The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 94

Islamic CM CO in a -X Today park is in afterglow of a glorious past By JIM BECKERMAN STAFF WRITER Coney Island, 2002, is a five-block resort area featuring two full amusement parks, an aquarium, and a sizable beach that put together- attract something like 7 million visitors each summer. Yet it's dwarfed, overwhelmed, by the shadow of Coney Island, 1902, much the the rarty ttt si rtuur' "i.wmh way the son ot a celebrity may walk in shadow of his famous father. i II 1 (fi'iit It's no accident that amusement historian Steve Urbanow-icz, giving his insider's tour of Coney Island, ends up pointing out things that aren't there as often as things that are. This alley? The site where Charles Feltman invented the hot dog. Those high-rise projects? The site of Luna Park, the biggest of Coney Island's three huge, turn-of-the-century amusement parks, covering 38 acres.

"You're out here and you're surrounded by history," Urbanowicz Above, the exotic architecture of Luna Park lured millions to Coney Island, as did the surf, where beauties in less-than-revealing suits frolicked. lowering the tone of the neighborhood." Last year, Coney came close to losing its last original wooden merry-go-round as well. The Carousellon Surf Avenue, a fixture since 1939, had a sad awakening on July 3, 2001, when owner Mike Saltzstein died in his sleep. "When July 4 came, it was a good- 13 says. This is the mother ot all amusement resorts." If Coney Island is a shadow of its former self, it's a long shadow.

There are, by Urbanowicz's estimate, 83 rides and attractions in this still-bustling area, outnumbering those at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, for instance. The real question is weather day, people were expecting good business," Urbanowicz says. "When the carousel didn't open, people knew immediately something was CM ec up." Locals were afraid that this antique ride, a carved and mirrored 1910 beauty from the Coney Island workshop of Charles F. Mangels, would be sold. But then a business partner of Saltzstein stepped in to run it, and today the is spinning merrily along complete with its original ring-catching mechanism, a rarity.

"I like this carousel, though I don't come here regular," says Fazil Sattaur, originally from Guyana and now of Queens, who was taking his nephew Ab-del and niece Abeana for a spin on the prancing horses (the initials are of the original owners, Bishoff and Brien-stein). Today, as always, Coney Island is a Continued on next page whether you prefer the clean, manufactured ambience of a theme park or the gamy, edgy atmosphere of this most storied of all seaside resorts. "We don't need themed characters here," Urbanowicz says. "We have real characters." Of the 25-plus carousels and 30 roller coasters that once beckoned thrill-seekers along Surf Avenue and the Boardwalk, only one of each remains. There's the Cyclone, of course possibly the world's most famous roller coaster, and, according to many partisans, still the best.

"I consider this the single most important amusement device ever built," says Urbanowicz, who has ridden it he knows exactly 4,875 times. "It's the fact He's first of all an enthusiast for Coney Island, of which he has intimate knowledge; of roller coasters (he's written several books), and of the Cyclone in particular. It was partly his lobbying that led to the naming of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets farm team, whose new stadium on Surf Avenue is the symbol of Coney's rebirth. An unfortunate side effect, he notes, is that the dedication of the stadium last spring led to the destruction of the Thunderbolt, another, long derelict coaster that figured in the movie "Annie Hall." "You could see it from the stadium. It was just beyond the outfield wall," Ur- banowicz says.

"I guess they felt it was longest relationship I've ever had with anything," he says. The secret of this wooden coaster, built in 1927, is that it was built on a very small parcel of land: 100 by 500 feet. Which meant that designer Harry Baker had to make the turns especially tight, the drops especially steep. No modern coaster, Urbanowicz says, could legally be built to such specifications. "This one was grandfathered in," he says.

Urbanowicz happens to be the publicist of Astroland, the 40-year-old park that manages the Cyclone, but that's after the.