Could The Municipal Arts Society Be The Ones To Save Coney?

Image by NYC DCP

With what many of us Coney lovers have only dreamed of, the Municipal Arts Society may have the power to achieve. In recent years many of us expressed our wishes and dreams over message boards and blogs but fell short of being too scattered. Now with the influence of a top organization of the Municipal Arts Society we can only hope that a place to harness the right imagination needed by talented experts and the public, a new vision will emerge that can muster the power to make a difference and really save the Coney Island character and spirit.

The New York Observer writes:

Now, the Municipal Art Society is stepping deep into the muck, with plans on Monday to kick off its own charrette—a pow-wow of designers and amusement experts—as part of its larger recent focus on the Coney issue.

The following is the release by MAS:

MAS GATHERS TOP WORLD DESIGNERS
TO DEVELOP NEW IDEAS FOR VISION FOR CONEY ISLAND
Effort Seeks to Identify Designs, Uses & Events
for Long Term and Interim Development
Period

The Municipal Art Society, working with a team of world-class architects, amusement designers and economists, will launch an initiative to develop new ideas for the design and programming of Coney Island this Monday, October 27 2008.

Titled "Imagine Coney," the new initiative will feature a global Web-based call for ideas, and a charrette (an intense design workshop) featuring international amusement and design experts from Tivoli Gardens in Denmark, Broadway theater in New York City, and former Disney executives.

MAS hopes that by leveraging global ideas and creativity it can help identify the novel uses that will spark new life in Coney Island and build on the remarkable strides Mayor Bloomberg has made toward a revitalized Coney Island. The charrette team will draw from creative and entrepreneurial ideas submitted during public workshops and on a Web-based call for ideas that will be open to all.

The team will participate in a briefing session on Coney Island on Monday, October 27 from 9 am - 12 pm with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Coney Island Development Corporation, the Department of City Planning, Coney Island USA, the Astella Development Corporation, the New York Aquarium, Creative Time, and other groups and local stakeholders. The team will return on November 13 and 14 for the charrette, and the results will be publicly presented on November 17.

To point out, a comment left on the New York Observer site for this post reads:

sadly, the prospects for Coney are doomed by the nearby housing projects.the area has long been depressed and unsafe and until the projects disappear its prospects remain dim