perfect pizza pie parlor, we’ll award points based on 5 categories: food, service, atmosphere, cost and value. In the short term we will be grouping pizza places together: either by geography, shared history or both, and comparing. In the long term, we will use the points system to decide on an overall city-wide winner. (I’ve decided that, in order to simplify any comparisons, I will only order the plain, or margherita pie at each pizzeria.)

Following up on last week’s Brooklyn versus Manhattan theme, we once again have a battle of the boroughs. This week we matched up Patsy’s Pizzeria in Murray Hill with Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitano in Coney Island.

The Ultimate 2011 Coney Island Preview

 Posted by at 9:00 am  Coney Island, Featured story
Apr 062011
 

The Wonder Wheel – it’s about the only thing that isn’t changing on Coney Island this year. Photo credit: Brian Hedden

The Coney Island amusement parks open up on Saturday, April 16 – just ten days away – to take advantage of Passover and spring break at public schools. A lot has happened behind the scenes over the off-season. This will be another big year in terms of the transition from Old Coney to the New. 2011 will mark the first time we’ve seen new roller coasters since 1927, and it will be the last time we see a number of businesses in their familiar Boardwalk homes.

What new rides will we see? Who isn’t coming back next year? Why did the Seaside Summer Concert series have to die? Will the Brooklyn Cyclones be impacted by the Mets Madoff troubles? We’re here to get you caught up on all of this, and more:

1. The Scream Zone brings Coney it’s first new roller coasters in decades

Central Amusements International (CAI) – the U.S. amusement park operating arm of Italian ride manufacturer Zamperla – is opening the Scream Zone on the lot once occupied by the batting cages and go-cart tracks. The Scream Zone adds four new thrill rides to the CAI portfolio, which already includes the 19 Luna Park rides that opened last summer.

The Scream Zone is headlined by Steeplechase, a launch coaster (which goes immediately to speed instead of slowly climbing to the first big drop) that’s meant to pay homage to the famous ride and park from mid-century Coney (though not, interestingly, by making it an actual steeplechase-style coaster). Steeplechase and Soaring Eagle – a flying roller coaster – are Coney’s first new roller coasters since the Cyclone opened 84 years ago. Thrill rides Zenobio and Sling Shot will round out the new mini-park. Continue reading »

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No summer concerts at Asser-Levy Park in 2011

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Coney Island, Music
Apr 062011
 

For more than 30 years, Coney Island has had FREE summer concerts at Asser-Levy Park. However, this will come to an end because people found the concerts to loud. Opponents of Marty Markowitz’s amphitheater plans used the city sound ordinance to get the concert series evicted altogether. Not sure why people started bitching about this after all this time. Performers have included Billy Ocean, Peter Frampton, Blondie, Huey Lewis… not exactly the loud monsters of rock tour!

I live next to the park, and the concerts are not too loud. And they’re not on Saturday or Sunday mornings – the shows were on Tuesday and Thursday Nights.  It is easy to confuse the decibel levels of Kenny Vance & The Planotones with AC/DC, right? Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz hasn’t found a new spot and said the concerts would happen in the future. Let us pray, especially in a bad economy, a new spot is found for free quality entertainment.

Coney Island’s BK Festival Raises Questions About Just What A Flea Should Be

 Posted by at 11:02 am  Coney Island, General Interest, General News, Kvetch
Apr 052011
 

Antiquing in Brooklyn? Fughetaboutit!

The Aquaduct Fleamarket was once a local, unpretentious gathering of weekend entrepreneurs. For years vendors hawked everything from T shirts and CD’s to beauty products and, of course, the mainstay of any swap meet, flea market, garage, yard or stoop sale from California to Maine: antiques, Americana and miscellaneous bric-a-brac.

According to the NY Times, that’s exactly what the reincarnated version of the famous Ozone Park, Queens tradition will NOT be selling when it comes to the corner of Stillwell and Surf Avenues. According to organizers Tommy Brady and Tommy Walker, this one’s going to be strictly ‘upscale’ (aka characterless). Because, you know, when you’re looking for that really high end merchandise it’s either Lord & Taylor, Bloomies or a vendor stall in Coney Island. Something tells me that the ‘Two Toms’, along with local destroyer of historic buildings Joe Sitt’s version of ‘upscale’ is going to be a lot of overpriced, cheaply made plastic stuff from China and ‘beauty products’ that aren’t quite up to the level of Avon. After a couple of years of this, that Walmart over by Erskine’s not gonna sound like such a bad idea…

Local blogger Tricia Published writer and local blogger Tricia Vita over at Amusing the Zillion has done a great job providing extensive coverage of the Aquaduct Flea Market’s move to Coney. Her article, which we link to below, includes examples of previous attempts by Joe Sitt’s company Thor Equities to turn amusement space into vacant lots and depressing flea markets (check out the photos). The icing on the cake? Some words of wisdom in the comments section by BK Southie’s own Brian Hedden:

Amusing The Zillion: Thor’s Coney Island: Joe Sitt Scores Puff Piece In NY Times

Recchia Plays World’s Smallest Violin For Board Of Elections

 Posted by at 12:45 pm  Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Gravesend, News, Politics
Mar 172011
 

From left to right, Coucilmen Domenic Recchia and Lew Fidler

Watch out Lew Fidler, there’s a new violinist in town. According to local news channel NY1, the Board of Elections is asking the city for “close to $110 million in additional funding” over what the mayor has proposed, and Councilman Domenic Recchia’s not showing them any sympathy. Recchia, in addition to representing District 47, also serves as chairman of the council’s Finance Committee. In response to the BOE’s requests for more funding, he told NY 1 that “I don’t think they are hearing the cry…taxpayers want more for their money.”

To be fair to the BOE, their budget has, so far, been reduced from last year. The board’s Deputy Executive Director Dawn Sandow explained to NY1 that,   “the reductions and underfunding proposed in the mayor’s preliminary budget has put our democracy in peril.”

“We have a constitutional obligation to hold free and fair elections. And these elections are costly,” said New York City Board of Elections President J.C. Polanco to NY1′s Grace Rau.

Coucilman Recchia did make some good points, particularly regarding wasteful spending. Included in the BOE’s counteroffer was a request for $32 million to pay for “support services” from the firm that supplies its voting machines. “This outside contracting has got to stop. It’s going through the sky,” Recchia told NY1.

NY 1: City BOE Makes Plea For $110M In Additional Funds

Video: Old Tyme Coney Island

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Coney Island, Memories
Mar 172011
 

Only 30 more days to go until the big Coney Island amusement parks open up! I know all of you are waiting on the edge of your seat for this, especially the new Scream Zone that the Luna Park operators will be opening up for the first time this year. To tide you over, here’s a video of Coney Island back in 1944. It includes some footage of the Parachute Jump in operation, along with some Things That Aren’t There Anymore.

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Boardwalk icons could be back for this summer

 Posted by at 1:26 pm  Coney Island
Feb 162011
 

Currently there are negotiations that Coney Island Boardwalk icons could be back for this summer. Word is that Ruby’s, Beer Island, Paul’s Daughter, the Grill House, Cha Cha’s, Gyro Corner and Coney Island Souvenirs would be able to return this summer if they don’t fight Zamperla for a new lease after summer ends. The legal fighting over the winter dragged out and prevented Zamperla from adding new businesses that they wanted in these spots. Zamperla has been fined for illegally “bulldozing” the Shoot the Freak game, which is where they want to use the space for an entrance to its new amusement park called Scream Zone. For the past few years businesses on the famous Coney Island boardwalk have been fighting for one more summer.

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Dear Media, I’m tired of your factless MTA bashing. It’s basically lying and stuff. (correction below)

 Posted by at 8:30 am  Coney Island, MTA, Sheepshead Bay
Jan 312011
 

The NYC media’s coverage of the MTA is abhorrently incompetent: so often superficial, so often misleading, so often flat-out wrong. Last week, this was on full display again, and I’m really tired of it.

If you haven’t heard: the MTA is making some adjustments to its bus schedules – a reduction of service on 40 routes, and an increase of service on 24 routes. I would characterize most of the changes as extremely minor – typically spacing out buses by an extra minute or two.

The bigger cuts were somewhat more significant, and here’s how the biggest cut was reported by the NY Post:

The biggest loser in the city is the B36 — running from Sheepshead Bay to Coney Island in Brooklyn — where riders will have to wait an extra two to three minutes between buses.

That’s a 17 percent decrease in service, documents show.

There’s actually two things seriously flawed in this statement, and I’ll get back to the first one in a bit. Let’s hone in on that 17% reduction, since it’s a fairly damning statistic which was also reported by others, such as News 12 Brooklyn, the NYC news organization that I have the least amount of respect for.

B36 service is being reduced by 17%… on Saturdays. There are no changes to the Sunday schedule, no changes to the weekday schedule. Taking that into consideration, the actual cut is about 2%. A gross exaggeration of an MTA service change, but one that’s par for the course in news media coverage of the MTA.

For its part, CBS 2 correctly noted that the changes applied only to the weekend schedule. But play this video and listen to the first reaction interview: an angry quote from a school crossing guard complaining that the only time she sees buses are between 2:30 and 3:30, which happen to be the hours a crossing guard is on duty and might notice those things. And what do crossing guards and schoolkids have to do with weekend bus service, anyway?

So, we’ve got (1) a gross exaggeration of facts, and (2) reactions from people who aren’t impacted but are angry enough to fit the narrative. I repeat: par for the course in news media coverage of the MTA. American history textbooks call this yellow journalism. I call it lying.

I repeat: I’m really tired of it.

Incidentally, the other thing that was really messed up about the NY Post report is that B36 wait times are not going up 2 to 3 minutes, they’re going up 3 to 5 minutes – in particular, riders traveling in the evening will now have to wait up to 20 minutes for a bus. I think that’s terrible – speaking for myself, once my potential wait time goes over 15 minutes, I start thinking of another way to get to where I’m going. Or maybe I just decide to stay in and make it a Netflix night.

Hey, CBS 2, maybe instead of interviewing a crossing guard about the school day, the more useful interview would have been a shopper or barhopper or other weekend traveler who might decide their trip wasn’t really worth it after all?

Along those lines, Allan Rosen, the transit contributor at Sheepshead Bites, wrote an exceptional article about this. Yes, he did mistakenly repeat the NY Post’s 17% statistic, but he hit on several other important points, like the sacrifice of bus funds to pay for an increase in subway service on the J-train, the impact of long wait times and bus bunching on reliability, the impact of reliability on ridership, and more. (He also acknowledged the mistake on the stat, because that’s just the kind of guy he is.) If you haven’t seen it already, I recommend taking a look now, because it’s the kind of fact-based criticism that you hardly ever see anywhere else.

The bus cut details can be found on pages 128 and 129 of this PDF.

Update, Feb 4: The original story mistakenly stated that all of the 64 changes were to weekend service. That was incorrect. I read the MTA’s abbreviation “wkd” incorrectly. That’s how I abbreviate WeeKenD… but that’s how the MTA abbreviates WeeKDay. It also stated that the M22 was being cut on Saturday/Sunday, when in fact weekday service is changing and Saturday/Sunday service is staying the same.

Friggin’ glass houses.

Dear Luna Park, make this happen: summer movies on the beach

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Coney Island, Featured story
Jan 262011
 

A movie on a beach. This should be on OUR beach! I mean, it wouldn’t be a Thai movie playing, it would be something as awesome as we are like Spiderman or Die Hard or maybe Field Of Dreams. Photo from Thai Film Journal via Creative Commons license.

I want a free summer outdoor movie series at Coney Island. Right on the beach. You want it too, even if you didn’t realize it until now. And I think we should make this happen. This summer.

There are several of these free movie series all over the city. The granddaddy is the one at Bryant Park. They’ve got the biggest screen, the most movies, the HBO theme, the glow of lights from the Bank of America building – in other words, everything. The BK editions are mostly found in Brownstone and Hipster Brooklyn: Pier 1 Park, McCarren Park, Prospect Park and the like. What a schlep!

We have them here in South Brooklyn, too, but on a greatly diminished scale. Bay Ridge has a series – three movies over the course of two months – at the Narrows Botanical Garden.

And there actually is an existing series in Coney Island – not at the beach, but at Asser Levy-Seaside Park. And wait, did I just call it a series? It’s not, really. It’s just one movie. It’s part of the Tuesday night concert series sponsored by Councilmember Recchia’s office – it switches gear one night in the summer to show a movie instead. (Last year, it showed Mamma Mia, a movie I would pay money not to see.)

We should have better. Simply put, we’re just more awesome than that.

Coney Island is the perfect area for this. All four of our South Brooklyn subway lines go there. People already come from all around town to go there in the summer.

And I’m telling you – put it right on the beach. Watching a movie by the seaside, lying on a beach towel – where else in New York are you going to do that? Nowhere, that’s where. Blocking off the beach after swimming hours are over shouldn’t be a problem since they do it for the fireworks. I don’t know what you do about that movie screen – do you make it semi-permanent like at Bryant Park? I’m sure someone can figure that out, though.

Dear Luna Park: you should be this event’s sponsor. You can use it to bring people to Coney Island on an otherwise slow night for your amusement park – say a Tuesday or a Wednesday night. OK, I know not everyone will go to Luna Park after the movie, but I promise that I will.

And couldn’t you use some goodwill right about now? The honeymoon period that came from opening Coney’s first new amusement park in 45 years wore off as soon as you gave eviction notices to almost all of the businesses on the Boardwalk. A lot of people were set to run you out of town after that, and some of them will probably never be won back. But you still have more things working in your favor than against, and you can demonstrate that in time for the 2011 season by backing Brooklyn’s newest movie series on the Coney Island beach.

Correction: by backing Brooklyn’s BEST movie series on the Coney Island beach.

P.S. Dear readers, what movies would you like to see at the new Coney Island Beach Summer Movie Series?

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