The Last Summer

This may well be the last summer to experience Coney Island in a form that even vaguely resembles what we've all come to think of as "Coney Island." It's looking as if by summer 2006, much of it will be gone, and gone forever.

To be honest, it's been a long slow death, though not without the occasional signs of remission. Twenty years ago, primarily through the efforts of Dick Zigun, a nearly abandoned and crime-ridden Boardwalk really started looking as if it were turning around. It was smaller than it once was, but it was cleaning up. The Mermaid Parade was inaugurated. There were new attractions. And even with the annoying hipster appeal, it was still Coney-the gyro and fried-clam stands were still there, Ruby's was still there, the rides were still there. It still felt right.

Then the Giuliani administration arrived. McDonalds appeared on the Boardwalk. The sideshow was forced out of its location onto a sidestreet. Construction on the minor-league baseball stadium-aka KeySpan Park-got underway. The old vine-choked Thunderbolt, on the verge of receiving landmark status, was torn down in a blitzkrieg move early one morning because it was an "eyesore" for those people coming down to the baseball stadium. The parachute drop was likewise threatened, and there were rumors that the city was in dealings to sell Coney to the Disney Corp.

Things looked grim, but apart from a few annoying cosmetic additions (the view-blocking bathrooms, those annoying "palm tree sprinklers" on the beach), Coney hung on. Last summer there were even a few new games like "Shoot the Freak." And the venerable old Boardwalk attractions seemed to be doing well by doing what they've always done. Even if it was a bit more corporate than it used to be, at least the Disney talk disappeared, and the stadium was "over there," and could be ignored. The parachute drop was dismantled, but only for a restoration. The plan was to get it back in working order as soon as possible.

Then, last Thursday, the Daily News reported that Coney-quite unexpectedly-had been given the last rites.

It was revealed that a real estate development corporation by the name of Thor Equities (make of that what you will) had purchased a major chunk of the Boardwalk. Several business owners along the stretch have been told that they need to be out of there by the end of the summer. That includes the go kart track and Joey Clams' gyro stand.

Other Boardwalk landmarks, like Nathan's and Ruby's, are facing impossible rent hikes, and will likely to be forced out.

Thor's plan is to tear it all down and build a shopping mall. When that happens, even if the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone remain, Coney Island will be dead as the pope, and it won't be coming back.

Part of us wants to ask, "How could such a thing be allowed to happen?" Then we remembered what the current and previous administrations have done to the rest of the city over the past decade. We've said it before-piece by piece, everything that made New York what it is is being taken away from us, mostly out of simple, stupid greed and allowed by an astonishingly oblivious and apathetic public. The mayor and his developer cronies are doing a hell of a better job destroying New York than al-Qaeda could ever dream of.