Schwarz
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No crowds are lined up for hot dogs at Nathan's Famous, no music wafts from Ruby's bar on the boardwalk. No screams come from the Cyclone roller coaster, whose nearly 60-degree opening drop, legend has it, once cured a coal miner who was born mute. (His first words before fainting: "I feel sick.") In early March, Coney Island's amusement district slumbers. Visitors are greeted here, on the Atlantic Ocean at the far reaches of Brooklyn, by a biting wind and an empty expanse of beach.
There are few signs that Coney Island, after years of neglect, is about to embark on a ride as gripping as any from its storied past. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials created the not-for-profit Coney Island Development Corporation (CIDC) in 2003 and so far have appropriated more than $85 million for the area's revitalization. The initial optimism about Coney Island's future, however, has largely been overshadowed by controversy. In recent years, Thor Equities, a New York City real estate company, has bought nearly three-quarters of the land in the heart of the amusement district and plans to build not only amusements-recent drawings showed a glitzy, futuristic collection of rides and attractions-but also condos, even though the area is not zoned for residential use. Depending on one's stance, condos are either an economic engine necessary to fuel Coney's revival or a significant threat to its survival as an amusement district.