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The walkway connecting the West 8th Street train station to the Coney Island Boardwalk will soon be no more. Brooklyn Daily reports that the city is tearing down the rusted shark-painted bridge for safety reasons.

The bridge, which spans over Surf Avenue, will be replaced by broadened sidewalks and a new crossing light. A new entrance to the boardwalk will be created at West 10th Street.

The walkway was originally built more than 50 years ago to compel people coming off the Culver and Brighton lines to head to the then newly built aquarium.

Chuck Reichenthal, the Community Board 13 district manager, welcomed the end of the walkway.

“It started looking like hell 15 years ago. It has to go,” Reichenthal said.

Todd Dobrin, who is running to replace term-limited Domenic Recchia on the City Council, was angry at the news of the bridge’s impending dismantling.

“It’s a safe gateway into Coney Island and directly onto the Boardwalk,” Dobrin told Brooklyn Daily. “What about all those kids who come here on field trips, and the old people?”

Activists were displeased when the Parks Department decided to replace the wooden boardwalk on Coney Island with a cement and plastic one. Now, six months after Superstorm Sandy battered our shores, the New York Post is reporting that residents and business owners are complaining that sand is accumulating on the new boardwalk.

The barrage of sand upon the historic promenade has been so terrible that the city has been forced to assign extra workers to keep shoveling it back on to the beach. Boardwalk preservationists are blaming the new cement base for all the extra sand.

“With cement, there’s nowhere for the sand to fall through. There’s no doubt the new surfaces are causing the sand to pile up like never before…This is what you get when the city decides to make changes without doing a proper environmental review,” Todd Dobrin, president of the Friends of the Boardwalk and a candidate for City Councilman Domenic Recchia’s seat in the 47th District, told the Post.

Residents, including Maureen Masterson, 32, were also angry. While trying to maneuver her two-year-old daughter’s stroller through obstructive piles of sand, the Bensonhurst mother expressed negativity over the situation.

“This is horrible. It’s like Sandy never left,” Masterson told the Post.

The encroaching sand isn’t just bad for people trying to walk on the boardwalk. As sand accumulates, it starts blowing in people’s faces, which the city has been vigorously trying to prevent by wetting the sand down.

Local business owner Dennis Vourderis, co-owner of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park, told the Post that the sand has never been worse. It is “even piling up in the amusement district — which still maintains a wooden boardwalk,” he said, blaming the extra sand on Sandy “pushing it closer to the boardwalk and making it ‘finer’ so it blows more freely.”

“This is the worst we’ve seen it,” said Vourderis, who recently put up netting outside Deno’s to block sand from damaging his rides’ motor systems. “We have to shovel all week just to be ready for the weekend.”

For its part, the Parks Department is blaming Mother Nature and isn’t accepting the idea that the new boardwalk has anything to do with all the extra sand.

“Sand will accumulate on a boardwalk without regard to the decking or the foundation,” the Post reported Parks Department spokeswoman Meghan Lalor as saying.

Source: Alcmaeonid via Wikimedia Commons

Coney Island’s wooden boardwalk may have seen its last summer. A court decision last week puts the Parks Department one step closer to tearing out the iconic stretch of old-world wooden charm and replace it with the plastic and concrete slabs of progress.

Judge Martin Solomon ruled that the Parks Department may move forward without an environmental review of the effects of plastic and concrete versus wood – a study that opponents were sure would have shown the new materials’ shortcomings and halted the project.

“We are pleased the judge found that the Parks Department complied with the law, thus allowing this project to proceed,” said Katie Kendall of the New York City Law Department, in a statement to the New York Post.

As we’ve previously covered, opponents have charged that replacing the wood would not only ruin the boardwalk’s historic character, but create environmental concerns such as accelerating erosion of the beach. Leading the charge against the boardwalk is Todd Dobrin, president of Friends of the Coney Island Boardwalk, and Rob Burstein, president of the Coney-Brighton Boardwalk Alliance. They published editorials in the New York Daily News that warned of the safety risks of crack forming and heat storing concrete and pushed petitions that over 2,500 people signed.

“We are disappointed in the decision … A moratorium on construction of concrete and plastic boardwalk sections is urgently needed for the safety of the community,” the Coney-Brighton Boardwalk Alliance said in a statement published by the Post.

Source: Jim Henderson via Wikimedia Commons

The iconic parks of Southern Brooklyn damaged by Superstorm Sandy will remain closed for months while the city focuses its resources on higher priority disaster needs according to a report in the New York Daily News.

Parts of the famed Coney Island Boardwalk, nearby Coney playgrounds, the Red Hook Recreation Center, and all of Manhattan Beach park will remain closed indefinitely until clean up crews and repairmen get to them. The clean up and repairs themselves are expected to take months, and there is a possibility that they will be closed through the early part of the coming summer.

While everyone wants to enjoy the use of the public parks and spaces come summer, delays into their restoration is understandable given the priority of addressing the livelihoods of those lost homes, power, and vital services due to Sandy’s relentless destruction. Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Kevin Jeffrey echoed this sentiment to the Daily News, stating that, “There are many issues at the moment that are larger than open space. You’ve got residents without heat or homes and major disruption of services.”

Still, business owners in and around the parks are worried that the delayed restoration will keep the large crowds away, forcing them to cut back on hours and jobs.

“It’s like a trifecta,” Stephanie Rodriguez, a ticker-taker for the Wonder Wheel, told the Daily News. “If we have a dirty beach and boardwalk the beachgoers will go somewhere else. The attraction owners will lose money — then they’ll cut the employees’ hours and we’ll be broke.”

As for Manhattan Beach Park, the Parks Department is hopeful that it will be fully open come summer, but that possibility is still subject to further storm damage assessment.

While the parks are low on the priority list, Jeffrey’s agency has tapped into federal emergency funds to recruit over 300 temporary clean up crew workers who are addressing the damage at Coney, Manhattan Beach, and Red Hook.

Reader Illona B. sent us this photo today, letting us know that Parks Department crews are out in force on Riegelmann Boardwalk, the 2.5-mile waterfront icon spanning Brighton Beach and Coney Island that took a battering during the storm.

Several feet of sand blew up and over the boardwalk during Superstorm Sandy, and authorities have started the cleanup work to put it back where it belongs: the beach itself.

Here’s what Illona wrote:

Getting the sand over to the other side of the rail – bdwlk almost free of sand!  I’m actually impressed that parks dept. Was so quick to clean beach/bdwlk – now if only the kids couuld get some playgrounds re-opened!

Source: blhphotography / Flickr

As we reported last month, the battle over the future of Coney Island’s historic boardwalk is finally coming to a head this Thursday, October 25, at 360 Adams Street, Kings County Supreme Court House, in hearing room 38.

Todd Dobrin, president of the “Friends of Coney Island Boardwalk,” along with Rob Burstein, president of the Coney-Brighton Boardwalk Alliance, are taking on the Parks Department’s effort to replace the wooden slats that comprise the historic walkway with plastic and concrete.

Dobrin and Burstein not only object to whatever cosmetic degradation a plastic and concrete boardwalk might bring, but also to, what they believe, are looked-over safety concerns ignored by the Parks Department in the installation of a massive concrete infrastructure. Dobrin and Burstein made their complaints clear in an op-ed to the Daily News:

Already, thousands of settling cracks have appeared in the concrete pilot project sections of the Boardwalk, and chunks of concrete have broken off in a number of places.

Concrete stores heat, making it uncomfortable to sit on and increasing the temperature of the whole area. The sun glare is blinding, and the hard surface is damaging to the joints of the countless runners and pedestrians who use the Boardwalk daily.

For those wishing to attend the hearing, it is requested that you dress modestly, bring no signs of any kind, and arrive as early as 9:00 a.m. Because this is a high profile case with large public interest, it is likely that it will be the first case called at 9:30 a.m., so arriving early will afford attendees adequate time to pass through security and find seating.

Globe-trekking photographer Samm Blake captures the joy and beauty of Coney Island and Brighton Beach in a recent photo essay on her blog, For the Art and Adventure. Reflecting on life, courage, and her own artistic pursuits, Blake shares her beautiful photography and discusses her creative process:

There is a picture of an elderly man, the 5th image down, he was at Brighton Beach with his wife and he started in front of a huge crowd of people. He was amazing. He made me realize, if somebody of his age can dance in front of all those people, I should be able to approach people and ask to take their portrait. I did. I had an amazing time doing so. Nobody turned me down. I probably talked to about 7 different people all up and had some really good long conversations with a few. Once I get the film back from the lab, I will share more.

Check out Samm’s Coney Island/Brighton Beach entry for more photos.

Rob Burstein, president of the Coney-Brighton Boardwalk Alliance, Todd Dobrin, president of Friends of the Boardwalk, and the concrete boards on their beloved wooden boardwalk are headed to court.

Burstein sent out a letter to his supporters detailing the legislative actions law firm of Goodwin-Proctor will be taking against the Parks Department.

According to the letter:

The suit alleges that they failed to perform the required environmental impact studies to assess the numerous negative impacts that their intended plan will have for our community and all who make use of the Boardwalk were it to be implemented, and asks that the Court compel them to do so before going forward.

Burnstein and Dobrin also write an op-ed piece yesterday in the New York Daily News highlighting safety issues the concrete slabs that replaced the wooden board have created.

They write:

Already, thousands of settling cracks have appeared in the concrete pilot project sections of the Boardwalk, and chunks of concrete have broken off in a number of places.

Concrete stores heat, making it uncomfortable to sit on and increasing the temperature of the whole area. The sun glare is blinding, and the hard surface is damaging to the joints of the countless runners and pedestrians who use the Boardwalk daily.

The Parks Department says it cares about safety. Its actions, though, speak louder than its words.

For those who want to take action, Burstein has asked supporters to show up on October 4 – the court date – at the courthouse to showcase a “widespread level of concern.”

The court hearing starts at 9:45 a.m. at the Kings County Supreme Court located at 360 Adams Street in downtown Brooklyn. The Hearing Part number is 38 and the name of the judge hearing the case is Martin Solomon. The group will meet outside the hearing room at 9:30 a.m. and then enter and sit together.

Contact Burstein at 718-449-7017 or email him to confirm your attendance at robburstein@hotmail.com.

Source: "Friends of the Boardwalk" Facebook Page

Coney Island activist and City Council candidate Todd Dobrin published a dramatic photo yesterday on Facebook showing what he says is one of results of the city’s bungled attempts to care for the Riegelmann Boardwalk, spanning Coney Island and Brighton Beach.

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While millions were spent to turn a part of the iconic wooden boardwalk along Coney Island and Brighton Beach into concrete, the boardwalk westward remains neglected and in disrepair.

Activists claim that an area outside of the normal tourist route is “dangerous.” Todd Dobrin, president of Friends of the Boardwalk, has said that between West 23rd Street and W27th Street the boardwalk is ripe for pedestrian accidents.

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