I think the Cyclone and Luna Park look like a perfect fit. Photo credit: Brian Hedden

Brooklyn Cyclones tickets:

• The NYC Transit service cuts go into effect two weeks from now – here’s a first look at the impact in Bay Ridge. (Bay Ridge Blog)
• Impact of the BP oil spill on New York, Part 1. (Sheepshead Bites)
• The Gerritsen Beach Volunteer Fire Department may be getting $50,000 in the form of an Assembly member item. (GerritsenBeach.net)
• Sheepshead Bay Road CVS does NOT, I repeat NOT, have a drive-through. (Sheepshead Bites)
• I got a little motion-sick just watching the YouTube video of the Luna Park Air Race. (Kinetic Carnival)
• Confession: I really cannot f*cking stand publications like New York Magazine or Time Out New York. I feel like the people who write for them fancy themselves as being part of the Carrie Bradshaw social circuit, and therefore think it’s perfectly acceptable “journalism” (gollum, gollum) to write about themselves and their friends as trendsetters and social leaders, when the truth is 99% of the people in this city couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about them as either. So it is with some sense of skepticism I read about today’s generation of “Global Russians.” (Sheepshead Bites)
• Luna Park is holding a pageant this week to determine its representative in Saturday’s Mermaid Parade. “Please refrain from any talents or swimwear that is explicit and/or not appropriate for the viewership of all park guests.” Um, have they actually BEEN to a Mermaid Parade before (NSFW)? (Amusing The Zillion, Google)
• Why does the Parks Department hate things that grow weeds? (GerritsenBeach.net)

One of the message board posters at ConeyIsland.com took some Wednesday night video of the construction. Damn, those lights look cool.

The latest pictures are on the message board. Looks like, as of late last night, paving has finally started. Opening day is set for this Saturday, May 29.

With five days to go to the scheduled opening, we’re kinda wondering… it’s gonna be ready on time, riiiiight? Photo credit: Brian Hedden

Site news: Stephanie11229 is the newest member of the BK Southie writing team. You can probably expect Stephanie to write about the swath of land from Sheepshead Bay to Coney Island. She joins myself and Nick Silver as the current regulars here. Be sure to check out her first post and say hi!

I have a hunch that Luna Park will be dominating the South Brooklyn headlines this week, and into the next.

• More on the hoisting of the Luna Park entrance sign. You know, it looks like it needs more than five days of work to me, but pretty much every we talk to that’s close to the situation says the park will be ready for this Saturday morning. I don’t seen any signs of doubt on the Coney Island Message Board (the usual prognosticator of doubt), and the company line is a Saturday opening, a brief closure next week for some extra finishing touches, and everything in place by mid-June. (Amusing The Zillion, Coney Island USA, Brooklyn Paper)
• More on the return of the John Strong sideshow – the first north-of-Surf amusement in six years – and the two competing sideshows. (Amusing The Zillion)
• The Mayor’s commitment to Coney Island has not diminished, even in the face of massive layoffs in other areas of City government, noticeably the Department of Education. Note – I’m not sure yet if the $130 million Coney budget cited in the article also includes the $64 million amphitheater planned at Asser-Levy Seaside Park, which may play host to heavy metal concerts. (NY Observer via Bay Ridge Journal, Brooklyn Paper)
• I don’t imagine one slips in a Yamaha percussion set through a chain link fence on the sly, meaning Coney Island squatlord Horace Bullard granted actual permission to Metric to film the last 30 seconds of their latest music video in front of the Playland building on the old Thunderbolt site. Bullard, who has held the land (and done nothing with it) since the 1980s, put the site on the real estate market last month. (YouTube, Brownstoner)

Not all of the news is happening in Coney this week:

• El Greco diner on Emmons Avenue gets some attention from ABC News in their latest entry into the reality TV genre – staging confrontations between waitstaff and gay customers to gauge the reaction of the diner’s actual clientele. (Story from Sheepshead Bites, video from ABC)
• TIM-MAY!!! We hardly knew you, or your donuts. If only Tina Fey had promised to sodomize your donuts instead of that Peter Pan guy, you’d have received the community support you needed. (GerritsenBeach.net, Greenpointers)
• In the future, 4th Avenue through Sunset Park and Bay Ridge will look like the first draft of a Pixar movie. (Sunset Parkour)
• Parks and wetlands activity at White Island, Seba Avenue Park, and the Back Weeds of Gerritsen Beach. (GerritsenBeach.net)
• How not to drive, rollover edition. (GerritsenBeach.net)

Luna Park construction on the old Astroland site. Photo credit: Brian Hedden

I hate to be the wet blanket here, but if Luna Park is supposed to open in 19 days, shouldn’t it be a little further along than that?

The soon-to-open Luna Park, complete with the Eye Of Sauron attraction.

Hey, y’all. I took a sick day from the blog yesterday. Here’s your friendly, neighborhood South Blogistan.

• I’m guessing ya probably heard by now, but New York Magazine rated the 50 most livable NYC neighborhoods. Bay Ridge (#12) was the highest-rated South Brooklyn neighborhood. Also representing are Sheepshead Bay (#27), Brighton Beach (#30), Sunset Park (#39). The BK Southie editor’s girlfriend’s neighborhood was listed at #5, while the BK Southie editor’s own neighborhood inexplicably did not crack the Top 50. (NY Magazine)
• Opening Day in Gerritsen Beach, Little League style. (GerritsenBeach.net)
• Construction work is taking place at the future Luna Park site day and night. Will the new park be Astroland 2.0? More importantly, is that a good thing or a bad thing? (Amusing The Zillion, Kinetic Carnival)
• Speaking of Coney Island, Lola Star has a pretty good summary of what to expect event/programming-wise on the Rabbit’s Isle. (Lola Star’s Diary)
• The Sheepshead Bay satellite of Cafe Glechik is putting on some finishing touches. (Sheepshead Bites)
• Also, where to get Italian food in Sunset Park. Or where to avoid Starbucks. (The Sunset Park Blog)
• Asser-Levy amphitheater update: it’s going to hog up pretty much the whole park. Community Board committee meeting on Wednesday! (Sheepshead Bites)
• GBCares membership drive. Right, here. (GerritsenBeach.net)

Saturday, May 29 – circle it on your calendars, write a note in your day planner, create a new all day event in your BlackBerry. It’s the start of Memorial Day Weekend 2010, which is shaping up to be Coney Island’s biggest opening day since Fred Trump demoed Steeplechase.

Yesterday, the Mayor’s office officially announced that the Italian ride manufacturer Zamperla – or more accurately, its park-operating affiliate, Central Amusements International – will bring 19 new rides to “Luna Park at Coney Island” this summer, with four more “Scream Zone” rides in 2011. The first 19 will include the international debut of the Air Race, and the Final Four will include two custom rollercoasters and a human slingshot.

Zamperla and CAI are known for giving their rides at Central Park’s Victorian Gardens a Victorian look. Judging by the renderings released yesterday, it looks like they plan to hold true to the original Luna Park.

Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun reported back to CIUSA’s message board that Zamperla will also “rehab and reopen the AstroTower,” and the Coney Island History Project’s Tricia reveals that the Wonder Wheel is being fitted with solar panels to power a recreation of the 1920s lighting scheme on the swinging cars.

Unless you’re Gene Kelly, please kindly refrain from any rain dances between now and then.