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

Some Images of the Finished Product

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!!

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

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!

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.

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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.

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.

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!

My Door Has Arrived!!

Oh Frabjous Day!


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

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!!

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.

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!!

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

More Random Images

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!

OK. Sorry for the delay in updating this. Things are unbelievably busy here.

We were planning on completing this project by the end of April, but everyone knows how construction projects get delayed. So I'm learning exactly how and why that happens.
So at this point it's looking closer to mid to late May for the big opening party.

Also, the old adage about cost overruns... that's true too.

The space on the corner of W. 12th St. and Surf Ave. in November, 2007 (The space formerly known as the US Army Recruiting Station).



The same space in February 2008. Note the beautiful high ceiling. You can't see the exposed arches, but they're there!!


The same space yesterday. Big changes!!

All New And Improved Blog!
You probably didn't even know this existed, did you?

It's been years since anyone updated this, but I'm going to jump back into things now, with a series of updates about our building project. As reported in the news, we here at Coney Island USA bought our building last year and we're starting the renovations necessary to move into the storefronts on Surf Ave. It's not a huge project by the standards of most businesses, but it's a pretty big step for us and it's going to make a HUGE difference on Surf Ave. and to the Museum.

Stay tuned for updates, photos, and more over the next few weeks.


1208 Surf Ave. in 1923.


1208 Surf Ave. in 2005.

1208 Surf Ave. in 2008.

1208 Surf Ave. in 2008.

The January 28th issue of AMUSEMENT BUSINESS contains two classified ads: (1) INVESTORS WANTED Six million attendance. Multi million dollar coaster project to be erected on the famous site between Nathan's Famous and Boardwalk. 100 ft. from Brooklyn's largest BMT train station, also 100 ft. from Keyspan Stadium built in 2001 for 50 million dollars, home of the Mets farm team. Call cell 646-996-4847 or 718-946-9800. (2) Coney Island NY 6 million attendance in the heart of CI. Need Music Rides, Top Spin, Pirate Ship, Bumper Cars, etc. Need Glass Pitch, Magazine Photo, Recording Booth, Wall Climb, etc. Need all types of shows and attractions. Have good opportunity for small show with no route for NYC (same phone numbers). PLEASE NOTE: THIS INFORMATION IS INCLUDED FOR ITS NEWS VALUE. WE DO NOT ENDORSE OR ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO REPLY TO THESE ADS.

The BAY NEWS reports that CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL begins work in March or April on a new wing. "The design will be different than the 1950's design from when the hospital was originally built" says Luther Mook of the CI Hospital Community Advisory Board.

Who says New York City is a concrete jungle? Last week a raccoon was spotted on Henderson's Walk between Surf Avenue and Bowery. No idea how it got here but apparently it was alive and well and looking around. Less fortunate was the three and a half foot shark that washed up on the beach. The fatal gash in its head was apparently caused by a hit and run boat but our ocean is healthy with wildlife!

The MTA held a meeting today of its ARTS FOR TRANSIT panel. They have begun the process of selecting an artist to create a permanent installation in the new Stillwell Ave Subway Terminal. Another meeting will take place in approx. 5 weeks at which point a specific artist will be selected for the commission.

The Brooklyn Cyclones have found a tenant for some of the Surf Avenue stores at Keyspan Park - our new minor league baseball stadium. PEGGY O'NEIL'S BAR & RESTAURANT will open this summer. The new establishment will include sidewalk cafe seating and live music entertainment! A public playground is also under construction near the stadium fronting the Boardwalk.

For anyone interested in donating computers or electronic equipment to Coney Island USA, here is our wish list for items needed in the office and for the museum renovations planned in the upcoming season:

-A computer with a monitor for a kiosk in the museum (MAC or PC). Ideally this would have a 17" monitor and modem.
-A video projector and screen. We need this for the film festival and the proposed Coney Island Cinema program.
-17" Mac-compatible computer monitor for our offices.
-A decent shape Macintosh computer, prefferably an Imac or G3.
-A mac compatible USB printer
-A mac compatible USB scanner
-A mac compatible USB zip drive
-A digital camera
-A dvd player

Obviously this is a wish list, but anything anyone can do would be a help. The projector for Coney Island Cinema and the Museum kiosk station are our top priorities.

AN OPEN LETTER TO FRIENDS OF CONEY ISLAND USA FROM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DICK ZIGUN:

DEAR FRIENDS OF CONEY ISLAND,
My wishes to all of you for a very Happy New Year in 2002! We are working very hard this winter to plan a terrific new season for this summer but even in winter months Coney Island is still worth a visit. There are no lines for hotdogs at Nathan’s, the Aquarium is open every day, the Polar Bear Club swims on Sundays and our own CONEY ISLAND MUSEUM and giftshop are open Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 pm. If you don’t visit in person then take some time today to explore our excellent website with online giftshop, rental and booking opportunities (that support our wonderful programs) and a brand new featured attraction we call CONEY ISLAND RADIO. It lets you listen to Coney Island songs and vaudeville routines.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THIS SPRING AND SUMMER?
We are thinking about offering courses in a SIDESHOW SCHOOL the first two weeks of May. Seriously, folks, did you ever want to learn fire eating, sword swallowing or snake charming…this could be your big chance! What would you think of an indie-rock showcase in April? Coney Island Cinema video screenings at the Museum? Mermaid Parade fans take note that we have already signed up new Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz as King Neptune but we are still searching for his Queen Mermaid. ..Please call the office if you’re well connected with famous friends! We will also make a real effort this Spring and Summer to upgrade the condition and exhibits at our Coney Island Museum. We are seriously in need of volunteers who know how to tape sheetrock and when that gets accomplished we will be scheduling a painting party. The Museum also needs donations of computers, monitors, and video projectors to have visual exhibits on screen.

WHY NOT BUY A MEMBERSHIP?
Yes, that’s the best way to support the charitable, tax-deductible arts programs of CONEY ISLAND, USA. Members get a spiffy membership card and sporadic mailings of our historical newsletter the CONEY ISLE OPHILE. It’s late, I know, but there is finally a new issue in the works which will excerpt the new book CONEY ISLAND KID, the first bio ever of Luna Park’s designer Fred Thompson. All donations help us fund the great programs you love like the parade, the sideshow and the museum.

Thanks for checking out the website even though it’s off-season at the beach. Meanwhile rest assured that we’re keeping an eye on things for you at the world’s greatest amusement park in the world’s greatest city.

Wish You Were Here,
DICK ZIGUN

HOME DEPOT recently opened their newest and largest NYC store right here in Coney Island, off Cropsey Avenue. Off the store's parking lot is a really nice, new public access park that allows you to walk along the shoreline of Coney Island Creek. I'm not sure anyone is going to picnic there but there are park benches.

There are so many work crews in Coney Island this winter that Surf Avenue looks more like a contruction zone than a public thoroughfare. The street itself has been torn up to lay a new gas line. Meanwhile the MTA is demolishing Phase 1 of the Stillwell Avenue subway terminal and new bathroom facilities are being installed on the Boardwalk. Finally, there is another demolition crew dismantling the Rainbow Flea Market on Surf Avenue next to the terminal. Lucky for Coney Island is that all this work is taking place in winter and not around the 4th of July.

New Year's celebrations in Coney Island, as usual, began with the traditional swim in the Atlantic Ocean organized by the POLAR BEAR CLUB. This year the club was joined by new Brooklyn Borough President MARTY MARKOWITZ in his first official event as Boro Pres. - and to make that happen the POLAR BEARS held a first swim at 10 AM so that MARTY could attend Mayor Bloomberg's inaugeration at 1 PM while the POLAR BEARS took a 2nd dip! The two swims were both well attended which meant that hundreds of people went swimming that day. Not only did the OCEAN GRILL HOUSE take advantage of the crowds but RUBY'S BAR & GRILL also opened drawing attention to their new sign (which in true Coney Island tradition contains a spelling mistake)!