AGA Public Realm Strategists

The answer is if you brought in P.T. Barnum to run the attractions, you would have people flocking there. I think the key to making an exciting Coney Island is the attraction. Today, especially when people have the choice of playing video games, going on the internet and watching TV, hopping on a plane and going to Japan, there's lots of competition for the entertainment time of people in New York. You have the theater, Chinatown, other things.

At Coney Island, you need a super attraction. To look only at zoning and the landscape is to miss the point. What you need is something that people want to do. Places people want to go. I think it's a fascinating problem and if I were trying to solve it I really would find today's P.T. Barnum and I'd say to him, what can we do to help you? What's going to be an exciting place for the 12 year old to go there, just as Alex Garvin went there as a 12 year old in 1953?

Why have that at Coney Island? Hasn't time passed it by?

There's a historical reason that one might want to do it on Coney Island. It was once upon a time a resort and then an extremely successful amusement district. These were all attractions that operated for money. Nostalgia is one of the reasons. There's history here. There are some things left over that could be reused with not so much trouble. I don't know that the amusement park of 1900 is the application that could survive in 2025. Other cities have such places: Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, The Prater in Vienna - l which is not in the center of Vienna.

What else should planners keep in mind as they move forward?

The question is: what is a 21st century amusement park? Can you get people out there? It's still a long ride. So it'll probably have to be mostly from people from Brooklyn. Brooklyn is, what, 2.5 million people? It's not a small market.

We have places that are entertainment centers that attract large numbers of people. We have one in New York: Times Square. It has managed to reinvent itself. Of course, it's in the center. It's doing so well that there's too many people. There are other places: The strip in Las Vegas, Beale Street in Memphis, Vieux Carré in New Orleans.

I'm a great believer in ferries and ferry systems. But it takes a long time to get to Coney Island by boat. If we had a real waterfront transportation system that would change things. Take the example of the Navy Pier in Chicago. That works: it is filled with people all the time. Navy Pier was created out of whole cloth. It was abandoned and the city created a commission. It pre-dates Daley. The Plan of Chicago in 1909 called for recreation piers on both sides of Grant Park, a mile and half into the lake. Navy Pier re-opened in 1995 and it has nine million visitors annually. It's flocked with kids, and some tourists. The other is the Santa Monica Pier. But the Santa Monica Pier is very special in the Los Angeles metro area. You've got to be able to attract hundreds of thousands of people a day. Times Square works. It attracts tourists, people from the New York metro region. Everybody goes to Times Square - tourists, theatergoers or they work there. And there are even residents on 6th and 8th Avenues.

Do you have a particular connection to, or fondest memory of, Coney Island?

As a child, I couldn't wait for the month of April when Coney Island opened. I used to take a long subway ride from the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The things you could do in New York at age 12 were vast, but nothing like now, when people think nothing of going for the weekend to Paris. We changed trains to the N or the R. It took well over an hour to get there. You'd go to the west side and change at Times Square. Three or four of us went. I don't remember if I had 5 or 10 dollars but you'd go out there and spend it and when you finished, you'd go home. Rides. There were wonderful rides. The Cyclone, parachute jump, Bobsled roller coaster. That was terrific - very exciting. I didn't go to the beach when I went there. We went away in the summertime. I went because it was fun. My parents let me go on the subway. It's exciting. And that's what you need in Coney Island. There were lots of different places you could go, lots of different rides, not just one. There was the boardwalk, you could eat at Nathan's.