RIDE ON! Sitt Gives Coney Island Fave Astroland a New Lease on Life by Dana Rubinstein Astroland Supporters Hailed the Deal
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Yards KOs solar power: P.6 Win turkey: P.8 Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 834–9350 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS–DOWNTOWN EDITION AWP/14 pages • Vol. 30, No. 42 • Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007 • FREE INCLUDING DUMBO RIDE ON! Sitt gives Coney Island fave Astroland a new lease on life By Dana Rubinstein Astroland supporters hailed the deal. The Brooklyn Paper “Astroland represents a very tangible link to the Astroland — the beloved Coney Island amuse- 1960s and 1970s,” said Michael Immerso, author of ment park that supposedly closed shop for good this “Coney Island: the People’s Playground.” fall — has gotten a one-year stay of execution. “It really embodies the old Coney Island.” Thor Equities, the real-estate giant that bought the Dick Zigun, the de facto Mayor of Coney Island and the land under the amuse- founder of the Coney Is- ment park from owner land Circus Sideshow, Carol Albert in 2006 called it “terrific news,” and gave Astroland one particularly because it final season this sum- would save 300 carnival mer, announced on jobs filled by “poor peo- Wednesday that it had ple from the area.” reached an agreement with Albert to keep her rundown This marks the latest development in a saga as top- park’s 35 rides operating for one more season. sy-turvy as the Cyclone rollercoaster (which Sitt can’t “Thor is fully committed to keeping amusements and touch thanks to its landmark status, by the way). games as part of the fabric of Coney Island for decades to Sitt has been buying land in and around Astroland come, and today’s agreement — reached after discussions for years, and says he wants to turn the People’s Play- / Paul Martinka with Albert and the community as a whole — represents ground into a $1.5-billion, Las Vegas style hotel, con- the first step in that direction,” said Joe Sitt, Thor’s presi- do, theme park and retail attraction. dent, who would not reveal the financials of the deal. See CONEY on page 6 Prospect Park Alliance Prospect MUNICIPAL MALL Plan would kill Court St. ‘dead space’ By Zachary Kolodin BEFORE The Brooklyn Paper Brooklyn’s dour Municipal Building — / Julie Rosenberg / Julie Rosenberg where generations of lovers have gotten their marriage licenses and tax scofflaws have paid their fines — will get ground-floor shops on Court Street under a plan being pushed by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The Brooklyn Paper The Brooklyn The Brooklyn Paper The Brooklyn Planners hope to carve out two or more retail stores from a 44,000-square-foot, two-floor space, said Joe Chan, president of the quasi- / Zachary Kolodin public agency charged with speeding develop- / Paul Martinka Horsin’ around! ment throughout Downtown. Everyone had a neighing good time at Saturday night’s black-tie gala for the Prospect Park Al- Currently, the space holds a Finance Depart- liance, which raised $850,000. The evening centered around the park’s historic carousel where ment payment center and the Brooklyn office of (clockwise from top) beloved Park Sloper Jamie Markowitz and her husband, Marty, cavorted; the City Clerk — but from the street, it looks Paper The Brooklyn Sen. Charles Schumer made the scene; Brooklyn Navy Yard President Andrew Kimball and his like “dead space,” Chan said. “People have just accepted that government AFTER Prospect Park Alliance Prospect wife, Sarah Williams, enjoyed a ride; and Jenny Douglas let loose. buildings are only for government,” he added. But that attitude is changing. Chan said that the city is about to close a deal with Muss De- velopment to take control of long-vacant ground-floor retail space in the former court building at 345 Adams St., next to the Marriott hotel’s new annex. Gays won’t shack up with Bruce Chan is even more excited about the poten- tial of the Municipal Building. “It’s atop Brooklyn’s second-largest transit hub, and at a corner with as much pedestrian Lambda Dems reject Atlantic Yards and a clubhouse traffic during the day as 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue and 86th Street and Lexington Avenue By Gersh Kuntzman Many political groups and activists have op- would work towards developing a community cen- in Manhattan,” he said. posed Atlantic Yards, but there is a deeper context The Brooklyn Paper ter, much like the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans- It’s too early to say what stores might be Studioamd to Lambda’s seemingly day-late/dollar short resolu- Brooklyn’s primary gay and lesbian political gender Community Center in Greenwich Village, in housed inside the office building, but Chan Downtown planners are calling on the city to add tion. Earlier this year, Borough President Marko- a Ratner-owned building in Downtown. said there would be a competitive, open bid- ground-floor retail (above) to the “dead space” in the club came out against Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards witz promised gay and lesbian activists that he mega-development on Monday night — even as See GAYS on page 6 ding process if City Hall signs off on the plan. Municipal Building (top). the developer and Borough President Markowitz are still discussing creating a gay community center in a Ratner-owned building Downtown. In language similar to other clubs’ and local com- munity boards’ rejection of Atlantic Yards last year, No F express, no Smith-9th Maggie: The Paper’s Lambda Independent Democrats declared that the By Mike McLaughlin Transit officials said repairs work on the Culver Viaduct project could not be supported because it “failed” to The Brooklyn Paper to the crumbling elevated would be delayed to create a go through a “stringent, transparent and inclusive tracks between Carroll Gardens temporary F express. not very ‘neighborly’ Necessary track work on community review” before it was approved by the Callan / Tom and Park Slope will begin as Subway advocates found a At last, The Brooklyn Paper has heard from Park Slope A-lister Empire State Development Corporation in the wan- the F line will make it impos- scheduled next year, postpon- silver lining in the news. ing days of the Pataki administration. sible to create express service ing the addition of an express “An F express wasn’t even Maggie Gyllenhaal — our notorious covergirl from last October. The resolution also hit state officials for using em- for at least another five years subway until at least 2012. on the table five months ago,” When our reporter showed the Divine Miss Maggie our famous inent domain to hand private property to Ratner, su- — and will shut the Smith- The announcement ends doubt said Gary Reilly, who started front page (left), her reaction was, how you say, none too pleased. perceding the city’s own land-use review oversight, and Ninth Street station for all of — some of it fueled by MTA an online crusade this year for See page 12 for the final word on this yearlong saga. granting Ratner “special allowances and tax breaks.” 2010. officials last month — that F express. Paper The Brooklyn 11.6 miles of bad road APPREHENDED BQE inspires Sufjan Stevens’s latest work at BAM Second chalker nabbed by cops By Adam Rathe he city’s crackdown on sidewalk chalk The Brooklyn Paper “vandals” is officially out of control! It THE BROOKLYN Twas bad enough when the Sanitation The Brooklyn-Queens Department threatened the parents of a 6- By Gersh Expressway has been the year-old Park Slope girl with a $300 fine if ANGLE Kuntzman backdrop for endless frus- they did not remove the offensive “graffiti” tration — and plenty of car — her sidewalk chalk drawings on their CHALK IT UP! horn symphonies — but own front stoop. now it’s inspired an honest- STARTS ON PAGE 7 But after we ran our front-page story about While we’re not surprised that the ser- to-goodness music compo- Natalie Shea and her chalk “vandalism,” a geant was reading Brooklyn’s real newspa- sition by indie rock super- run at the Brooklyn Academy Cobble Hill chalk artist who had never been per, Gallagher was stunned to be arrested star Sufjan Stevens. of Music on Nov. 1. arrested before suddenly found himself in and held overnight because of a few benign Stevens, the 32-year-old, Although he calls Brooklyn handcuffs and spending a night in the lockup. comments in our Oct. 13 issue: Kensington-based indie pop home, Stevens — who isn’t Coincidence? Not likely, considering that “Cops stop me all the time when they see star with seven albums and a quite a mainstream superstar, the artist, Ellis Gallagher, had been quoted me drawing on the sidewalk,” Gallagher slew of guest appearances and but has been featured exten- in the original Brooklyn Paper piece — a had said at the time. “But once they see it’s collaborations to his credit, sively in independent films, on / Julie Rosenberg story that the desk sergeant just happened to just chalk, they always let me go.” found great inspiration in the television and in magazines be reading when Gallagher was brought in. Not anymore. 11.6-mile stretch of road. He like Topic and McSweeney’s “The cops had spent about half an hour On Oct. 17, Gallagher was at the corner was so moved by the pave- — is a rare on-stage sight in the debating whether to arrest me, so they final- of Smith and Warren streets, creating one of ment that he penned a half- borough, so GO Brooklyn ex- ly called the sergeant who said, ‘Bring him his trademark shadow drawings — in chalk! hour-long music-and-video Denny Renshaw citedly checked in with him to Paper The Brooklyn in,’” recalled Gallagher.