A famous amusement park has opened on Coney Island – a favorite vacation spot for New Yorkers. For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, here, as before, noisy and fun. However, not everything is going as planned. Some of the new attractions were not ready on time.
In 2018, the city’s Economic Development Corporation announced that the owner of Coney Island’s Luna Park, Central Amusement International, was going to expand the entertainment complex by 50% using the city’s land. The pandemic has confused all plans. It was not possible to put into operation an attraction on the water, a game gallery, a public plaza with eateries and cafes, an “adventure park”. All of this has been postponed until at least 2022. The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Wonder Wheel, which was planned for 2019, did not take place either. It has been postponed to this summer. The owner of the wheel has pledged to hand out 100 free tickets to workers at the front line in the fight against coronavirus on the occasion. The new Phoenix attraction is also expected to debut in the summer, a roller coaster with a rise of 68 feet and a gondola speed of up to 34 miles per hour.
Many business owners have been anxiously awaiting the opening of Coney Island in hopes of boosting the local economy. Among them is Alessandro Zamperla, President of Central Amusement International. “We earned the last dollar, or rather a penny, in October 2019,” he said in an interview with Fox Business.
Many other small businesses in the Brooklyn Boardwalk area are in a similar position. But people are still optimistic. Art Fursenko, 25, who has lived in the Coney Island area for most of his life, believes the opening of Luna Park will bring welcome relief.
“It worked for Six Flags, it worked for Disneyland,” he recalls. “Why doesn’t it work for us too, provided that everything is done as it should be, taking into account all the necessary security measures?”
Newspaper headline:
Coney Island is open