Volcanic Video and MultiMedia Arts by Dave Channon. Welcome to ConeyIsland.com! Save Coney Island. Eleven prominent historians of New York City have signed a letter urging the preservation of several historic Coney Island buildings currently threatened with demolition by developer Thor Equities.
Among the endangered buildings are several dating back more than a century, including both the amusement district’s oldest building and the music hall where Harpo Marx first performed with his brothers Groucho and Gummo. “We believe that these historic buildings should be preserved, restored and reused,” the historians write. “Together, these buildings and other historic structures could serve as a historic core for a new 21st-century amusement district, tying Coney Island’s future to its rich past.” Signatories to the letter include Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace (“Gotham”), official Brooklyn Borough Historian Ron Schweiger, New York architectural historian Francis Morrone, and leading Coney Island historians Charles Denson, Michael Immerso and John Kasson.