Coney Island News and Events

2008-09-10T11:50:00.003-04:00

One More Quick Photo Post

Before I get too carried away with images, I just want to throw a quick before and after at you. Just to note the continuity.

Before

After

2008-09-10T11:42:00.002-04:00

Some Images of the Finished Product

2008-09-10T08:12:00.003-04:00

Good photos are on their way.

I'm not the greatest photographer in the world. And I think it takes a big man to admit that. So there.

Philip Tusa , the visionary architect that first imagined this space, is putting together a photo shoot in early October. I hope to have much better images by then. The place deserves a lot better than I can give it in that department. I think Phil is pleased with how it all came out as well, so it will be great to have the photos to back that up.

In the meantime, anyone who wants to take some good shots of the place in use, especially at night, and donate them to us, we'd love to talk to you.

2008-09-10T08:01:00.002-04:00

Grand Opening!

Grand opening party at the Film Festival! September 26th at 9:30.

Well, here it is. Just in time for the last weekends of our season. Of course, the new bar/cafe, giftshop, and museum will be open all winter - and we'll be the life of the party next summer.

But it's finally done. And I can't believe how beautiful it is. Just thinking about what this place was like a year ago makes me extremely proud. It's nice to finally have a lobby and a gathering space.

But for me, the best part is giving the museum the entrance it deserves. Finally, there's some ground floor indication that this place is here. Hooray!

2008-08-29T15:05:00.002-04:00

Sneak Preview

My camera is currently in Europe, so I can't post anything today, but if you come down this weekend, you'll get to see the 99% finished product in all its glory! I'm sending everyone home next week when it's all done, but this weekend is going to be a rare opportunity to see this project clean, finished, lit, open, and full of people before the end of the season.

I recommend an evening visit, since the place looks phenomenal at night. Really. I'm proudest when the sun sets and you can see everything we've worked so hard on through the newly cleaned windows.

For those who don't want to see it until we have an official grand opening party, you'll have to wait until the end of the season when we celebrate at the opening of the Coney Island Film Festival.

I'll post some photos as soon as I can. But before that, come grab a drink, buy some gifts, and see the Coney Island Museum this weekend.

2008-08-17T15:06:00.002-04:00

Let there be Neon!!

The main hanging light grid will go in on Monday or Tuesday, but today we've got some really beautiful detail lighting.

Check out our neon!

2008-08-17T14:59:00.002-04:00

Freakaluja!!! A Little Bit of Progress!!

Well, we've finally got more worth blogging about.

The roof went up on the bathroom this week. It's one of the last major pieces of the puzzle. From here, we go on to getting all the light fixtures up and working on all the tiny details. But this marks the moment when we can actually start thinking about the place as close to done!!

2008-07-20T10:45:00.004-04:00

Provisional Business

We've had people in the space on weekends for a few weeks. And this weekend, the giftshop is serviceable for the first time.

Expect a big push in the next few weeks, especially as the lights go up.

Photo by Norman Blake

2008-06-27T15:06:00.003-04:00

Back to the Grind

Photo by Vel Riberto

Boy, is it hard to go back to being a construction site after the joy of a full house during the parade.

But the fun work is now at hand. We've done all the brute force stuff and now we get to concentrate on the finishing touches. Molding and lightswitches and furniture and such.

The bar is going to be phenomenal. Very Miami Beach actually. Back-lit fiberglass and neon all around.

We're looking for nautical pieces to decorate with. So if you have an old, round life-preserver you want to donate, now's the time!

2008-06-23T14:36:00.003-04:00

Forgot to Mention This

Of course, one of the challenges when doing projects on this scale with as many people and random moving parts as we have is that you often forget to finish things.

So about a month ago, I posted photos of Greg and I working on the stage in the museum, but never posted photos of the (mostly) finished product.

Well here it is. A little piece of Coney Island Museum goodness.

]

2008-06-23T10:09:00.003-04:00

Our First Live Resident

It's a real Art Space now.
This week, we have our first inhabitant. As you may know, this year's Queen of the Mermaid Parade is going on a hunger strike to bring attention to the upcoming scoping meeting, which will determine the fate of the entire amusement area.

Even as the space is unfinished, Savitri and her husband, the Right Reverend Billy have camped out in the front window, hailing passersby and urging people to come to the meeting (6:00 on Tuesday evening at Lincoln High School).

It's obviously not the high end hotel that it could be (and a whole lot shorter than the 40 story hotels they're proposing). I came to work this morning to find the Reverend looking for a camping stove to make coffee. We ended up with a makeshift cup using the microwave, a washcloth and a fine espresso blend. That was quickly supplemented by a trip to the Island Grocery Deli down the block.

So if you want to help our queen and make her suffering mean something, please come to the meeting on Tuesday night. And if you can't make that, send a postcard to the city council or the mayor's office.

2008-06-23T09:48:00.002-04:00

Dry Run.
Our first customers!! Saturday was amazing. The parade was the best I've ever seen it and having people in the new bar brought tears to my eyes. It will only get better from here.

We've still got a few weeks of work to do, but we've proved that the space is inhabitable.

2008-06-16T11:24:00.002-04:00

Last Moments of Purity.

The white walls we've gotten used to over the last few months are just about to disappear. Our new creation is going to go from being a clean, white sculpture to being a real venue. It's a transformation that will only happen once.

The guys we have doing the taping and finishing on these walls are amazing. My photos certainly don't do justice to their work. These walls are like fine porcelain. In some weird way, I'll be sad to see the color go on.

Big news is that we hope to be open, provisionally, for the parade this weekend. It won't be finished, but it will be usable!

2008-06-10T13:12:00.003-04:00

My Door Has Arrived!!

Oh Frabjous Day!

It's going to be Beautiful when its in place!!

2008-05-28T10:31:00.002-04:00

Little Changes Make a Big Impression

Sometimes just a little work will make a huge difference. Last night, the crew cut the arches in the wall between the existing bar and the new one. It finally feels like we're going to have a huge, new, expanded bar. Until now, the construction zone felt like a weird, timeless area where people did things that had nothing to do with our regular business. And it seemed like it was never going to end.

But now, we're actually working on details. The electrical work is mostly done, the plumbing is completed. It's cosmetic and aesthetic for the most part now. And it feels SO good to have all that light pouring into the sideshow lobby!!

2008-05-23T08:24:00.002-04:00

Please give me a New Office!!

"Oh G_d, please - if you're reading this - Give me the patience and the cash to finish making a new office for all our staff. And never, ever, let electricians run big pipes through my desk again?"

Our working conditions have never been pretty, but between now and the Mermaid Parade it's looking grimmer than ever! That said, I'm looking forward to the new, upstairs offices we have planned. They're going to look like the offices of the Daily Planet! With windows and everything.

2008-05-14T07:47:00.002-04:00

Big Day!!

Sometimes in the last few months, it's felt like we weren't making any progress. Construction like this is just slow going. But there are really good days when we move in leaps and bounds.

Today was a big one! We've got windows!!

2008-05-14T07:34:00.002-04:00

Museum Work

in the midst of all the insanity, I'm also building a proscenium for the stage in the museum. It's really just a way to have a nice backdrop for the experts. Although maybe it will encourage us to have more live entertainment upstairs. I'd love to see more small acts going on during the day...

2008-05-06T12:29:00.003-04:00

Museum Work

I ordered a new door for the museum entrance today! Very exciting. Because it has to be rated for fire, we went back and forth about the look and feel of the door. I'm happy to report I made a brilliant compromise and settled on a big, industrial door that feels like a victorian spaceship door. I'm imagining something from 20,000 leagues under the sea. Stay tuned!!

Meanwhile, more pictures of people working.

2008-05-01T11:38:00.002-04:00

Prettifying

I love watching contractors work. It's really great to have people who really know the ins and outs of machinery talking to each other.

Today we've got a crew doing ductwork and ventilation. Just making things look nice before we turn on the blowers.

2008-04-21T14:43:00.002-04:00

Bluebird Casino?

Buying an old building is a lot like owning an archeology site. Every once in a while we uncover some remnant of a previous iteration of Coney Island.

As we're renovating, especially, there are little bits of the history of the building surfacing daily. Today's gem is another piece of the old, hand-painted wallpaper, probably left from when the building housed the Bluebird Casino in the 1960's.

2008-04-21T13:39:00.003-04:00

Help Us Make A Year-Round Destination

As I've mentioned before, the new giftshop, museum entrance, and Freak Bar will be a big addition to our year-round offerings (right now, the museum is open weekends all year, but most of our operation is closed to the public from October to March). We'd like to be able to do theater and events all year long.

So having a bar and giftshop that's open all the time is a big step.
But like a lot of buildings in Coney Island, this one is mostly unheated.

So we're raising money to do a full heating and air conditioning system in the building. It's a HUGE expense and we've got a number of grant proposals out there, we're putting some of our own money into it, and we've got at least one individual donor on board.

Its going to cost us between $500,000 and $600,000 to do this as simply as possible. Anyone know anyone who wants to help make it happen?

PS. We've got roughly $180,000 committed already. What we really need is one or two big donors to match that and we're home free.

2008-04-18T09:22:00.003-04:00

What's It All About?

Several people have asked me to explain exactly what this project is.
I guess one of the problems with working in a cave-like office with no windows or climate control deep in the bowels of an old building in Coney Island is that you forget how little the people outside actually know about what you're doing.

That's why this blog is such a great idea.

Basically, what's going on is this:
Having purchased our building and secured our long-term existence, we're finally in a position to expand our operations and get a little closer to being the operation we've always fantasized about being.

Starting in 2004, we did a lot of soul-searching and planning. These conversations really started to bear fruit in 2006, as we were beginning the process of buying the building. We thought long and hard about what we wanted Coney Island USA to look like 10 years down the line. So this is us beginning the process of expanding to fit that vision.

Now that we own the whole building, there are a few immediate goals: Integrate all of our programs, so people understand that the museum and theater are part of the same operation; Finally start to come close to realizing the potential that the Freak Bar and CIUSA giftshop have always had; give the museum the street level presence it deserves.

By renovating the spaces on Surf Ave., we're going to have a much bigger presence on the street. You'll be able to see the new, expanded bar and cafe from the train and walking down the street. We hope this will actually change the face of our block significantly, maybe drawing some crowds down Surf that weren't coming before.

The expanded bar will have CIUSA beer on tap - Coney Island Lager is the first of several new sideshow beers we'll be putting out - coffee, softdrinks, and snacks. The giftshop will be a real giftshop, full of new stock that we've never had. Best of all (in my humble opinion), the museum will finally have an entrance that says, "This is a fun and interesting place! come see!" instead of a scary and weird staircase that people miss.

*A note here: I think we all agree that one of the things that makes CIUSA great is that we're not afraid of scary and weird. There's always room for things to be a little funky, a little mysterious, a little off. The really fun part of this project, for me, is figuring out how to 'improve' our property without losing what makes it appealing. I like that people see the museum as a special thing - kind of unknown, kind of surprising - and I'm hoping not to lose that.

So stay tuned for more exciting developments. This is really only the beginning!

2008-04-17T07:56:00.002-04:00

More Random Images

2008-04-16T14:30:00.003-04:00

Some images of the fun and exciting people that are making this possible.

Our fearless leader and our fearsome Architect.

In Coney Island, even the rock stars do manual labor.

It's fun to break your back for Coney Island USA!