(Getty)

Stop the sag!

Wildwood wants visitors to pull up their pants, put on shirts and slip on some shoes while on the boardwalk.

Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. told The Press of Atlantic City, he's tired of hearing complaints about people who "walk around with their butts hanging out." He feels that baggy pants are taking away from the wholesome image of the boardwalk and he wants to make it illegal.

Under the new regulations, people will be required to wear shirts that cover "the breast and/or pectoral area" after 8 p.m. and until 5 a.m.

The waist band of their shorts, swim-trunks, pants and/or skirts can not be lower than three inches below the waist at any time. Foot protection will also be required at all times for safety reasons. Violators of the measures will be escorted off the boardwalk and could be issued at $25 fine.

Many people have mixed reposes to the new possible regulations. "It's a personal choice . . . a personal freedom," Justin Daily, 17, of Villas, told Philly.com."I don't follow trends, I wear what I want to wear, how I want to look. I shouldn't be told what not to wear either."

"People used to dress up to go to the boardwalk ... It was nice," Mary Lampe, 76, of Drexel Hill told Philly.com."I think it's a good idea to bring some of that kind of class back to it."

The proposed rules are contained in a new city ordinance, up for a public hearing June 12, titled "Establishing decency standards on the public Boardwalk."

A new dawn for the old boardwalk? (Kevin Richardson/Save Coney Island)

With crowds packing the Coney Island Boardwalk, what better time to debate its famous fate.

In the spring, after a heated year-long debate, the city’s Public Design Commission decided to allow the Parks Department to replace the world-renowned walkway with a combination of concrete and plastic promenade that still has locals more steamed than a bucket of boardwalk clams.

Earlier this week, local activist groups and neighbors brought a suit in State Supreme against the city saying the process was materially wrong, according to The Times. Because the city failed to subject the new plan to either its own or the state’s environmental review process, there is no way to know its impact, and therefore the project must be thrown out and reapproved, with the proper reviews.

The plaintiff feel as though they, and the boardwalk, have been mishandled by the city, according to the Post. "Rather than spend the money to properly maintain the boardwalk," Ida Sanoff of Brighton Beach told the tab, "the Parks Department wants to destroy this beautiful piece of New York, and replace it with a different structure altogether without any environmental review or community input.”

The city insists that this is the only reasonable alternative to tropical hardwoods, as any other wood lacks the necessary durability of the tropical strains, which the Bloomberg administration promised to stop using in 2008. So it’s history versus the environment. We know which one wins in the Coney of today.

The bridge is not long for this world brianstromberg/flickr

The dumpy footbridge over Surf Avenue is going the way of diving horses and dangerous rides.

The New York Post reports that the city plans to replace the West Eighth Street eyesore connecting the subway to the beachfront with an $11 million plaza in an adjacent vacant lot. The plaza will be covered in smooth, blue heat-resistant pavement. At least the materials recycled to make this fancy pavement—glass and cement—will be familiar to Coney Island old-timers.

While an $11 million plaza seems like an expensive upgrade from a bridge covered with paintings of fish, the city says that a new bridge would be too costly to build and maintain. And besides, the plaza dovetails nicely with the city's grand revitalization plan for the once-seedy destination.

Wave of the future? The plan for Coney Island's new plaza

The six-decade-old bridge will be demolished after this summer season, with plaza completion expected in 2014.

At least this plan is reported to be more popular than the city's decision to replace part of the beloved boardwalk with slabs of concrete and faux wood beams. But coming on the heels of the Cyclone's renovation (after which the historic coaster is expected to offer a disappointingly smooth ride), the end of an old pedestrian bridge that no one really liked feels like yet another nail in the coffin of rickety, dirty, gritty Coney Island.

Endangered species. (Getty)

“My name is Michael Greco, and I am a direct descendent of the Greco Romans.” Mr. Greco stood before an overflow crowd in a fluorescent-lit conference room on the fifth floor of 253 Broadway on Monday afternoon, for an otherwise routine meeting of the Public Design Commission. “They built roads, bridges, aqueducts, great structures. My ancestors would be rolling in their grave if they saw this.”

To the 50 or so people packed into the conference room with Mr. Greco, the Rigelmann Boardwalk on Coney Island is their modern day Apian Way, and the New York City Parks Department is a band of marauding Visigoths. Instead of pickaxes and torches, the city is attacking with slabs of concrete and faux wood beams made from recycled plastic.

As part of the mayor’s PlaNYC sustainability program, the administration promised to stop using tropically harvested hardwoods. Since 1975, the city has cycled through seven different species of tropical trees in its park benches and boardwalk slats, moving from one wood to another as they were harvested to near extinction.

The solution, the city decided, was to replace the boardwalk with concrete. Even though this will be only on a 1,000-foot section on the eastern most section of the boardwalk in Brighton Beach, the decision has enraged Coney Island locals, amusement enthusiasts, historic preservationists, even the rainforest defenders who first attacked the city for its worrisome woods. They fear it is only a matter of time before the proposal colonizes the entire beachfront.

“One day, you’re going to come to Coney Island and just gasp—‘Oh my god, it’s not that beautiful anymore,’” Carolyn McCrory said, eyes wide. “You’re going to feel it in your bones.” She was wearing an orange peacock dress, and her curly golden tresses added to the carnival air in the meeting, a mix of working class and Wonder Wheel.

Randy Ortiz feared for his bones, too. He wore a leather vest with the famous smiling Tillie on the back that identified him as a Coney Island dancer, part of troupe that throws house parties on the boardwalk every Sunday. Mention of the dancers elicited cheers from the audience. “Concrete is bad for your knees and your back,” he said. “A lot of us aren’t as young as we used to be.” The dancers also would spread out sand to aid their moves, which simply will not glide, he feared, as it would on wood.

His concerns may be overstated, as the city is no longer proposing wall-to-beach concrete, but instead a 12-foot strip running down the middle of the boardwalk, bounded on both sides by 19 feet of what is called High Friction Recycled Plastic Lumber, which looks a surprising amount like the real thing, and is actually cheaper.

The critics counter that there is no reason the entire boardwalk cannot be made of this material, or even a locally harvest, sustainable hardwood like black locust. The Parks Department insists it cannot order the wood in sufficient quantities. Representatives for two lumber companies came to say they could deliver the wood, and one even came from West Virginia to say so, though he has a clear economic interest to do so.

At the same time, the city never quite provided a satisfying answer as to why there had to be a huge swath of concrete on the boardwalk, except to insist that this was the only way, and it was needed for emergency vehicles, even though they tend to use the surface roads. “We’ve explored all the options and this is the best one,” said Alex Hart, Park’s Assistant Deputy Chief of Design. “I wish wood would work, but it won’t.”

Earnestly ambivalent was Tim Keating, director of Rainforest Relief, a group that began pressuring the city to move away from tropical wood in the 1990s. “We have an opportunity to set the standard for the world, and instead we are presenting a backward plan that no one will follow,” he bemoaned. He did say after the hearing that at least he had achieved his primary goal, even if he was disappointed in the outcome. “They’re not cutting down trees in the rainforest anymore,” Mr. Keating said.

The world is indeed disappointed. “I’m from France, and when my family came to visit, we came to the boardwalk and it felt like the real New York,” Samuel Jeanblanc told the commission. “For New York and for the world, I beg you to save the boardwalk.”

“For shame!” cried out one woman, after the commission voted 6-0 to pass the measure.

Two other women left the hearing separately, crying.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Ruined. (Bianca Henriquez/Flickr)

Our hearts, rather than our feet, have been burning over the fate of the iconic Coney Island boardwalk. Sure, it's rickety and splinter-ridden, but a Concretewalk is just wrong. The city has agreed to keep the concrete to a bare minimum, which is still too much, but now it looks like there is no hope for any wood on the boardwalk.

The sections of the boardwalk that will have planks will be made of plastic, The Times reports, as the city has determined it has no alternatives. The public design commission is ready to approve the busted boards:

“I have pushed them to look at every possible wood alternative, and they have persuaded me that there aren’t wood alternatives that are practical,” said one commission member, Otis Pratt Pearsall, a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum. With that in mind, he said he would support the hybrid plan because “it is important to have the thing look as Boardwalk-y as possible.”

Another commissioner, Paula Scher, shared that sense of resignation.

“If you think we’re happy that wood is being replaced by material we find less appealing, that is certainly not the case,” said Ms. Scher, a partner at Pentagram Design. “It’s called a Boardwalk, and if you use other material, it loses its identity. I understand that, but it’s so much better to have a surface to walk on next to the beach.

“We love our icons of the past, and sometimes you can preserve them,” Ms. Scher said, but “things have changed.”

Now that they've ruined the Cyclone, is there any reason to go to Coney Island anymore?

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Ruby's - will she ever be the same? (NYMag)

You can take the freaks out of Coney Island… actually, you can’t.

After two years of trying to Disneyfy the boardwalk, city-sanctioned Coney Island operators Central Amusements International has asked a handful of Coney Island lifers to keep their coveted clapboard spots. Ruby’s Bar, Paul & Daughters, Nathan’s, the Orignal Coney Island Beach Shop and relative newcomers Lola Staar have all been given new eight-year leases along the beach, according to the Post.

Since it took over the city’s license for the boardwalk, which runs for a decade, until the summer of 2019, Central Amusements has been looking to sex up the boardwalk. After it failed to bring in a high-flying Miami operator, CAI has turned back to the businesses it tried to shun, the Post reports:

Critics had worried that an influx of chain eateries could rob Coney Island of its character. But, as part of the lease agreements, all the companies agreed to make substantial investments in their rental properties.

The businesses also agreed to stay open year round and to hire new staff from the neighborhood.

“I can tell you we are going to have a full, blown-out boardwalk this summer,” said Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Coney Island). “This is just the beginning. We are supposed to open more spots and expand next summer.”

Maybe this is one of those recessionary silver linings, but the fact remains, this is a win for the little guys.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The sands of time have come for the boardwalk. (Getty)

Just under a year ago, plans to replace the beloved Coney Island boardwalk with concrete were reveled. Sure, it would solve the problems of splinters and loose planks, but it's a boardwalk for godsakes, operative word being board. Locals tried to come up with alternatives, like a concrete median that would still have wood on one or both sides, but the Parks Department refused, and so the boardwalk will be paved, The Brooklyn Paper reports.

The plan is expected to be approved by the Public Design Commission later this month — and likely lead to the paving of the rest of the Boardwalk, part of a long-stated city goal of replacing the costlier wood from Manhattan Beach to Sea Gate, except for a four-block section in the historic amusement district between W. 15th and W. 10th streets.

Opponents are furious. “The Boardwalk is historic,” said Brighton Beach resident Ida Sanoff, who opposes a concrete makeover. “It’s not a sidewalk.”

All this because the police want to drive on the boardwalk, which does undue damage to the wood. They say it is for emergency services reasons, but The Observer knows better. Three words: babes in bikinis.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

A gloom descends.

Will this be the last, real summer in Coney Island, or the dawning of a new day that will see the storied Sodom by the Sea returned to its former glory?The Scream Zone opened back in May, bringing another roller coaster and a larger amusement park to the boardwalk than there had been in decades. The boardwalk, though, is becoming a concretewalk of sorts, and fears pervades that the once gritty strip will, like Times Square and the Bowery and so many other corners of the city, be scrubbed clean. Then again, we've been here before, four years running.

The headline in The Times today is drab, "At Summer’s End, 7 Shops Will Vanish From Coney Island’s Boardwalk," but the accompanying video report, "The Last Summer," if a bit dramatic, is also direct. But there still could be some hope.

In the article, the paper sits down with the head of Central Amusements International, the Italian amusement operator that won a decade-long contract to revive the Coney Island amusement park, an effort that, at least by dint of ticket sales sunbathers, is succeeding. But what about that elusive heart and soul? As The Times notes, in selecting the Italians, the city "was concentrating less on nostalgia and more on economics."

“We will never make Disney here,” [CAI President Valerio] Ferrari said. “But it will be something more ...” — he searched for the words — “refined, cleaner. A little more year-round, if it’s possible, with sit-down restaurants and sports bars.”

Mr. Ferrari was blunt about why he did not renew leases for the Suhs and six other longtime businesses. “We don’t have the same vision,” he said. “They like the way it is, and we don’t.”

There is some hope, though, for the nostalgists, too. CAI will let Nathan's stay—the foreigner would have been driven right back out of town if not—but also the hipster chic Lola Starr's. And The Times reveals that a family of Libyan Jews who have been operating shops in the area will expand their third into one of the seven vacated storefronts, so let the locals rejoice.

Then again, NY1 recently reported that a Miami Beach impresario has been tapped to set up many of the Coney eateries, so what does that say for local culture. (Well, Miami Beach is practically an outer-outer borough, so...)

We may not be raising pints at Ruby's anymore, but Pacific Sunwear and the Sunglass Hut need not apply just yet.

This fight first surfaced in the fall, when the Parks Department proposed replacing the iconic wooden walkway with a concrete causeway. The community was nonplussed--what's a boardwalk without boards--so the city tried two solutions before settling on its latest proposal, which people don't love but will have to do.

Parks wants to replace the boards because they are expensive to maintain and occassionally dangerous as a result. The preferred path by nostalgists was composit planks, but the city wanted room for cars. Now, a concrete strip will run down the middle between the fancy boards.

The locals are still befuddled. “This is violating the one piece of solitude in a city that’s already a concrete jungle!” Friends of the Boardwalk founder Mike Greco declared at a public meeting last night, according to Courier Life.

"These slabs are hideous," Brighton Beach activist Ida Sanoff told The News. "They make you dizzy when you look down them. They make baby carriages and walkers and strollers and wheelchairs shake, rattle and roll."

As if that were not problem enough, the Siren festival has been cancelled, the new thrill rides are obscenely expensive--four for $42 bucks!--the water even seems extra salty. Disney, indeed.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo