Coney Island amusement park kicks off final summer

by kate | June 7, 2007 at 09:52 am

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This is really dreadful and disappointing. I adore Coney Island and will be very sad to see the old place torn up and replaced by a "swanky Vegas-style hotel and glitzy indoor attractions". I suppose all of these beautiful and amazing historical follies have a lifespan, but why are they inevitably bulldozed in favour of something that befits the tag "Vegas-style". People need to understand that the path to true bizarreness in the world (surely everyone's goal who is in the amusement business) is to add to - even augment - but not replace, insane follies from the past.

via Archinect

But the end is three months away at Astroland, which goes dark shortly after Labor Day holiday (Sept. 3) — all the neon and the rides and the booths rolling out on a tide that will never return.

In its place comes a planned $2 billion Coney Island makeover, a proposal to convert the once-seedy stretch of Brooklyn into a year-round stop with a swanky Vegas-style hotel and glitzy indoor attractions.