Gowanus Lounge: Serving Brooklyn

AstroMania Monday: Astroland Now & Then

February 2nd, 2009 · No Comments

Astroland is dead. Developer Joe Sitt took possession of the property on January 31. (If you don’t care about Coney Island you’re going to find a lot of posts on GL today that you won’t like and, frankly, we’re sorry, but we need to do this.) Owner Carol Hill Albert left behind the water flume (which has pretty much been sabotaged so it can’t be used) and the Astrotower. This leaves Mr. Sitt, whose reputation in New York City is about as low as one can get (for a developer), with the choice of preserving this beloved landmark or demolishing it and selling it for scrap. (We’d start a betting pool, but a man who evicted businesses on Christmas Eve isn’t necessarily going to have a problem with engraging people all over the world by barbarically destroying an icon.) We also learned that there had been a time capsule buried on the property somewhere near the Astrotower, but that work crews had been digging around and unable to find it. We don’t even want to know why no one marked its location. In any case case, we did some before and after shots, juxtaposing shots we had taken on Astroland’s closing day, September 7, 2008 and its final day of demolition, January 31, 2009.

Tags: coney island