Zamperla fined for razing Shoot The Freak at Coney Island without a permit

GA Cyclone when it's fast and smooth can be a funtastic ride. When it's slow and/or rough, pretty mediocre. When it's slow *and* rough, it can be pretty terrible - paraphrasing Jon Lovitz - "when Gator turns down a back-seat re-ride on ANY wooden coaster...it STINKS!"

I've never had BAD rides on GAm's Viper - sluggish rides may have been more ho-hum, but the more frequent occurrences have ranged from very good to downright fabulous.

Tx Cyclone - that was an absolute beast (but not enough experience on it to claim that those were "typical rides").

I've had both good rides and bad rides on the Cyclone. On a good day, I'll take it over just about any wooden coaster out there (except perhaps Voyage or Tremors).

That said, the rest of the area IS rather seedy. I'll miss some aspects of that, and like Jeff said turning that area into CheesecakeFactoryLand probably isn't the answer, but overall the area COULD stand to receive a nice refurbishing.

Coney Island is surrounded by the highest density of low income housing, subsidized housing and projects in the entire 5 boroughs of NY. It has an unemployment rate triple the rest of the city. Much of this is due to the decimation that Robert Moses (and henchman Fred Trump) unleashed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It might be oceanfront property, but it comes with a lot of baggage by being in the neighborhood it is in as well as huge lack of parking. The volume of people that come to Coney Island on annual basis (15 million +) brings its own unique issues along with the fact that these numbers are during a very short season (Memorial day to Labor Day essentially). The Coney Island amusement area is very small for the volume of people that walk through it. I for one think Coney is really at a turning point for the better and I am very optimistic of what the next few years will bring, but it is still a very complex area to deal with. Even with the city owning a good chunk of land now – there are still a great number of private landowners and operators.

In regards to the Cyclone – it has had much better days. It can run a lot better than it has in the last decade, but you can still get one heck of a ride on it (ask Gator about our ride this past summer). That being said – The Cyclone will always be an rough and tumble old school coaster, and if you don’t like that sort of ride experience you’ll never appreciate it for what it is. I really hope that whoever takes over the Cyclone does an extensive rehab and complete retracking, but I would extremely upset to lose the rolling stock.

I agree about the rolling stock, Jim. I love those trains. I don't think anything else would be able to do it justice.