GAME #195
I was a week late on this tribute. Astroland closed on Labor Day, but that was the week of the Republican National Convention.
Back in 1869 food peddler Charles Feltman , who leased land near the site, introduced his invention, a soft sausage in a bread bun called the Coney Island Red Hot. The new sack became a rage, and by 1871Feltman had enough money to purchase the entire block that would some day be Astroland. There he built a sprawling complex that included a huge dining pavilion and dance hall called Feltman's with an attached bathhouse and private beach. By 1900 Feltman's would include a roller coaster and other rides and attractions. Other snack bars and restaurants at Coney Island began serving their own Coney Island Red Hots, but under it's more popular name, the Hot Dog. One of the chef's at Feltman's, Nathan Handwerker, left to open up his own hot dog stand blocks away next to where the city planned to build what would become the Stilwell Subway Terminal, calling his stand "Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs" even though no one had ever heard of him. The Feltman family continued to run Feltmans before selling the complex to other investors in the 1940s. In 1954 Feltmans closed for good, and the land was put up for sale. At the time, Robert Moses proposed the city buy the site and use it along with the city owned blocks nearby for another housing project. Worried what would become of the historic site, Nathan Handwerker attempted to buy the property to relocate Nathan's Famous there. Bu what had ultimately bankrupted the original Feltman's was the same thing that made his Hot Dog stand successful. It wasn't close enough to the subway terminal where all the hungry visitors debarked from the trains. Handwerker could not get any banks to lend him money for such a poor location.
Handwerker eventually got together a group of investors to bid for the site. The majority investor was Dewey Albert who owned 90% of the stocks for the LLC they formed. Moses had been foiled, and instead of using the city property for housing, relocated the New York Aquarium there. Not sure what to do with the property now that they owned it, Dewy allowed his son to demolish the bathhouse and replace it with a kiddie park. The rides were so successful, that when a fire destroyed most of the abandoned pavilion a couple of years later, Dewy Albert decided to turn the rest of the block into an amusement park. It was the beginning of the Space Race between the United States and Russia, so Albert decide his amusement park should have a space age theme. Astroland opened in 1962. A couple of years later Steeple Chase Park closed. Astroland became Coney Island's largest amusement park., and would act as it's anchor for the next 40 years.
The space age theme was eventually dropped, but the name stayed. When the city wanted to demolish the Cyclone for a parking lot, which was located in between the Aquarium property and Astroland, the Alberts intervened and offered to pay for the restoration of the coaster, provided it became part of Astroland. The intervention save the Cyclone. After Dewey Albert died in 1992, his shares on the Astroland site were evenly split between Albert family members, while his son continued to own and operate Astroland. In 2004 developer Joe Sitt attempted to buy Astroland from the Albert family, but only managed to get about 10% of the stocks for the LLP from the families of the other investors, including the Hanwerker family who were promised by Sitt that the site was to be used for an amusement park. At the time Bloomberg was pressuring property owners in Coney Island, most who were families who had held onto their properties since the 1800s, to sell to developers so Coney Island could be redeveloped. Carol Albert hired a firm to design a multimillion dollar enclosed amusement park and presented City Hall with the proposal to redevelop their property. The city rejected the Albert's plan, and let them know that Bloomberg wanted a single developer to develop a single amusement resort over the entire amusement district. Faced with the possibility that the city was going to force them to sell their property anyway, and wanting to collect on the $60 million Sitt was offering for the remaining stocks, the Alberts had a family meeting where they voted on selling Astroland, and selling to Sitt won out the vote. Sitt had promised to continue leasing the Astroland site to the Alberts so Carol Albert could continue to operate Astroland, ad that Astroland would be offered a site inside his proposed amusement resort. Even though his plans to build condominiums in his resort had been outed, the Alberts decided their best chances of Astroland remaining open was to sell to Sitt and hope he kept his promise. However, within a year Sitt was threatening to shut down Astroland if the city didn't expedite his demands to rezone the amusement district to allow condominium towers. Astroland nearly closed for good in 2007, before Sitt's friend, councilman Domenic Recchia, got him to agree to lease Astroland the property for the 2008 season. As the season closed, the Alberts needed to know if Sitt would lease them the property for the 2009 season, because if not then they would need to start breaking down the rides immediately after Labor Day so they could be removed by January 1st. ( Any rides or structures still on the site when the 2008 lease ran out would become the property of Sitt. ) Throughout the summer Sitt refused to give them an answer. As labor Day approached, Sitt claimed he wanted to use the site for something else the next summer. Astroland had no choice but to announce they would be closing for good, their final day of operation being Labor Day 2008.
Bloomberg tried to intervene. He publicly asked the Alberts to warehouse their rides instead of selling them, because the city was not going to allow condos, and would try to get Sitt to sell his property. The only attractions that could not be broken down by the January 1st deadline was an observation ride called the Astrotower, the two story Dante's Inferno spook house and a giant water flume ride which at the time was the largest in the world. And the fence which surrounded the park with it's two gates. Also on the site was the last remaining structure from Feltmans which was said to be one of the kitchens, and a building near the entrance which was once part of a space age ski lift ride. Also on the site was George & Paul's, who had a block long food stand along the boardwalk on property they leased from the Alberts. On the roof of George & Paul's was two giant figurines and the Astroland rocket, a rocket shaped motion ride that had been moved there after it had broken down in the 70s. George & Paul had already sold the business to Paul's daughter, and during the 2008 season it had been renamed Paul's Daughter. Even though Astroland had not been offered a 2009 lease, Paul's daughter had been offered a 2009 lease in late August. When Astroland closed for good, Sitt went to the press and claimed the Alberts had closed Astroland against his wishes, and he had wanted the park open in 2009. He then announced he had plans for an even bigger park on the site for the next summer. During the winter, the flume and Dante's Inferno were demolished. The ground was also needlessly torn up. The Feltman kitchen, the structure by the entrance, and the Astrotower were not demolished. The better park Sitt promised was actually just a traveling carnival that was leased the site for the entire summer, and would not show up until mid July. The other half of the site was leased to a sideshow, the owner which got in trouble for yelling anti-Semitic jokes at an elderly Jewish patron of his sideshow, and throughout the summer had started trouble with or publicly insulted almost every business in the amusement zone. Since Sitt had needlessly torn up the blacktop and underground electric cables of Astroland ( and it's drainage ) the carnival that replaced it was forced t set up on a lot of debris and puddles. Sitt named this amusement park
Dreamland. On Labor Day weekend 2009, the owners of the carnival and sideshow found the gates to the site padlocked. A week earlier Sitt announced he wanted double the rent, which neither traveling show had yet. ( Sitt's lease for the site allowed his company to raise the rent whenever they wanted. ) Claiming Dreamland failed to pay their rent, hw ordered it closed for Labor Day, and also padlocked Paul's Daughter and businesses leasing from his other properties. Eventually Recchia talked Sitt into allowing the carnival and businesses to open for Monday. But that was the end of Dreamland, as Sitt was unable to find another carnival willing to lease from him again.
Paul's Daughter was not offered a 2010 lease, and announced they would be closing. On their final day they gave away all their food for free. That winter Sitt agreed to lease Paul's Daughter the site for 2010. Paul's Daughter is still there. Sitt was eventually pressured into selling the city Astroland and a lot of his other Coney Island property, this in trade of rezoning his remaining land for hotels that would have residential units. None of those hotels have been built, and currently Sitt's Coney Island property is on the market. Once the city owned the Astroland site again, they refused to lease it to the Alberts, but instead chose to lease it to Zamperla, who also got the lease to all the other properties the city acquired from Sitt. asking Astroland to warehouse their rides had been a publicity stunt for Bloomberg. The city even refused to lease the Alberts a vacant lot on another block for a scaled down version of Astroland. Carol Albert still continued to operate the Cyclone, until the city awarded the franchise to Zamperla. In 2013 the city demolished the Astrotower and Feltman kitchen building, possibly because both became eligible for landmark status and could not be demolished once they won that protection. The city claims that they received a phone call from a worried beachgoer who witnessed the tower swaying in the wind. Today the Astroland site is called
Luna Park. So far it has not opened this year because of the pandemic.
NOTE: THE WONDER WHEEL IS NOT PART OF ASTROLAND, BUT ON A PARK NEXT DOOR.