Coney Island Carnival
On Monday night, mermaids and freaks ranked among the demonstrators urging the Department of City Planning to preserve Coney Island more or less the way it is. But while tattooed performers and the Rev. Billy got plenty of attention, they were part of a much broader spectrum of views voiced at Lincoln High School about the fate of New York’s ocean playground.
Monday’s event was a hearing on the city’s draft Scope for rezoning 27 acres of Coney Island as historically preserved public land. Department of Planning Brooklyn Director Purnima Kapur addressed the audience last night, elaborating on the city’s initiatives as they have changed since the last scoping hearing, in February; mainly, the expansion to 27-acres of amusement area, up from 9, and the movement of indoor amusements toward the southeast extending from Steeplechase Plaza.
If City Planning gets its way, developer Thor Equities, which owns much of the land, will have to scale back its plans to build condo towers on the site. Yet the city proposal still retains much of Thor’s vision, including “indoor amenities,” like big-name retail, and adding 2,700 new housing units, on what Kapur calls “vacant and sparsely utilized” land.
