Coney Island Landmark Faces Pavilion-like Final Summer
Come September, wistful revelers of the former Pavilion Amusement Park will have company.
That's when the wrecking ball finds its way to another oceanfront amusement landmark up the coast - Coney Island's Astroland, which is offering one final summer of thrill rides on the world-famous Cyclone before giving way to a $2 billion redevelopment project.
Sound familiar?
As the Brooklyn developers have already shared their initial ideas of a year-round resort unlike anything previously seen in the New York City borough, it will be interesting to see how Burroughs & Chapin follows suit here when it finally announces its plans for its now-vacant Ocean Boulevard site.
Will there be any lessons for the locals to glean from Coney Island's future vision? Time will tell. In the meantime, Astroland patrons go through the same process that Pavilion visitors had at this time last year: one last summer fling, and a lifetime to remember it along with decades of seaside amusement past.
Come to think of it, maybe there are some lessons that our neighbors to the north can learn from us. One step outside of Bummz Beach Café at Ocean Boulevard and 20th Avenue North late Saturday night revealed a similar scene to the one we described two months ago: the buzz of bumper-to- bumper cars and heavy pedestrian traffic, proving once more that Grand Strand visitors seem to be having little difficulty adjusting to post-Pavilion life.
If you're one of those people who fits that description, what advice would you have for Coney Island visitors as they face Astroland's final curtain?
Memo to Coney Island visitors: enjoy it while it lasts, and savor the memories. There will always be mixed feelings about it, but I hope your site and ours become something really special in the future.
i would just kile to say that I am dissapointed at the Idemolition of the Myrtle Beach Pavilion. I am a former employee and I didn’t even know that they were planning this!!! I left to go to school in the off season, and I come back to find out that they’re tearing it down! I spent a lot of my childhood at the Pavilion and I had hoped that I could take my son there when he got older.