Hot dog! Coney Island’s annual wiener-wolfing contest isn’t till July 4th, but it isn’t too early to celebrate the city’sreborn capital of good, clean fun.
The seaside playground famed for its beach, thrill rides, and roller-coaster history — both literal and symbolic — is in its best shape in generations.
If you haven’t been recently, you’re missing out on the Big Apple’s happiest good times, waterfront revival.
Coney Island in the1970s-’90s was a crime-filled, run-down ghost of its glorious heyday, but has since morphed into the city’smost welcoming-to-everyone, old neighborhood made new.
Unlike expensively redeveloped waterfront complexes in Manhattan and northern Brooklyn, Coney Island isn’t “gentrified.” There are no designer boutiques or $75 veal parmigiana.
Instead, all classes, races, shapes, and sizes mingle at family-friendly Luna Park with sensational new rides.
10
There’s Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park andthe 103-year-old title attraction with the famous swinging cars.
TheSteeplechase Pier, which was rebuilt and improved after Superstorm Sandy, thrusts 1,100 feet into the Atlantic Ocean.
Unexpectedly diverse new places to eat shareSurf Avenue with attractive new housing developments.
Everything is within an easy stroll of the European-style, glass-domed Stillwell Avenue subway station where the B, D, F, Q, and N lines converge.
10
And it’s a15-minute walk to the New York Aquarium and a 20-minute stroll to Russian-dominated Brighton Beach to the east.
(Note: the Boardwalk offers an abundance of sea birds but almost no shade.)
The future is looking bright, too.
All eyes are onthe landmarked former theater at 1301 Surf at the corner of Stillwell, which a development outfit called PYE is slowly transforming into a hotel that Coney Island desperately needs.
And a consortium led by Coney Island native Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities hopes to win a gaming license for a five-acre location it owns behind Luna Park —one of the dozen-odd proposals the state will consider for a casino in the city, a decision likely to be made later this year.
Here’s a beach bag full ofreasons why every New Yorker should put Coney Island on their “must” list this summer —and even consider it as a place to live.
Potholes have been replaced by gateways to pleasure
Visitors once hadto navigate grungy, pothole-filled obstacle courses at the feet of Stillwell Avenue and West 12th and 15th streets to reach the boardwalk.
10
10
But Luna Park’s owners leased the land from the city to createjust-opened, gracious entrance gateways —landscaped plazas with snack stands and colorful overhead pinwheel lights to evoke the Coney Island of 100 years ago.
The Parachute Jump is prettier than ever
The iconic ride often called the “Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn” was moved from the 1939 World’s Fair to Coney Island’s long-gone Steeplechase Parkin 1941 and thrilled customers until 1964.
The skeletal steel frame survived efforts by Steeplechase owner Fred Trump to sell it for scrap metal and was designated a landmark in 1989.
Now, its nighttime LED lighting in shifting colors makes it one of the Big Apple’s most arresting sights.
The rides are more fun than ever
10
Luna Park, run by Alessandro Zamperla’s Central Amusem*nt International, has added two rides this year.
If the Cyclone’s too much for you, “family-friendly”Tony’s Express twists and curls around Leti’s Treasure, a water flume ride that recalls the old Luna Park’s famous Shoot the Chutes, at a (slightly) less-heart-pounding 30 mph across 1,200 feet of track.
An older coaster, theThunderbolt is named after a long-demolished roller coaster referenced in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”
At Deno’s, run by Dennis and Steve Vourderis, the new roller coaster Phoenixroars into its third season.
Also fun? Old-school haunted-house ride Spook-a-Rama, which dates to 1955.
Historian Stephen M. Silverman’s book “The Amusem*nt Park: 900 Years of Spills & Thrills”celebratesit as “a genuinely scary dark ride” that was painstakingly reconstructed after Sandy down to the “ghosts and goblins.”
There’s a mini Restaurant Row developing
Legendary Gargiulo has served fine cuisine at 2911 West 15th Street since 1907.
Famed pizza eatery Totonno’s reopened last winter after a Covid shutdown.
Both of them, as well as the original Nathan’s Famous, are joined by bold new efforts to break Coney out of its fast-food rut.
10
10
The menus are as polyglot as the crowds.
Teura at 1215 Surf Avenue offers a blend of Italian and Albanian.
Cajun seafood spot Hook & Reel and KPot Korean BBQ dwell under the same roof at 1217 Surf Ave.
Zula, a sprawling, two-level Mediterranean spot, took over the landmarked, Spanish Colonial-style Childs Building on the boardwalk at West 21st Street.
The Turkish-tinted menu haseverything from side pide to octopus carpaccio, and the rooftop offers a “hookah” bar and live entertainment.
10
“Aren’t we beautiful?” a cheerful hostess said of the venue’s monumental arched windows and what might be the longest bar in Brooklyn.
You don’t have to go to Manhattan for music
Zula is also part of the Coney Island Amphitheater complex — home to Live Nation’s 5,000-seat covered, open-air music venue.
This summer, you can check out concerts by Nigerian pop star Rema, ’90s throwbacks Jodeci and SW, and French heavy metal band Gojira.
You can live by the ocean
One block north of the boardwalk, Surf Avenue’s previous backwater of crumbling buildings and empty lots is growing into an attractive residential corridor.
Gargulio was instrumental in theRenaissance.
Restaurant owner Michael Russo leasedland he owns across the street to developer LCOR, whichjust topped off a game-changing, twin-tower rental apartment building at 1515 Surf Avenue —with a mix of market-rate and “affordable” apartments, retail storefronts and an open-air pool for residents.
Russo, who was born in Coney Island, took care of deciding whom to bring to the site.
“I investigated before I signed the lease,” he said. “Everybody wants affordable housing, and that’s good.”
10
But unlike other projects, LCOR’s project hasmarket-rate apartments as well as cheaper ones, making “a real investment in the neighborhood,” he said.
Meanwhile, major developersBFC Partners, L + M Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners have opened two large, all-affordable apartment buildings onblocks west of LCOR and will break ground soon on a third.
Farther west, another handsome residence, Raven Hall, will soon open as well.
One priority for The Alliance for Coney Island, a businessadvocacy organization, is to upgrade the shoppingscene along Mermaid Avenue.
10
“We’re very fixed on retail upgrades on Mermaid,” said executive director Daniel Murphy. “The amusem*nt parks are great but they can’t alone sustain a residential neighborhood.”
Developer John Catsimaditis, who also owns the Red Apple Group supermarket empire, built two gleamings, Miami-like Ocean Drive apartment towers at the boardwalk’s west end.
He wants tobuild three more towers next door, to be called Ocean Dreams.
But he needs approvals to create market-rate apartments. “There’s enough affordable housing in Coney Island already,” he said. “We need more middle-class housing.”
It’s a fantastic people-watching experience —for free
The Riegelmann Boardwalk, a name nobody uses, is 3.2 miles long from Brighton Beach at the east end to the private Sea Gate community at the west end. It doesn’t cost a dime to take it all in — but it will transport you.
