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A Bus Ride Through Coney Island

Read more articles on Politics and Real Estate.

May 9, 2008

About This Editor: I am a writer. Have been writing for other sites, but expect to do most of my future work HERE! My expertise extends from the esoteric such as burning hydrogen to the unpredictability of the stock market and my writing makes me a jack of all trades and exasperated master of none. I have had some influence over national wildfire and water policy and there are hints of a change in energy policy, BUT as Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A verbal promise is not worth the paper it is written on."

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I recently took a bus ride from my home to the end of Coney Island and back to scout out the neighborhood and refresh what I remembered of the area.

Little has changed in the two years since last I rode through. There are still lots of buildings, still lots of empty lots, much of it the responsibility of the City government through zoning, funding or outright ownership.

I even noticed more than one community garden where I doubt the locals are paying either rent or taxes and should the de jure owners actually ever decide to do something I am sure they will protest to their hearts content.

One big goal was to check out as much of Coney Island Creek as I could. It has recently been dredged. It is still largely unused. No boats. No fishing. A little sand near Thirty-seventh Street. A lot of buildings, many commercial, lining its bankr, but little other public use.

What is wrong with allowing someone to build a marina to encourage boating? What is wrong with encouraging some fishing? A little more sand would probably encourage sun bathing on the Crick side. This appears beyond the comprehension of local public officials, probably because it does not involve a subsidy so it does not get out the vote. It isn’t class warfare oriented enough.

I should point out that there are boats in several other Brooklyn neighborhoods from Sheepshead Bay to Kings Plaza to Gerritsen Beach to Canarsie. People also fish at various Brooklyn sites. Perhaps they could enjoy one more local spot.

The current thinking at City Hall is subsidies, handouts, give aways and grants. But it is tax payers that fund all these services the City supplies and it is tax payers who are being short changed by the City’s short sighted emphasis on getting out the vote by running a political candy store.

Coney Island was once a thriving community. It once attracted crowds of paying customers. Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor once worked the crowds there. Why can’t it thrive once again? At least one developer is looking to create jobs and even pay taxes, yet the political dialogue is all about harassment and spending his money before he does. No wonder New York City is slum riddled and the City government is the biggest slum lord in the country. Many buildings in the neighborhood are already City owned, dilapidated, graffiti covered and in need of better times.

More new housing would be nice. There is nothing wrong with people living in fine new buildings. But business is definitely being stifled. There were once decent, tax paying stores in the Coney Island subway station. Now there are workers doing what appears to be a construction job that appears to have no end.

This is the way New York City works. But it doesn’t pay taxes and it doesn’t get anything done. It just keeps the old Tammany gang in power for what would appear to be an eternity.