dbucknyc

Because of the impending snowstorm Coney Island’s Opening Day will be moved from Sunday, March 20 to Saturday, March 26. Image from Luna Park's facebook page.

I saw the same video and then found this one.

The painting is almost complete.

The Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park opened yesterday.

In this video tour of Italian ride factories you can see Zamperla's Endeavor ride at the 2:55 mark for for about 1 minute.

Here is what I know, see below tax map of the lots. The Zamperla Thunderbolt is on lots 170 & 190, these are city lots. The original Thunderbolt stood on lot 105, it and lot 89, where the Playland Arcade stood, are owned by Jasmine Bullard. She inherited the land when her father Horace passed. The remaining lots I believe are all city owned. Also see link to Horace Obit, this says the lots are on the market for 90 million, but a later New York Times article notes that Jasmine took the property off the market. http://www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2013/17/bn_bullardsidebar_2013_04_26_bk.html Tax Map

Zamperla did some track work for a few weeks in early May on the Thunderbolt to improve the ride, see below picture from May 10th. The lot between the Thunderbolt and the the baseball stadium is actually divided up into many parcels of land, most of which are privately owned by the daughter of the man who owned the original Thunderbolt when Giuliani had it torn down. What you see on that lot now is the NYC Parks Department turning trees it removes into fire wood and mulch. Some track work being done to improve Thunderbolts ride.

All the new Rides have been announced, well sort-of. These are from the parks 2015 map currently on their web sight. the Brooklyn Barge is in place and other then the empty space where the Balloon Expedition was removed (where Wind Star will go) no other signs of construction were seen when I was there Saturday 4/18. The Endeavor #13, said to be Zamperla’s version of an Enterprise and the Power Surge #12 Wind Star #22, Seaside Swing #26 the renamed Happy Swing, and Brooklyn Barge #23 the Rockin’ Tug.

An announcement for a new operator for Playland was made 4/14/2015. http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/rye-city/2015/04/14/playland-park-rye-management/25758221/

Opening Day is coming up fast!

Went out to Coney Friday evening, got there around 8:30pm and the Thunderbolt was not running. There were quite a few people in line and along with 4 or 5 maintenance men working on car 1 there was also a full crew of Luna Park employs on the loading platform. We decided to stick around for a while to see if it would open. It reopened up at about 9:15pm and we got our first rice in the front row just as the Friday fireworks were starting. While walking around waiting for it to open i noticed they added one lonely trim brake just after the first airtime hill.

Reports are that it opens this Saturday! Here is a link to the New York Times test ride. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/new-york-today-a-test-drive-on-a-roller-coaster/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&hpw&rref=nyregion&_r=1&

Thunderbolt's Maiden Voyage Testing the roll back on the lift hill and then the first run.

Today they loaded one of the cars on to the tracks. Manhandling the car on to the tracks Ready for a test run