"Coney Island: Really Fun. Really Open"

From the Times today:

Last September, when the Astroland amusement park, a three-acre sliver of the area, was shut down in a battle with its landlord, erroneous reports went out around the world that all of Coney Island was a corpse. Overnight, it seemed, obituaries were composed. Carnie barkers were invited to their own wakes.

But the rumors of demise had been exaggerated greatly. All of Coney Island, from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to the world-renowned Cyclone, had not dropped off the Boardwalk into the sea.

“They’re all surprised when I tell them we’re still open,” said a frustrated Dennis Vourderis, whose family has run the Wonder Wheel for more than 40 years. “Unfortunately, the press did a great job announcing Astroland had closed, so now people think that Coney Island is closed.

“But they haven’t rolled the beach up yet,” he said. “It’s totally ridiculous.”

The premature announcement of their burial has been so widespread that several local merchants have pooled money in an existential media campaign. Beginning next month, there will be billboards on the highways, bus stop ads, commercials at the movies. The slogan: “Coney Island: Really Fun. Really Open.”

Meanwhile, I was also guilty of focusing on what was closed rather than what was open.

So...go!

Toothless children continue to be exploited by heartless orange juice company

You've likely seen Tropicana's new ads everywhere around the neighborhood in the last three months... the ones with the affluent, happy people snuggling. It makes me want to add more vodka to my orange juice.* The ads showed off Tropicana's new packaging. So how did the campaign go? As AdAge noted Thursday:

Tropicana's rebranding debacle did more than create a customer-relations fiasco. It hit the brand in the wallet. After its package redesign, sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line plummeted 20% between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22, costing the brand tens of millions of dollars. On Feb. 23, the company announced it would bow to consumer demand and scrap the new packaging, designed by Peter Arnell. It had been on the market less than two months.

The ads, like the one up top spotted on Avenue C, remain around the neighborhood ... Enjoy them while you can! Remnants of a rebranding debacle from the recession. Or something.

* I haven't had a screwdriver since I was 18. Or 19.

See you

NYC-based A Place to Bury Strangers.

Reader comments

Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit this site... I especially appreciate the comments. I wanted to highlight two comments from this past week:

From the Cabin Fever post:

prodigal son said...
I've just returned to New York after a long hiatus, and I've noticed an improvement in terms of yunnie saturation. I can take walks now without constantly being stuck behind someone talking on a cellphone and meandering along the sidewalk. The subway cars seem a little less crowded. But I haven't hit the bars yet.

From the At the Unemployment Olympics post:

Anonymous said...
I've been living in the EV since 1977 - like Sheena I was a punk rocker. I used to tear my hair out about gentrification (like since 1990), but now I have a really different approach - actually a more punk rock approach. Fuck it, let it get destroyed. It's all interesting.

(I have had heartbreaking moments mostly when mom and pops go. There was a BUTTON store on 1st Ave in Momofuko country, can you imagine? Two little - like 5 feet tall, husband and wife - Jewish refugees from WW2. An entire store devoted to buttons. I always felt bad for the guy, he would go to help you and and after about 2 minutes his wife would roll her eyes and grab the button box out of his hands and help you. He couldn't do anything right, it was a chuckle every time.) I don't mourn for the EV scene anymore, because frankly, once we realized it was a scene it was already gone.

When I read this, Vanishing NY and Lost City, I think geez they're pissed off about how much less fun it is now, they'd be suicidal if they knew how really fun it was like 1980. But you guys do a great job.

The new Lower Eastside Girls Club: "We are really, truly, after all this time...breaking ground this year"

Wanted to share a comment to my post from yesterday on the Lower Eastside Girls Club opening its new HQ on Avenue D. It's from GoGirl at the Girls Club. It reads, in part:

We are really, truly, after all this time...breaking ground this year!!!! Just a few comments- that old Villager stuff is ...old. We are no longer an EDC project and no longer affiliated with FEVA. The building is being built through HPD and will only be Girls Club (30,000 sq.ft) and the housing- which is a 50/50 project- 50% market, 50% affordable! And as for that guy appearing to pee against the wall- unfortunate graphic I agree- but what he is really doing is buying an affordable tamale with rice and beans at our cafe take-out window!!!! So bike on over in early 2011. And feel free to drop by our 1st Street center and see the floor plans anytime.

Grand opening party for the East Village Visitor's Center tonight

The East Village Visitors Center & Cafe is holding its grand-opening party tonight at 6.

Here's more info from the East Village History Project Web site:

GRAND OPENING PARTY!
Friday, April 3, 2009, 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Join us at this free event to celebrate the launch of this important new community center and mingle with neighbors, business owners, preservationists, educators and historians while noshing on local delicacies. RSVP not required.

Cash bar and free refreshments provided by DeRobertis Pastries , Economy Candy, Russo's, Two Boots, Veselka, Luzzo's and more!

The East Village Visitors Center & Cafe offers local brochures, maps and information about what is going on in the area, historic exhibits and displays, films, educational programs, special events, walking tours and direct access to EVHP historians and educators.

The cafe offers free wi-fi, coffee, sandwiches, snacks, souvenirs, literature and more.

East Village Visitors Center & Cafe
@ The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
(Between E. Houston and Bleecker St)
New York, NY 10012
Open daily, 11am - 4pm
212-614-8702

Rob Hollander, one of the co-founders of the East Village History Project and the new East Village Visitors Center, spoke with WNYC's Brigid Bergin:

Hey, who's meeting me at the Q?

Not to play into stereotypes, but I haven't met too many fellows who wear boots like that and drink frozen pineapple drinks.

"Bored 2 Death"? Hardly!

Some of us got to stalk Max Fischer ... or watch the trucks rumble along East Seventh Street after filming for HBO's "Bored 2 Death" wrapped last evening at the Odessa.

Friday Photo Follies

And you thought there was a mob scene at TopShop yesterday....Down on Park Row.

"All of the Mets, Yankees and NYC resources could not duplicate what the Romans did 20 centuries ago"

A few excerpts from EV Grieve favorite Phil Mushnick's column in today's Post. The topic: The new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees:

The Mets' new billion-dollar, state-of-the-art, restaurant- and luxury-box-lined park has loads of obstructed-view seats -- same as the Yanks' new park. The Mets are pretending that theirs don't exist, while the Yanks are pretending that theirs were part of the plan, all along.

Who was the architect, George Costanza?

Not that anyone expected anyone to actually consider the sightlines from these seats. Those unwilling or unable to surrender their good senses to continue to attend Yankees and Mets games were deemed persona-get-outta from the start. The plans, after all, always called for fewer "cheaper" seats.

Who knew, three years ago, that such seats would be in demand among the freshly impoverished? Or that corporations, having supplanted real fans as sports' best customers, would be less solvent than both bleacher bums and bleach?

And!

Most remarkable, though, is that in the 21st century, all of the Mets, Yankees and NYC resources could not duplicate what the Romans did 20 centuries ago. The Roman Coliseum, now 2,000 years old, never had a bad seat.

And!

No worries, though. If Mayor Bloomberg and Yankee Vice Emperor Randy Levine are correct in their claim that new ballparks are good for the economy, we can build new ones every two years. Excelsior!

Spinning into DVD

"Spinning into Butter," a racial drama starring Sarah Jessica Parker, was released last Friday, showing locally at the Sunshine on Houston. The film had reportedly been sitting on the shelf for nearly four years and was unceremoniously dumped on the market. The marketing campaign consisted of putting up the Worst Movie Posters Ever on Houston and Avenue B and East Fifth Street near Cooper Union. And probably a few other places.

According to Variety, the film grossed $5,534 during the March 27-29 weekend. It played at four theaters in the country. That's good for a $1,384 per screen average. So let's see if my arithmetic is any good. It played six times a day at the Sunshine; 18 times then for the weekend, we assume. So divide the $1,384 by 18. That's roughly 77. So 77 people saw the movie over the weekend at the Sunshine. Tickets are $12.50 each. So, 77 divided by 12.50.... so that means, on average, six people saw each screening.

By the way, "Spinning into Butter" is no longer playing at the Sunshine.

The new scourge of our neighborhoods: Church chimes

These were spotted on St. Mark's between First Avenue and Avenue A.