The Grashorn Building in the 1880s

The historic Grashorn Building, Coney Island's oldest structure, has been given a death sentence by real estate speculator Joe Sitt of Thor Equities, and demolition of the vacant structure has begun.  The NYC Department of Buildings approved an application for demolition of the entire structure on January 23, 2019. The Grashorn is just the latest in a series of amusement landmarks destroyed by the self-proclaimed "savior" of Coney Island who bought up large chunks of the amusement area more than a decade ago.

Thor made no effort to renovate the building and left it to rot since purchasing it for nearly $2 million a decade ago. Save Coney Island, a preservation group opposing the city's rezoning plan, had proposed a renovation project in 2010, but Thor wasn't interested. Other than the squatters who periodically broke into the building, the only "tenant" was a TV crew who briefly used the ground floor to re-create the Susquehanna Hat Store for the HBO series "Bored to Death." During the filming of "Men in Black 3," the film's production crew used part of the building's gutted interior as its headquarters.

Despite making a $90 million profit flipping Coney Island property during the city's 2009 rezoning of the amusement zone, Thor Equities has recently run into financial problems. Sitt lost ownership of some of his Manhattan properties and has reportedly defaulted on bank loans. In 2018 he put his combined 21 Coney Island properties up for sale, abandoning his scheme to build a shopping mall and hotel complex in the amusement zone.

The Grashorn Building, with its mansard roof, cast-iron cresting, and fish-scale shingles, was built by hardware store owner Henry Grashorn in the early 1880s and is the last surviving structure from that era. It is believed that the contractor was John Y. McKane, the carpenter who became political boss of Gravesend and Coney Island only to wind up in Sing-Sing prison, convicted of corruption.

For more than 60 years, Henry Grashorn's hardware store met the unusual needs of amusement operators by carrying everything needed to operate or repair the rides of Coney Island. The two floors above the store served as a hotel. The building had several owners after Grashorn retired. The last owner before Sitt was the late Wally Roberts, who operated an arcade on the ground floor. Although the building's facade was heavily altered over the years, it still retained its original shape and was easily identifiable. The hotel rooms on the upper floors were perfectly preserved. The Grashorn now joins Thor's other victims, including the Henderson Theater and Coney Island Bank Building, which Sitt ordered demolished in 2010 despite local efforts to preserve them.

The vacant Grashorn Building after Thor Equities bought the property.

The Grashorn Building was the last surviving structure from the earliest days of Coney Island.

The two upper floors in the Grashorn Building were once a hotel.

Architectural rendering released by Save Coney Island in 2010. What could have been. . .   

The Grashorn Building in 1969 still had Henry Grashorn's brass signage.

Susquehanna Hat Store in the Grashorn Building, a set for the HBO series, "Bored to Death" in 2011. Photo © Charles Denson.

A piece of Coney Island transit history unexpectedly reappeared recently when Surf Avenue's old trolley tracks were unearthed and removed during street construction in front of MCU Park. The tracks had been paved over decades ago after trolley car service was discontinued and replaced by buses in 1946.

Trolley tracks reappeared on Surf Avenue and West 17th Street  -  Photo by Charles Denson

Surf Avenue trolley service began in the 1890s, serving the amusement zone and West End before taking a curve up West 36th Street. There it connected with the Railroad Avenue "Toonerville" trolley line that ran between Mermaid and Surf Avenues and then through Sea Gate to Norton's Point. The rusting tracks brought to light during the excavation were stacked up next to the decaying trolley poles that still line Surf from West 8th Street to West 21st Street, reviving memories of a once popular transit system that died off after World War II.

Coney Island was literally the end of the line for many of Brooklyn's trolley routes. A trolley barn and terminal were located on West 5th Street, across the street from Seaside Park, and Norton's point served as the last stop on the Railroad Avenue line that once connected to the ferry. For many years there was also a spur that terminated inside Steeplechase park at West 17th Street.

Resurrection of streetcar service has been in the news lately with Mayor de Blasio's ambitious plan for a $2.7 billion BQX line, and developer John Catsimatidis's much-hyped but delusional plan to construct a Surf Avenue "trolley" (in reality a jitney bus) connecting his West End high-rises to the Stillwell Avenue subway terminal. Catsimatidis's plan has probably been derailed by the city's recent proposal for a conveniently located ferry terminal a few blocks away.

Whenever a shovel is placed in the sands of Coney Island, a piece of history is uncovered. Many visitors to the History Project have recorded their memories of traveling to Coney Island by nickel trolley when they were young. They say it was a romantic and unforgettable means of arriving at the seashore. These trolley car memories provide nostalgic links to a picturesque form of urban transportation: clanging bells and screeching wheels, rattan seats and rattling floorboards, the rising scent of salt air drifting through open windows as one approached Coney Island while sailing aboard the clunky but beautiful one-eyed machines that once prowled the streets of Brooklyn.

The lumbering buses that replaced the trolleys will never have the same mystique.

– Charles Denson

Trolley car on Surf Avenue at West 12th Street

Closeup of the Surf Avenue rails

Trolley car parked at West 36th Street and Railroad Avenue. The curved track connected to Surf Avenue.

"If Paris is France, then Coney Island, between June and September, is the world." --George C Tilyou.

George C.  Tilyou, founder of Steeplechase Park and creator of Coney Island's Funny Face logo was born on this day, February 3rd, in 1862.

Tilyou was a master showman and amateur psychologist who understood how people wanted to be entertained. He realized that his customers were happy to play the fool to entertain others.

He  came with his parents to Coney Island in 1865 at the tender age of three. His father, Peter, opened a small wooden bathhouse and restaurant on the beach, and young George was soon selling bottles of souvenir sand to visitors. The family nearly lost everything when they challenged Coney's political boss, John McKane, in the 1880s. After McKane went to prison, the Tilyous' fortunes improved, and soon George owned a theater, a Ferris wheel, and other rides scattered along the beach.

Tilyou became Coney's biggest booster and a philanthropist who supported local orphanages, the Catholic church, children's hospitals, and other charities.

In 1897 Tilyou moved his rides into an enclosed park at West Sixteenth Street and Surf Avenue. Horse racing was the park's theme. The Steeplechase ride enabled ordinary people to experience the thrill of racing by riding mechanical horses along a steel track.

Read more about Tilyou on his page in the Coney Island History Project's Coney Island Hall of Fame.

GONE FOREVER: Beautiful nautical-themed details of the old theater were lost to neglect and vandalism.

Three months ago I was contacted by Eduard Yadgarov of Pye Properties, new owners of the old Shore Theater building, regarding the company's plans for the structure and a possible collaboration with the Coney Island History Project. During our meeting at the sleek new company offices on West 8th Street, I was shown plans for the renovations and new attractions that include a hotel and rooftop restaurant.

We discussed historic preservation of the ornate interior details that I documented a decade ago. I was then told the bad news: Almost all of the beautiful plaster decorations, the mermaids and ships that had once embellished the mezzanine and other areas, had been destroyed by vandalism and water leaks during the time that the building had been occupied by squatters prior to Pye's purchase of the building. Horace Bullard's heirs had let the building rot, and the roof had been leaking for years.

On October 5 Yadgarov and his father gave me a tour of the theater's interior. After donning hard hats, we used flashlights to work our way through the ruins of the once elegant theater. The damage was extensive. In the years following Horace Bullard's death, the vacant building had been stripped of its window frames and almost anything else of value. Water damage had destabilized the theater's decorative interior and exterior brick walls to a point that seemed beyond repair. Only a few historic items remained, and Yadgarov assured me that those relics will be preserved and included in the new construction.

In 2010 I testified in favor of landmarking the building and also gave a presentation at the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing that showed the building's interior, hoping that it could be saved. I had always imagined that the theater could somehow be preserved much as the old Harvey Theater at BAM had been renovated and restored while leaving most of the original details.  But after the tour, which was extremely hazardous as plaster was still collapsing around us, I realized that this was a hopeless situation. The ceiling of the mezzanine with its mermaids and ships and ocean motifs was gone, leaving only piles of damp debris. No trace of the artwork remains.

The only surviving remnants are the beautiful marble columns, ornate railings, and the mosaic water fountain, which Pye Properties has promised to retain, restore and place in the new hotel's lobby. The theater's ceiling and enormous dome, which I had once seen re-wired and lit up by former caretaker Andy Badalementi 10 years ago, has suffered serious water damage. I doubt that it can be salvaged. This was a sad tour, but afterwards I complimented Yadgarov on the company's ambitious efforts to renovate and repurpose the landmark structure. Not many developers would take on such a seemingly impossible and expensive task. Although a restored theater would have been a great project, it no longer seems feasible. It will be wonderful to have the landmarked building open to the public once again, filled with new amenities and attractions for Coney Island.

– Charles Denson

SAVED: The mosaic fountain on the theater's mezzanine will be preserved and restored.

SAVED: The ornate railings on the balcony steps will be salvaged and repurposed.

2006: The theater's marble columns have survived and will be restored and placed in the hotel's lobby but the plaster ceiling artwork is gone forever.

The lobby ceiling, decorated with nautical creatures and sporting unusual lighting fixtures, is intact and will be restored by Pye Properties.