We were lucky enough to gain access to the grounds of Astroland yesterday on its very last day, January 31, 2009, when Carol Hill Albert’s crew was vacating the premises forever by 7PM. A kind soul who had his first paid job at Astroland, named Ray Seargant, who is now with the Department of Sanitation, told us to come on in with him. Needless to say we shot a lot of photos and videos, and we’ll be sharing some of it tommorrow. As a worker was letting us out of a locked gate, we mentioned that we’d shed some tears seeing the park in this diminished state. “I’ve been crying for two years,” said the worker, who was in his late fifties or early sixties. “And it’s made me sick.”
GL Announcement: AstroMania Monday Tomorrow
February 1st, 2009 · 2 Comments
Tags: coney island · GL Announcements
2 responses so far ↓
1 Pablo Jonsey // Feb 1, 2009 at 11:27 am
There is a new group on flickr devoted to COney Island 2009, Alive and Kicking. The photos are extrodinary, the cream of the crop of flickr’s photographers.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/coneyislandisaliveandkicking/
2 Jack // Feb 1, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Pablo, nice to hear others are making an effort to keep Coney Island alive, but as a photographer and major Flickr contributor I must say I’m getting tired of all of the fractional efforts at keeping Coney alive.
One group, has this site. Another has that site. And when all is said and done, all of the groups can fit inside one bus if need be.
No disrespect to anyone involved in any of these groups, but now with Astroland officially gone, I’m going to vent my personal frustration at none of these groups figuring out some way to work together or unify into one group. It’s maddening. Unless you spend your life on Surf Avenue, nobody knows or understands the differences between any of these factions.
So if you want to know why less papers are covering these events and even less New Yorkers care, I’d put money on that.
And past that I’ll even go a bit “Oliver Stone” and say that I think one or two of the groups might be a puppet for land development in the area. Not specifically tied to Thor equities or even local city council, but let’s face the fact that Dick Zigun was put on the local community board in an effort to make him a shill for the city… Which he finally realized when it was too late… I’d bet money that others in other groups are in on the take in some way. Why else such fractionalization?
May the 2009 season be as fun as it can be. But i you folks really want change, organize into a united front. Otherwise, you’re not helping.