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November 29, 2006
Is Coney Island the New Atlantic Yards and Joe Sitt the New Bruce Ratner?
The Gowanus Lounge is bristling at the notion of building Brooklyn from scratch (we're envisioning Disney redeveloping the Gowanus Canal):
The moment we saw the item late yesterday afternoon about the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities we realized why we started doing a "Coney Island Deathwatch" months ago: because Thor's plan is to erase virtually every element of Coney Island's past and to rebuild it from scratch.
With the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities, the massive Coney project is starting to look like the new Atlantic Yards and, inevitably, developer Joe Sitt is looking like Nouveau Ratner. The only thing missing is the Empire State Development Corp., but the Coney Island Development Corp. may yet prove itself to be a spiritual equal.
NoLandGrab: Thor Equities big move to gobble up as much of Coney Island as possible for redevelopment explains why, despite the fact the location would make a great site for a new Nets arena and that local politicians and even Bruce Ratner initially thought so too, the subject has been taboo.
Of course, if they had to, the government could use eminent domain to take land from Thor, but why bother when you can just take property from the little guy.
Posted by lumi at November 29, 2006 10:53 AM