“Gone Country for Coney”, a benefit for Save Coney Island, is galloping towards Brooklyn this Saturday, January 30th.  Jump on the bandwagon!  Join us in DUMBO at Galapagos Art Space for an all-day country/bluegrass Jamboree!
Five bands of the city’s best pickers and plunkers starting at 3:00 pm and going until 9:30 pm.
Animal Pharm (playing a country set!)
Central Valley Wildfire
Rob Hecht
Pinataland
Citigrass
And a special dance number to finish off the night!

It’s sure to set your boots a-stompin’ and your hips a-shakin’.

Plus: Raffle prizes and games to keep you entertained all evening long!
Plus: BBQ from Jake’s to keep you satisfied!
Plus: Alamo Eric’s Texas Quick Draw - Your portrait in 20 minutes or less!
Plus: Catch up on the latest from Save Coney Island and maybe even wrangle yourself one of our new-fangled buttons!

Rope in your friends!  Bring five pardners with you to the event! Word of mouth is the best way to get the word out. Let’s pack the place!
$15 til 5pm (Early Birds)
$20 after 5pm (Slow Pokes)
All tickets sales go to support the cause of Restoring Coney Island as the Playground of the World!!!

All the info is here on our website.

Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street at Water Street
Subway: A & C to High, F to York.
Click here for a Map to Galapagos.

Saddle up on Saturday and we’ll see you there!

Grassroots activist group Save Coney Island today congratulated the Bloomberg administration on finding an amusement operator for Coney Island ahead of the summer season.

NY1 reported today that the city has selected ride manufacturer Zamperla USA as Coney Island’s new amusement park operator. Other companies, including Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Steel Pier, had also applied to operate amusements in Coney Island, NY1 reported.

Save Coney Island noted that the intense interest among amusement operators proves that the City did not reserve sufficient land in its rezoning of Coney Island for open-air amusements.

“We congratulate the Bloomberg administration for attracting so many proposals from amusement operators who want to be a part of Coney Island’s future,” said Save Coney Island spokesman Juan Rivero. “But the strong interest from amusement operators demonstrates that the recent rezoning did not leave enough land for the rides and other outdoor amusements that should be the centerpiece of a revitalized Coney Island.

“Coney Island is synonymous with amusements,” Rivero continued. “But if it is to revive its reputation as the ‘Playground of the World,’ Coney Island needs far more room for rides than the City’s flawed rezoning plan anticipated.”

Thursday, January 21st at 7:30 pm we are having our next strategy meeting in Coney Island.  We will be discussing the latest on our efforts to landmark key historic buildings; our campaign to prevent the permanent reduction of the size of the amusement area; the different initiatives underway to bring bring back amusements for a successful summer of 2010; and our other key projects to restore the amusement area as the Playground of the World. As always, your input and participation is critical - please come if you can.
Meeting location:
St Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Coney Island
2801 W. 8th Street.
F train to Neptune Avenue
Click Here for a Map.

Saturday, January 30th we’re having a good old-fashioned country music hoe-down at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO.  “Gone Country for Coney” is our big winter benefit for Save Coney Island so come and bring five of  your friends!  There will be five bands playing from 3:00 pm to 9:30 pm.  Visit our benefit page on our website for the line-up and for details.  Raffle prizes, too!
Benefit Location:
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street at Water Street
Subway:  A & C to High, F to York.
Click here for a Map to Galapagos.

On Tuesday Save Coney Island served the City with a lawsuit seeking to overturn its flawed rezoning plan for Coney Island.

It is not a step we took lightly. Everyone agrees Coney Island needs to be revitalized. We strongly support some of the City’s recent actions, like purchasing land for amusements and issuing a request-for-proposals to get amusements in operation there by this summer. Our lawsuit would not stand in the way of either measure.

But while the City has taken positive short-term steps, its long-term plan would ruin Coney Island’s incredible potential. By shrinking the outdoor amusement area and walling it off with high-rise hotels, the City would destroy the dream of a world-class, revitalized Coney Island forever. Our lawsuit is intended to keep that dream alive.

Read more…

The rain couldn’t keep the eager audience away from our evening of short films screened at the cozy Black Horse Pub on Wednesday, December 2^nd.

Event organizer & filmmaker John Salvatore with MC Michael Schwartz

The talented John Salvatore, a Brooklyn filmmaker and Save Coney Island volunteer, curated the Siren Screen Series, which featured 10 different shorts from 10 different directors. (Click here for the full line-up.) With an admission fee of $1 per film, this was the bargain of the season.

The films did not disappoint. Funny and touching, often ridiculous and always daring, this event featured some of Brooklyn’s finest filmmakers, all of whom have been inspired by Coney Island, and many of whom were in attendance that night. The evening offered up a mix of documentaries and fiction films, spanning every genre—as well as a few celebrity cameos to keep the crowd rapt.

And guess what? Our entertaining MC for the event, Michael Schwartz, was recently the subject of a great story in the Daily News featuring his writing about growing up in the Luna Park housing projects in the 1970s. Congrats, Michael!

Many thanks to all those who made the event a success and gave everyone a fascinating night of film-going.

Grassroots activist group Save Coney Island announced today that it had filed a lawsuit challenging the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning of Coney Island’s amusement area. Several Coney Island residents and amusement district workers and performers joined Save Coney Island as plaintiffs.

The suit was filed Wednesday, November 25 at New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan by attorney Albert K. Butzel of the Urban Environmental Law Center, who is representing the plaintiffs. The suit seeks to have the rezoning declared illegal and annulled.

The Bloomberg administration’s rezoning plan, which passed the City Council on July 29, dramatically shrinks Coney Island’s famed amusement district, leaving a proposed amusement park that is restricted to a narrow, 12-acre strip of land. The rezoning allows the insertion of four hotel towers — rising up to 27 stories tall — along the south side of Surf Avenue in the heart of the historic amusement district. The placement of the proposed high-rises invites developers to tear down Coney Island’s handful of remaining historic buildings, including Nathan’s Famous and several structures that are more than a century old.

“The goal of this lawsuit is NOT to stop the redevelopment of Coney Island as a world renowned amusement district,” Butzel said, “but rather to make it possible for that to happen. Responding to the interests of private developers and ignoring expert studies, the City has so reduced the area available for outdoor amusements that it will not be capable of regenerating a world-class Coney Island. In evaluating the impacts of the rezoning, the City ignored this and other critical information. That and its knuckling under to private development interests violated the law.”

Read more…