BREAKING: Coney Building Gets Landmarked
We just got word that the former Childs Restaurant in Coney Island was landmarked at the LPC Meeting today. This makes for two Coney Landmarks in less than a month. For more background on the building and the efforts to landmark it, check out Amusing the Zillion and the Brooklyn Eagle, both of which ran…
We just got word that the former Childs Restaurant in Coney Island was landmarked at the LPC Meeting today. This makes for two Coney Landmarks in less than a month. For more background on the building and the efforts to landmark it, check out Amusing the Zillion and the Brooklyn Eagle, both of which ran articles in anticipation of the designation.
Photo by Fred Kahl via Amusing the Zillion
Sparafucile, buildings are just as much a part of Coney Island as it’s sideshow acts. If you want a hulking glass monolith to house the next Shoot the Freak with drab apartments above, be my guest. I’ll happily take this quaint building. The more buildings landmarked, the better.
That and the LPC doesn’t jack up costs for the facade. Usually they only get picky with windows on more high-end Victorian and beaux-arts buildings. This building is in great condition and will just need the usual upkeep like any other functioning building. Mind you, there’s plenty of landmarked buildings that remain derelict (take that former precinct in Sunset Park that Montrose just featured on Building of the Day) because of terrible and neglectful owners. If anything, the LPC is too lax when it comes to enforcing it’s laws.
But what can you do in condo town, especially in Coney where so much has been lost. Landmark now, or never. New York or Ohio, take your pick… apparently Sparafucile, you want Ohio.
So I guess you want to take that up with Dick Zigun, since he was all for this…
QUOTE: “I’m glad they got landmarked.”
I’m not. Coney Island USA operates on a shoestring budget and the last thing they need is the time and expense of satisfying the LPC any time they want to do work on their building. I would rather they devote their limited resources to developing the next generation of freaks and sideshow performers instead of preparing elaborate presentation materials showing that their facade treatment won’t offend anyone’s sensibilities. After all, offending sensibilities is their stock in trade.
Great building, and a really interesting Coney Island Museum upstairs, as well as a wonderful artist in residence, and some cool folks all around, who form a great community of people trying to preserve what’s left of the old CI. I’m glad they got landmarked.
Not really all that exciting as this building is owned by Coney Island USA and under no threat of demolition or bad renovation. Now if only they had acted on one of the Sitt buildings that are now dust and rubble…
Cool.
Clearly overdue but finally glad to see Landmarks responding to all the pressure to save Coney.