Local activist group Save Coney Island is disappointed by the failure of the City Council’s Land Use Committee today to make necessary revisions to the City’s flawed rezoning plan for Coney Island.

The City’s flawed plan will now proceed to the full City Council for a vote, without the needed revisions having been made to ensure Coney Island’s future as a world-class amusement destination.

Save Coney Island, the Municipal Art Society, The New York Times editorial board and Coney Island’s unofficial “mayor,” Dick Zigun of Coney Island USA, had all urged that the proposed open-air amusement park be expanded and that the four high-rise hotel towers currently proposed for the south side of Surf Avenue be removed. Coney Island’s Community Board 13 also requested that the high-rises be relocated.
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The City Council’s Land Use Committee has a final opportunity tomorrow (Tues. 7/20) to recommend urgently needed revisions to the City’s flawed rezoning plan for Coney Island.

The Land Use Committee met today and recessed without making any recommendations — a sign that the City has not yet done the necessary work to fix its plan.

Tomorrow, the committee has an opportunity to do the right thing for Coney Island. It should expand the amusement area and remove the proposed high-rises from the south side of Surf Avenue, as has been urged by the Municipal Art Society, The New York Times editorial board and Coney Island’s unofficial “mayor,” Dick Zigun of Coney Island USA. Coney Island’s Community Board 13 also requested that the high-rises be relocated.

“The City Council has a historic opportunity to fix this flawed rezoning plan and head off disaster for Coney Island,” said Save Coney Island spokesman Juan Rivero. “New Yorkers from all parts of the city love and care about Coney Island. Each and every member of the City Council has a responsibility to preserve this iconic amusement attraction for their constituents and for future generations.”

The Land Use Committee and its Zoning subcommittee will be meeting tomorrow at City Hall at 10:30 a.m.

Fifteen leading historians of New York City — including two Pulitzer Prize winners — recently signed an open letter criticizing the City’s rezoning plan for Coney Island and urging the City Council to fix it.

“Coney Island is a place of great national historic significance. It is the birthplace of the modern American amusement industry,” they wrote. “The City’s rezoning plan for Coney Island, however, dishonors its past and sacrifices its future.”

“This plan must not be allowed to pass in its present form. The City Council must step up and fix this plan. It needs to expand the acreage for amusements, remove the high-rises from the heart of the amusement district and preserve Coney Island’s historic buildings,” they continued.

“The City Council has a responsibility to protect this iconic American place. If it fails to fulfill this responsibility, the judgment of history will be a harsh one,” they concluded.

It is our understanding that the City Council Zoning and Land Use Committees are scheduled to vote tomorrow, Monday July 20th, on revisions to the Coney Island rezoning plan.

WE NEED YOU TO ATTEND AND MAKE YOUR PRESENCE FELT!
When:  9:30 am
Where:  250 Broadway; 16th floor hearing room.
PLEASE, GET THERE EARLY TO GET THROUGH SECURITY.

It is our understanding that this meeting will be happening, though there is a slight chance that the vote could be postponed at the last minute. (It has been postponed twice already.) But as of now, we expect the meeting to happen, and we need people to show up.

The vote by the Land Use and Zoning committees is the last chance for the plan to be fixed.  If council members choose to support the current plan without significant amendments dealing with the amusement area, we will know that they ignored your calls and that they are indifferent to the destruction of the “People’s Playground.”  The vote by the entire City Council is scheduled for July 29th.

Leaders of a half-dozen leading unions and community advocacy groups sent a letter to members of New York City Council expressing “deep concerns regarding the City’s plan to redevelop Coney Island.” They urged the City Council to change the plans in order to guarantee good jobs, create more affordable housing, improve public amenities for neighborhood residents and strengthen the amusement district.

Here’s what they had to say about amusements:

Through years of disinvestment, the active amusement area at Coney Island has been shrinking and must be strengthened to become a destination for all New Yorkers and tourists once more. To strengthen the “people’s playground,” the City must preserve more space for outdoor amusements and the small businesses and vendors who have kept Coney Island alive, invest in historic icons, develop an interim plan for amusements before construction is completed, and reinvest the revenue from City-owned land back into the community.

Signatories to the letter include New York ACORN, 32BJ SEIU, RWDSU, the NY Hotel and Motel Trades Council, UFCW Local 1500 and NY Jobs With Justice

The New York Observer has the full text of the letter.

Today, The New York Times published the following letter from Save Coney Island spokesman Juan Rivero under the headline “Poor Plan for Coney Island”:

“A Plan for Coney Island” (editorial, July 13) rightly emphasizes the need to revitalize one of New York City’s most iconic and beloved places. Especially welcome are the editorial’s suggestions for improving the city’s rezoning plan by increasing the area allotted to outdoor amusements and relocating the high-rise towers currently proposed for the heart of the amusement district.

It must be stressed that without necessary changes, passage of the city’s rezoning plan would be a disaster. In its present, flawed form, the city’s plan would permanently diminish Coney Island’s famed amusement district, leaving only a narrow strip of land for outdoor rides, hemmed in by high rises and indoor uses. Coney Island deserves better.

Disinvestment and land speculation may have diminished Coney Island’s amusement district. But it is the city’s plan that threatens to kill it. The City Council needs to fix this plan.

The Bloomberg administration and the City Council are busy secretly negotiating the future of Coney Island with politically connected developers. But they won’t let Save Coney Island and other fans of the “People’s Playground” into the discussion.

So Save Coney Island is taking its message directly to the people, with some help from Miss Cyclone Angie Pontani. Today, the burlesque bombshell is telephoning literally thousands of New Yorkers (with an assist from robo-call technology) to urge them to help Save Coney Island.

Here’s what she’s telling them:

Hi, I’m Miss Cyclone, Angie Pontani. I’m calling from Save Coney Island. We need your help. The City has put forward a rezoning plan that would ruin Coney Island. It shrinks the famous amusement district, creates a wall of huge high-rises, blocks the ocean, rides and boardwalk. It endangers landmarks like Nathan’s Famous. Please call your City Council member today. Urge them to fix this plan. Coney Island is an American treasure. Let’s develop it the right way. Visit saveconeyisland.net to find out more.

Listen to Angie’s message here.

Angie’s telephone calls cap off a busy 10 days in the fight to save Coney Island. Here are some highlights:
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Fifteen prominent historians have signed onto an open letter urging the City Council to fix the City’s flawed rezoning plan for Coney Island.

Signatories to the letter include Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Ric Burns (“New York,” “Coney Island,” “The Civil War”) and Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace (“Gotham”), along with 12 other historians, scholars and chroniclers of New York City, Brooklyn and Coney Island.

“Coney Island is a place of great national historic significance. It is the birthplace of the modern American amusement industry,” they write. “The City’s rezoning plan for Coney Island, however, dishonors its past and sacrifices its future.”

The historians call on the City Council to fix this rezoning plan. “This plan must not be allowed to pass in its present form,” they write.

They urge the City Council to expand acreage for amusements, remove the high-rises proposed for the heart of the amusement district and preserve Coney Island’s historic buildings.

“The City Council has a responsibility to protect this iconic American place. If it fails to fulfill this responsibility, the judgment of history will be a harsh one,” they conclude.

Along with Burns, Burrows and Wallace, other signatories to the letter are Kevin Baker (former columnist, American Heritage), Thomas Bender (NYU), Marshall Berman (CUNY), Michele H. Bogart (SUNY Stony Brook), Charles Denson (Coney Island History Project), Richard Haw (John Jay), John Kasson (UNC-Chapel Hill), Phillip Lopate (Hofstra), Deborah Dash Moore (University of Michigan), Francis Morrone (“An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn”), Barnet Schecter (“The Battle for New York”) and Richard Snow (former editor-in-chief, American Heritage).

The historians’ letter comes on the heels of a public statement from Ned Jacobs, son of the late urban visionary Jane Jacobs, pronouncing himself “appalled” at the City’s Coney Island rezoning plan.

Full text of historians’ open letter is after the jump:
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Created with flickr slideshow.

At 12pm on Wednesday, July 15th, Save Coney Island took to the streets to inform people about the City’s Plan for Coney Island. Fueled by passion and prepared with materials explaining the rezoning plan, we encouraged the sunbathers of Union Square to call their city councilperson right then and there.

We were aided by more than a few mermaids, Miss Cyclone, and a dedicated crew of volunteers clad in Save Coney sandwich boards. Thanks to everyone who donated their lunch break to make this call-in rally a success!

As New York City honored Jane Jacobs by renaming a portion of Hudson Street for her, a group of admirers — some sporting her distinctive eyewear in homage — showed up at today’s event to highlight the fact that the City’s current rezoning plan for Coney Island violates this urban visionary’s principles.

As City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spoke — joined by Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer, Representative Jerrold Nadler, New York State Senator Tom Duane, and City Councilman Alan J. Gerson — the Coney Island-loving Jane Jacobs fans, who were dispatched by local activist group Save Coney Island, held signs with the message: “Jane Jacobs would save Coney Island!”

Speaker Quinn acknowledged the presence of the Save Coney Island contingent in her public remarks:

I think that Jane Jacobs would be very happy that the Coney Island folks are here today. So thank you all for being here. And if anyone thinks Jane Jacobs’ tradition is dead, they could go to the City Council phone line, where Coney Island folks have been calling in on a regular, regular basis.

Earlier in the day, Save Coney Island released a statement from Jane Jacobs’s son, Ned Jacobs, in which he said he was “appalled” by the City’s rezoning plan for Coney Island.

“While I cannot speak on behalf of my mother, the late Jane Jacobs, or predict what she would think about particular proposals today, in my view, this rezoning plan for Coney Island does not appear to reflect the urban values and planning principles she espoused,” wrote Ned Jacobs, a community activist in Vancouver.

He urged Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Council “to prevent this dysfunctional, developer-driven proposal for the Coney Island amusement district from being adopted in its current form.”

The City’s current rezoning plan would obliterate Coney Island’s historic and distinctive character. The City’s plan rezones most of Coney Island, leaving only a narrow strip of 12 acres for a shrunken amusement park. It inserts four high-rise hotel towers — soaring up to 27 stories — into the very heart of the historic, low-rise, seaside amusement district. The placement of these towers invites developers to tear down some of Coney Island’s most historic buildings, some more than a century old.

“If the City really wants to honor the memory of Jane Jacobs, it should respect her ideas and fix its plan for Coney Island,” said Save Coney Island spokesman Juan Rivero. “Otherwise, it might as well rename Coney Island’s Surf Avenue ‘Robert Moses Way.’”

POST UPDATED 7/14

Created with flickr slideshow.

Ned Jacobs: ‘This rezoning plan for Coney Island does not appear to reflect  the urban values and planning principles she espoused’

Even as City officials gather today on Hudson Street in the West Village to honor urban visionary Jane Jacobs with a long-overdue street renaming, the Bloomberg administration is pushing a disastrous rezoning plan for Coney Island that flies in the face of her principles. Jacobs’s own son, Ned Jacobs, said yesterday that he is “appalled” by the City’s rezoning plan for Coney Island.

The City’s proposed rezoning plan would dramatically shrink Coney Island’s famed amusement district, leaving only a narrow, 12-acre strip for a rump amusement park. It inserts four high-rise hotel towers — soaring up to 27 stories — into the very heart of the historic, low-rise amusement district. The placement of these towers invites developers to tear down some of Coney Island’s most historic buildings, some more than a century old.

Local activist group Save Coney Island is urging the City Council to fix this plan by expanding the acreage reserved for open-air amusements, removing the four high-rise towers from the heart of the amusement district and preserving Coney Island’s historic buildings. The New York Times, the Municipal Art Society and Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun have all urged the City to expand the amusement area and move the four hotel towers. Coney Island’s Community Board 13 also recommended that the hotel towers be relocated.

In a statement issued yesterday to Save Coney Island, Jane Jacobs’s son, Ned Jacobs, blasted the City’s rezoning plan. A community activist in Vancouver, Canada, who assisted his mother with her last book, “Dark Age Ahead,” Ned Jacobs wrote in his statement:

After having viewed the video “Don’t Kill Coney! Fix the Plan!” by Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun, I find myself appalled by the city’s proposed rezoning plan for Coney Island’s amusement district.

While I cannot speak on behalf of my mother, the late Jane Jacobs, or predict what she would think about particular proposals today, in my view, this rezoning plan for Coney Island does not appear to reflect the urban values and planning principles she espoused. These include sensitivity and integration with the scale, character and performance of existing neighborhoods and their established uses; the need to retain aged but serviceable buildings for the sake of economic diversity and continuity, as well as for their history and charm; the benefits of planning and redevelopment based on organic, iterative change, and the inherent dangers of top-down urban renewal-type schemes, propelled by “cataclysmic money.”

These considerations are just as valid today as in the past. I therefore urge Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Council to prevent this dysfunctional, developer-driven proposal for the Coney Island amusement district from being adopted in its current form. Instead, the city should work with the community, who possess much local knowledge and appreciation of the importance that scale, atmosphere and heritage play in the amusement district’s success as an irreplaceable public amenity, and who have expressed considerable openness to change and new development, provided it is based on sound planning.