Tuesday, April 14, 2009

SittLand East Meets West To Bring 'Amusement Galore'

Left image courtesy of me-myself-i (flickr.com),
right image Capt_Nemo (CIUSA message board)

Joe Sitt seems to be fulfilling his promise...for now...to bring 'amusement galore' to Coney Island with an assortment of attractions for his 'Summer of Hope 2.0'. A few weeks ago Thor Equities announced 'Flea by The Sea', which was basically a big flea market for their Sittland West (their empty lot on Stillwell between Surf Avenue and the boardwalk. Which for only part of last summer housed their infamous 'Summer of Hope 2008'). But oops...they forgot that technically flea markets are a violation of the C7 zoning so they rethought, added three letters, and rehashed the 'Festival by the Sea' but didn't change much of else. It's still a flea market with a big food court, all under some tents. However, the city wouldn't of flinched much since they've never really enforced this violation. Coney had flea markets years ago and still have furniture stores, which currently violate the zone. So, Festival by the Sea will still be a flea market with music and food and no attractions. The poster claims rides which it means the rides already there: Wonder Wheel and Cyclone. The only attraction you may find at the festival by the Sea could be what Elephant Man (CIUSA message poster), points out on the board: "...one of the tents is going to be selling lamps. That's just what we need. We rub the lamps, the Genie pops out and turns the tents into new hi tech thrill rides."

Over on Sittland East (the former Astroland lot), Thor Equities announced 'Dreamland Amusement Park' which will be filled with Single-O grind show attractions (Which is basically a 1 show sideshow attractions instead of the 10-in-1 sideshows like the Coney Island Circus Sideshow). The Single-O attractions were brought in from Florida by Prof. Lee Koloszy. According a Thor Equities flyer also to be available for your amusement on Sittland East will be games of chance, lots of human and animal oddities, other sideshow performers, and all the strange, odd, and unusual has to offer. John Strong III's Freak Show will bring his 10-in-1 sideshow (a direct competition for Coney Island USA's 'Sideshow by the Seashore').

So, where are the rides? Perhaps Joe Sitt developed a bad reputation with ride operators with last year's Summer of Hope which had them flee early in the season leaving Sittland West empty for most of the season.

The test to time during the season will show if this is all in good intentions or a way for Sitt to get his way with rezoning in the long run. We'll have an open mind for now.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The photo on the right is mine, the one on the left isnt, sorry

Bruce
aka Capt_Nemo