Right here’s a enjoyable Coney Island quiz.
Which is scariest within the land of thrill rides, sizzling dog-eating contests and mermaid parades?
A). A screaming experience on the Cyclone curler coaster
B). A frozen dip within the Atlantic on Jan. 1 with the Polar Bears Membership
C). A leisurely stroll on the Boardwalk.
The proper reply is C.
It’s so unhealthy that greater than 30 damage claims had been filed previously 5 years by individuals merely out to benefit from the salt air, based on Metropolis Comptroller information reported by CBS Information.
They weren’t as a consequence of crime or aggressive seagulls, however to the “iconic” boardwalk’s perilous floor of damaged and free picket planks, uncovered nails and potholes.
Cops this month rescued an illegally-owned wallaby wandering on the boardwalk, the place marsupials are historically scarce.
But it surely’s the boardwalk itself that wants rescuing.
A supposed program to repair it’s years delayed and slowed down in controversy.
The boardwalk is Folks’s Exhibit No. 1 of metropolis authorities contempt for Coney Island.
Following important enhancements below former mayors Rudy Giuliani (who tamed crime) and Michael Bloomberg (who introduced in an exquisite new Luna Park), Coney Island threatens to regress into its former situation as a dumping floor for undesirables.
In such a local weather, neglect just isn’t merely the pure order of issues, however a device to show the clock again to the unhealthy previous days of violence and squalor.
I really like the Riegelmann Boardwalk, because it’s known as by nobody — a large, three-mile, principally wood-plank esplanade fronting New York’s Decrease Bay.
From personal Sea Gate within the west to almost-Russia Brighton Seaside within the east, it’s a stroller’s paradise of open sea views, pleasant shore birds and beachgoers of all dimensions and shapes — all anchored by that well-known, gaily-lit amusement space.
However I practically broke my neck each time I set foot on the promenade this summer season; how cyclists handle to outlive is an actual marvel.
Town routinely forks out giant funds to accident victims.
For instance, as reported by on-line journal The Metropolis, Yevgeniya Bereznyak collected $125,000 after falling on a broken part of boardwalk between West fifth and West sixth streets.
One other $125,000 went to Irina Shapiro, who additionally tripped and fell round West sixth.
The Alliance for Coney Island advocacy group says that repairing the boardwalk requires a “strategic plan” involving a “public-private partnetship.”
However excuses for letting the boardwalk rot are legion. Residents blame the Division of Parks’ sluggish forms.
Parks officers cite issues over what alternative supplies to make use of and butting-in by the US Military Corps of Engineers.
Native pols and activists cite “neighborhood” issues.
Metropolis Corridor blames contractor-selection challenges, a scarcity of funds and everybody’s all-purpose excuse — Covid 19 “provide disruptions.”
However minimize by way of the trivia and the large image is absolutely fairly easy: the “world’s biggest metropolis” ought to have the ability to make its most well-known waterfront esplanade protected to stroll upon.
It’s a boardwalk, not the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon.
Fixing it could be extra sophisticated than simply getting out some hammer and nails, however not that rather more sophisticated.
Certain, it’s going to price a bundle — a reconstruction plan for a mere three blocks between West twenty fourth and West twenty seventh streets is budgeted at $11.5 million.
A plan by former mayor Invoice de Blasio known as for $114.5 million for use for wider repairs — however none of it’s began and building specialists say it nonetheless wouldn’t be practically sufficient for the complete boardwalk.
However the metropolis has an working funds this 12 months of $107 billion.
Amongst different atrocious boondoggles, it blew $224 million on ineffective pandemic well being gear that’s being auctioned off for $550,000.
Certainly there’s a option to pay for a safe-and-sound boardwalk — however for that to occur, Mayor Eric Adams has to care.
The boardwalk’s decay displays the municipality’s historic, sneering disdain for considered one of its historic treasures.
Regardless of some latest, vital infrastructure upgrades, the town has inexplicably thwarted middle-class development on the Coney Island peninsula.
Extra market-rate residences are wanted to help higher shops and eating places in one of the crucial retail-deprived corners of the 5 boroughs.
Zoning guidelines promote “inexpensive” housing however not “gentrification” feared by native pols and activists.
Such archaic, “progressive” priorities, for instance, frustrate developer John Catsimaditis’ dream to construct extra middle-income residence towers subsequent to the 2 he beforehand accomplished at his Ocean Drive complicated.
They stan on the creaking boardwalk’s lonely western tip.
It’s a stunning stroll from there to the Parachute Soar, the Coney Island Amphitheater, Luna Park, Deno’s Marvel Wheel, the New York Aquarium and the alfresco cafes of Brighton Seaside — should you don’t break your neck alongside the way in which.
scuozzo@nypost.com
