This is your roller coaster on drugs

JUST DAYS BEFORE THE LEASES EXPIRED, Thor Equities, the realtors who gobbled up Coney Island’s thuggy-but-fun Astroland, ran into a roadblock named Bloomberg. The Mayor unveiled a plan that will transform Coney Island into a year-round entertainment destination (read South Street Seaport) with seaside attractions (read: miniature golf) and a stronger residential community (read: zillion-dollar condos.) The Mayor also gave an additional $50 million to implement the plan after previously pledging $23 million. Combined with the Brooklyn Borough President’s $7 million and Congressman Jerrold Nadler’s $3.2 million, a total of $83.2 million is now marked for the area.

Unfortunately, according to Kinetic Carnival, the Coney Island blog, Thor has begun booting poor people from the area. Says Kinetic Carnival:

Thor has given notice to most of their newly acquired tenants in the Henderson’s building and beyond!…This is just the beginning of Thor clearing its land up for the zone that will mark the first construction site towards the revitalization of the New Coney.

Having spent some scary summer nights watching cops chase teens through Astroland, we are not too sad about this massive urban renewal. And we don’t trust opponents. After all, community activists also objected to the construction of Keyspan Park, home of a very minor league Mets team, and that turned out to be such an astonishing addition to the area, we are almost trading in our copy of Das Kapital for a Brooks Brothers tie.

We do have one question. After Thor finishes the project, will the area still have that hot-doggy, French-fryey smell that mugged our senses as we walked from the D Train, down the ramp to the Surf Avenue on the hottest day in July?

– Jerry Saieh