New Episode in Coney Soap Opera Starts: Thor Skips It

The latest episode in the long-running Coney Island redevelopment saga started yesterday with a session sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. The idea is to come up with some concepts for Coney Island redevelopment. (The rendering above is from last year's November plan.) Every major player in the process from Amanda Burden to Borough President Marty Markowitz was there, except for one that passed on the invite: Thor Equities. Taconic Investment, the other major developer in Coney sent a rep to the "Imagine Coney" session. It included a "dream team," in the word's of Metro's Amy Zimmer, of amusement experts and architects from around the world including Disney and Tivoli Gardens. There will be design workshops and a plan that will be unveiled next month. Whether it end up meaning any more than, say, the public sessions on planning the WTC site or Dan Liebeskind's master vision is another matter. Said Soren Lund, former chief architect for Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens: "A compromise that takes a little of this and that — that’s the way not to do it. You kill the uniqueness. Putting a hotel here, a condo here — that doesn’t work."
· Stirring Up Ideas for Rebuilt Coney Island [Metro]
· Could the Municipal Art Society be the One to Save Coney? [Kinetic Carnival]For more stories from Curbed, go to curbed.com.