Enough Blight and honky tonk. Redevelop and bring Coney into the 21st Century. Movie theaters bowling alleys and stores beats empty lots in the winter.

Nostalgia is wonderful, but Coney is currently in need of a major fixer upper. It's fun to wax nostalgic about what was and the deep historical past. Reality is, times have changed and Coney needs to be redevloped for the future of locals and visitors. The need for year round jobs and economic revitalization should be emphazied along with preservation of amusements. Times are tough and an infusion of economic prosperity is long overdue. If retail is the driver then so be it. There is a balance and it can be achieved, with an open mind.

You rich yuppie transplants just STFU.

Coney Island is real New York, baby. That's why you don't like it, it represents everything you're trying to destroy.

I don't want to see the unique sort of carny atmosphere completely go away at Coney Island. At the same time the people who live down there are so poor. The neighborhood is awful. Keyspan Park was supposed to bring jobs and opportunity and I don't see any evidence that it has gotten better for the people who live there.

I think malls are a bad idea, but frankly what is so wonderful about a littered beach, old, crotchety rides and a boardwalk filled with deep fried foods? Not much in my opinion.

coney island needs to be spruced up.more people will go if it is nicer.

Pressure valve indeed - and we're going to need it when the Bush Depression gets underway.

I grew up near Coney Island and this is all sad, but honestly the problem is that (1) small businesses are dying in NYC in general and (2) owners in Coney Island sold these places out and created this problem.

R.I.P. Coney, but at this point I don't see what most people can do to save the place.

do the rich white people, who are buying apartments there, know what kind of people go to Coney Is. i was down there once. the beach is disgusting!

Brian, of course the people defending the mall obviously are not interested in culture and don't listen to WNYC, threfore you don't get anyone defending it!

This reminds me so much of the Hotel Pennsylvania, where developer$ strip everything of historical, architectural, emotional, or even tourist value in order to replace it with shopping malls that turn into abandoned lots as soon as the economy tanks...

Charlie mentioned that he was working with the city to change Coney Island, but then they suddenly changed the way they were dealing with him. Can he say more about that?

I think developers tend to submit one plan, which gets approved and then change it later to something that wouldn't have gotten approved in the first place.

this is happening (this rape of the city) all over the city!
it will continue until working people start working together.

What does the Mermaid Queen represent?

Is she queen of the gay pride parade? Please explain more.

Mermaid hunger strike? Give me a break!

I'm sympathetic to his point, but rhetoric like "predatory speculator" and condos like "cancer cells" really turns me off. It may be a worthy cause, but it's not the holocaust.

She lives in Windsor Terrace. Some people will do just about anything for a cause. People who don't live there don't know what people that do live there want.