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New 5,000 Capacity Coney Island Amphitheater Will Finally Open In July
By
Miranda Katz
Published Feb 17, 2016
Modified Feb 17, 2016
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iStar
By
Miranda Katz
Published Feb 17, 2016
Modified Feb 17, 2016
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After years of planning, stalling, and controversy, the 5,000-seat Coney Island Amphitheater is finally set to open this July, just in time for the boardwalk's summer season. The semi-outdoor amphitheater is a joint project of the city and developer iStar, and comes at a cost of $60 million to the city.
The amphitheater has been in the works since 2006, but has faced its share of setbacks. In its early stages of development, the project faced pushback from Coney Island locals, who called it an "atrocity" of an "expensive plastic potato chip" and feared that it would disrupt services at nearby synagogues. The project was greenlit in 2013 when the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans to rehabilitate the Childs Restaurant structure, which has long stood vacant on the boardwalk. Work stalled once more when a group of locals sued the city, arguing that it was illegally razing their community garden, but picked back up again last June and now seems well on its way to completion.
That lawsuit, however, is ongoing.
“After Hurricane Sandy came and dropped all that sand on that garden, those people worked feverishly, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, to take that sand out and rebuild that garden. So what Sandy couldn’t destroy, iStar did,” New York City Community Garden Coalition director Aziz Dehkan told the New York Times recently.
The amphitheater's stage will be inside the former Childs Restaurant, which opened in 1923 but has been long neglected. The stage can be raised or lowered depending on the weather: in the summer, the theater's 50-foot-tall side doors will be open and the stage lowered for open-air performances, while in colder seasons, the doors will shut and the stage will be raised to line up with a restaurant that is also planned for the space.
Curbed reports that the amphitheater will be leased for the forseeable future by Live Nation, an entertainment company that plans to put on live concerts and comedy shows, as well as family entertainment. In a statement, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called the amphitheater Coney Island's "greatest attraction yet," and said that it "will be a must-visit destination for fun-seekers in search of top-flight entertainment from near and far." No word yet on who's lined up for the summer concert series.
Tagged
amphitheater
brooklyn
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Miranda Katz
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