On Coney Island, A Goodbye To Astroland (NPR/NY Times)

From NPR:

It's the last day for Astroland, the outer space-themed amusement park that has delighted visitors to Coney Island in Brooklyn for almost half a century. The park's future has been in question since the land beneath it was sold to a developer two years ago.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94369851


From The New York Times:

By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: September 7, 2008

Depression has no place in an amusement park, but a definite pall hung over Astroland at Coney Island on Sunday, even as the screams of thrill seekers — grade-school children, metal-mouthed teenagers and nostalgic, if slightly nauseated, grownups — tore through the air.

On Thursday, the park’s owner, Carol Albert, announced that Sunday would be the last day for Astroland, the three-acre space-themed amusement park that has been a fixture on Coney Island’s Boardwalk since 1962. Ms. Albert sounded a similar alarm last year, when it seemed that negotiations between her and the property’s owner, Thor Equities, had come to a standstill, only for a deal to be worked out. The Albert family sold the land to Thor for about $30 million in 2006.

But this year, Ms. Albert said, Thor Equities refused to meet with her to discuss her lease, which expires Jan. 31. While Thor Equities disputed Ms. Albert’s version of events, Ms. Albert insisted that at 9 p.m. on Sunday, the park’s midway lights would shut off, ride by ride, game by game, for good. Twenty rides from the park are listed for sale on the Web site http://www.rides4u.com/.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/nyregion/08astroland.html?ref=nyregion