Sorry to keep posting this Coney Island stuff, but there are so many
parallels to AP.
November 10, 2007 / Perspective / Editorial
Bloomy to the rescue?
The Brooklyn Paper
Mayor Bloomberg put the city squarely in the center of the
debate over the future of Coney Island on Thursday, seizing the
heart of Joe Sitt's vision of a glamourous, glitzy and expensive
sea-front development while pushing the
Brooklyn-based developer aside.
At first glance, the city's vision doesn't appear all that different
from that of Sitt, who invested
hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years assembling
prime Coney Island real-estate from
outside the gate of the famous Cyclone roller coaster all the way to
West 15th Street.
Some Coney Island stalwarts, including most of the area's civic and
elected leaders, were lining up
against Sitt, who would have required city zoning changes to proceed
with his hotel, entertainment,
theme park and retail complex. They were fearful that Sitt would turn
their "people's playground" into
a playground for the rich and famous.
Sitt will be well paid for his work, as the city would now buy his
land with hundreds of millions of
dollars of taxpayer money or with city-owned land further down Surf
Avenue.
So the question remains: why would the city spend all that money to
end up with something that it
could have gotten from Sitt with a simple zoning change?
One glimpse into city's rationale may come from Bloomberg's
take-no-prisoners Deputy Mayor Dan
Doctoroff.
To Doctoroff, Sitt was simply not up to the job of building his
$1.5-billion Xanadu.
"It's a very different business building a shopping center than
building an amusement area," Doctoroff
said.
Where this leaves the Coney freak show and the ricky rides of
Astroland is anyone's guess. But clearly,
a Disneyeque vision is in play.
"We've talked to some leading amusement developers around the world,
there's definitely some
interest," Doctoroff said.
In fact, the city has already been negotiating with the "Danish
Disney," Tivoli.
Those who opposed Sitt's vision from the outset pleaded with the city
to get rid of him and
apparently they got their wish.
It just goes to show that the old adage holds true:
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it.
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