Grey clouds loom over the empty boardwalk and a few brave souls who chose to venture outdoors on a chilly November day. The high wind makes the rain feel colder, but 47-year-old Nick DiRaimondo isn’t concerned about the sudden temperature drop. He’s too busy reminiscing about his childhood trips to Coney Island to worry about the weather.
The former Bensonhurst resident made the trip from New Jersey to grab a couple of Nathan’s Famous hotdogs and stroll down the vacant strip with his son, Nick Jr. His son has been living in Germany, and DiRaimondo tries to take him back to Coney whenever Nick Jr. comes home.
“This is the spirit, the Wonder Wheel, all of what you see is here. The old shops – the places that have been here for a long time. This is what Coney Island is all about,” DiRaimondo says.
Both father and son excitedly look around but nostalgia seems to shelter them from noticing what has become of the place. Graffiti covers the doors of many of the boardwalk shops, many of which closed for good after the end of this year’s season.
Further down the boardwalk’s western section is a graveyard of school buses right next to the vacant but landmarked Childs restaurant building. And just off the boardwalk, vacant lots also dot Surf Avenue, one of Coney’s main arteries.
The city has embarked on the latest of many attempts to restore the increasingly blighted area to its former glory.
The effort began in 2009, when the city bought 6.9 acres of land for $95.6 million from developer, Joseph Sitt, a native Brooklynite and created an economic development plan. Sections of the plan have already been implemented, such a rezoning Coney’s amusement district to make room for hotels, retail shops, and approximately 5000 residential units.
Coney’s tourism has increased in the two years since the plan began. Last summer was one of Coney Island’s best summers in recent years, with 200,000 more visitors than the previous year. At least 400 jobs were created, and the planned economic development projects the creation of at least 6,000 new permanent jobs.
Many locals are against the city’s plan, however, and change is becoming a dirty word among some of those with a stake in Coney Island.
Opposition is led by an organization called Save Coney Island, which states its fear that “the city’s rezoning plan for Coney Island would forever destroy the dream of a revitalized, world-class Coney Island.”
Central to the opposition is the concern that the promised financial benefits will be too expensive for local residents, many of whom are low-income and live in the public housing buildings that surround the boardwalk. An estimated 45 percent of residents in Community Board 13, which includes Coney Island, received income support, according to the 2010 Census, up from 30 percent in the 2000 census.
The struggle between the city’s push to revive Coney and the local desire to maintain the area’s historic presence seems to be taking place right on the boardwalk, in Ruby’s Bar and Grill.
A favorite Coney destination during the summer season, Ruby’s is arguably the heart and soul of Coney’s amusement district. The beer is cheap, the atmosphere is easy going and the wall behind the bar is covered with pictures of historic scenes of packed beaches and smiling faces. Ruby’s has always represented one of the last fleeting connections to Coney’s glorious yesteryears.
Today, the restaurant better symbolizes what’s at stake in the city’s controversial economic development plan. For the second year in a row, Ruby’s has been negotiating a long-term lease agreement with the city and Central Amusement International, a developer that has a ten-year contract with the city to operate in the amusement district.
The city wants to make Coney a year-round attraction that includes sit-down restaurants with a more formal dining experience. Until recently customers at restaurants like Ruby’s just ordered food from the bar.
Although Ruby’s is rooted in its past, change is coming to the boardwalk’s oldest restaurant.
Michael Sarrel and his wife Melody – whose father, Ruby Jacobs, was the original owner – are trying to upgrade the place to comply with the stipulations in the lease negotiations. Simply put, Ruby’s has to renovate if it wants to be included in the city’s plan for Coney’s future.
On a sunny day in late November, Michael and a couple of his workers are rebuilding the flooring behind the bar as people stream into the restaurant – the only one on the boardwalk with its doors open. Despite the chairs stacked on top of each other, and the sounds of hammers and saw blades cutting into wood, many of the curious passersby ask if Ruby’s is still serving food. Michael, not missing a beat, charismatically offers visitors the choice of a “liquid lunch” from the only items he has left in his fridge: beer, soda, water.
As customers sit outside on plastic white chairs and sip beer, the jukebox randomly blares a classic song over the speakers, almost as if to remind everyone of the restaurant’s loud, bustling atmosphere that takes place during the summer season.
“Things are going forward and not reverse, so I guess that’s a good thing,” Michael says, as he takes a rare break from constructing the new floors. “We got a mix of everybody. That’s, you know, one of the things that I’m afraid might go away from this upscale dining experience that the city is looking to create here.”
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Upscale. Fancy. Expensive. Commercial. These words are thrown around in debates about Coney’s future. The neighborhood comprises a tight-knit community that, with organizations like Save Coney Island, is intent on holding on to Coney’s spirit as the city and other developers move forward with their plans.
But the neighborhood languishes in the off season, lacking year-around grocery stories and retail shops near the amusement district. Coney Island has the feel of a living museum that, while full of rich history, remains stagnant for most of the year, only coming back to life in the months that exist between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
In fact, there have been moments of great prosperity and affluence in the long history of the park.
“One time Coney Island was innovative. It’s all about innovation,” says Cezar Del Valle, a Brooklyn theater historian who helped to successfully advocate for Coney’s Shore Theater to receive landmark status.
In the late 1870s, rapid construction of railroads, ocean piers, and hotels made Coney Island a popular destination for wealthy tourists and vacationing New Yorkers. Weight-guessers, ball toss games, and jugglers who breathed fire were the kind of entertainment Coney had to offer, according Michael Immerso’s Coney Island: The People’s Playground.
Coney’s cheap fun – home of five cent hotdogs and beer – attracted European immigrant laborers who were also looking for jobs. Three massive amusement parks opened – Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, Dreamland – which made Coney an international renowned destination for extravagant entertainment.
“The thing is, as a part of the beginning, Coney Island frequently was an upscale place, the original Coney Island. It morphed into the ‘people’s playground’, and that’s what it’s known for and that’s what it’s famous for,” says theater historian Del Valle.
Concert venues, dance halls, and cabarets also helped to develop Coney’s honky-tonk, rebellious character in spite of the blue laws that enforced religious observances on Sunday. Legendary stories like the one about gangster Al Capone receiving his famous scar in a fight while working as a Coney bartender, further cultivated Coney’s gritty reputation.
By the 1920, the subway line reached Coney Island and brought in larger crowds who benefitted from the five cent fares for the subway and the amusements. The Riegelmann boardwalk was built to accommodate the surge of visitors. The park became known for the most famous rollercoasters in the country, with creation of the Tornado and the Cyclone.
But at least half of Coney’s attractions were lost during the Great Depression when even a nickel was too expensive to part with. A series of fires over the years destroyed several hotels and attractions. In 1944, the original Luna Park was unable to survive a major fire, and closed by the end of the season.
During this time, Coney’s development came under the direction of top urban planner, Robert Moses, who expanded the beaches to make room for the large crowds but enforced strict rules to control public behavior. By the 1950s, Moses significantly reduced Coney’s amusement district and replaced the space with residential units and public housing.
Soon after, however, the last major amusement park, Steeplechase Park, closed in 1964. Consequently, Coney attracted fewer visitors, especially with an increase in crime in the area due to the crack epidemic that plagued the city. Between the 1980s and 1990s, several urban renewal plans fell through, when the city was unable to negotiate with developers.
Since the 1990s, Coney’s future started to look brighter. Crime has greatly declined according to the NYPD’s statistics.
Michael Sarrel has noticed the gradual demographic differences of Ruby’s customers over the years. “You have more families. People aren’t afraid of Coney Island anymore like they used to be.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg took interest in developing Coney as a possible site for the 2012 Olympics, which he hoped would come to the city. When the bid fell through, Bloomberg continued to invest in the area, stating in 2005 that “by demonstrating a serious commitment to improve the area, the administration hopes to serve as a catalyst for private investment.”
In a controversial move, developer, Joseph Sitt, bought over $100 million in Coney property by 2007 with the intention of creating a new Las Vegas-styled entertainment venue. Many locals blame Sitt for kicking out neighborhood businesses and creating the vacant lots in order to flip the land for more than it had been worth.
After years of debating over Coney’s future, the city stepped in and bought the 6.9 acres of land from Sitt in 2009.
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Today, a walk down the Riegelmann boardwalk may allow you to eavesdrop on a spirited conversation spoken in Russian or peek at a wedding party photo shoot or watch a family ride their bikes together. In the background, however, are the closed shops and vacant lots, which the city hopes will turn around once its expansive economic development plans are fully implemented and become profitable.
So far, the city seems to be boosting Coney’s economy while still attempting to maintain ties to its past. In 2010, Luna Park opened and became the city’s first major development since rolling out its economic plan, attracting more visitors. In November, the city broke ground to build Steeplechase Plaza, another entertainment center designated for retail shops. Both places received their names in honor of the original 20th century amusement parks that heralded Coney Island’s glory days. And Steeplechase Plaza will be the new home for the historic B&B Carousell that the city restored for $2 million.
“The amusement parks and their concessions have already created over 400 new jobs, and thanks to outreach through the city’s hiring program – HireNYC – approximately half were filled by residents of the local communities,” says Kyle Sklerov, who represents the city’s Coney Island Development Corporation.
But Coney’s old guard wants to make it clear that while urban renewal is welcome, it remains cautious of what the city, Sitt, and other urban planners envision.
“The future of Coney Island remains uncertain.” Says Juan Rivero, the spokesperson for Save Coney Island.
“Thus far, the city’s program has been mitigating the damage and instability caused by its rezoning. Another way of bringing about economic benefit to the area might have been for the city to scrap the rezoning plan, support existing businesses, and devote the $100 million dollars with which it rewarded [Joseph Sitt’s company] Thor Equities’ speculation on persistently vacant private land and on public improvements. That moment, however, has passed.”
Rivero and Save Coney Island are also concerned that many locals won’t be able to afford the 5,000 new housing units the city plans to build and that the construction jobs created from the economic development will go to residents outside of Coney Island.
The economic gain, therefore, may be fleeting even though retail rent has increased since the rezoning in 2009, according to Brian Hanson, the director of sales for realtor Massey Knakal’s Brooklyn division.
“I believe that [retail rent] will continue to rise based on the popularity of the area. As it continues to be more popular, rents can rise but I think that is going to be determined by how productive the space is. “
But Hanson says that although retail rent has increased by 10 to 15 percent since the 2009 rezoning, he doesn’t believe local businesses will be priced out of the area.
“Will it get to a point where it is like Broadway or SoHo where you have to be a major national retail tenant to afford it, and the profit margins are very slim? That I don’t know, but it’s a long time away. I think for right now, with the current rent, local businessmen can rent space and make money if they have good product or service to offer.”
Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities is also in the process of negotiating rental rates to retailers. Thor still owns more than five acres of land and plans to build a movie theater and hotel on Stillwell Avenue, south of Surf Avenue.
Stefan Friedman, Thor’s press representative, says that the company sympathizes with the locals’ concerns but believes that rent and living commodities are naturally going to increase because of the ongoing investment in Coney. Friedman suggests that the price increases are a short-term consequence that will yield long-term financial benefits for the entire neighborhood.
“How many people are working along the boardwalk in the winter? Very few, at a time when you need to create jobs [and] at a time when unemployment is extremely high,” Friedman explains.
Robert Dankner also believes that Coney’s gentrification will benefit the neighborhood without losing its cultural identity. “It’s less about making [Coney] upscale, and more about changing the landscape so that there are things to do there for people other than the residents. It just brings money into the community as it would with any community.” Dankner’s real estate company represents Horace Bullard, who owns three acres of land that is within Coney’s new zoning boundaries.
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For now, Michael Sarrel and his family are celebrating –they found out in early December that Ruby’s lease was renewed for eight years.
“It’s a new challenge for us,” Michael says, as he considers what’s in Ruby’s future. “We have to redevelop the place, rebuild the place – there’s going to be different dynamics in Coney Island than there were before so we’re both anxious and excited.”
There’s some hesitation in Michael’s voice even though he is happy that Ruby’s is staying on the boardwalk.
“[The city] wants a more uniformed look to the boardwalk. So if you look at the boardwalk now each store has it’s own unique personality and look.” Michael admits that the boardwalk could use a facelift. “It’s all dicey looking and needs to be cleaned up but now they want everything to sort of fit, for everything to seam together.”
Coney’s gentrification will likely remain a controversial, politicized issue as current investments secure and expand future development, especially for residents like Michael who want to see their businesses succeed but also want to protect Coney’s cultural identity.
“It’s tough to deal with thousands and thousands of opinions when you’re trying to get a project moving forward,” says Brian Hanson, the real estate agent.
“But it is important to listen to those thousands and thousands of people who are ultimately going to make your project successful or not.”
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