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SEE IT NOW: The Grashorn Building, Coney Island’s oldest remaining structure, is slated to be razed, according
to city records.
IT’S HISTORY!
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
It’s out with the old, in with
the boom!
Coney Island’s oldest remaining
building will be demolished,
according to a local
historian and city records.
The Department of Buildings
in January approved
a demolition application
for the more than 130-yearold
Grashorn Building on
Surf Avenue between Jones
Walk and W. 12th Street,
news of which local historian
Charlie Denson, the executive
director of the Coney
Island History Project,
revealed on March 4.
Entrepreneur Henry
Grashorn fi rst erected the
three-story building in the
late 1880s, opening a hardware
store on the ground
fl oor where amusement-park
operators purchased tools to
make repairs on their nearby
rides, according to Denson,
who said Grashorn operated
Continued on page 12
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
They’re shoring up this iconic
façade!
Architects will restore
the exterior of Coney Island’s
landmarked Shore Theater
to much of its former glory
as part of a developer’s plan
to turn it into a hotel and spa
with retail space, after members
of the city’s Landmarks
Preservation Commission
approved an amended plan
for the building’s façade on
March 12.
The new scheme fulfi lls
the preservation agency’s earlier
request that the builder
include more details to honor
the history of the iconic site
and its home neighborhood,
according to a city preservationist.
“I think it strikes a very
nice balance between where
you’re trying to convey a certain
kind of image for the hotel,
and connecting to the history
of Coney Island,” said
Landmarks Commissioner
Jeanne Lutfy.
Lutfy and the commission’s
eight other present members
unanimously voted in favor
of the proposed changes to
the plan, which developer Pye
Property’s chosen architects
fi rst presented to the preservationists
back in January,
when the panel told the
builder to go back to the drawing
board and include exterior
elements that better recall the
site’s storied history.
The revisions include the
installation of an 82-squarefoot,
metal “Shore Hotel” sign
illuminated with exposed
bulbs — instead of the originally
proposed 32-and-a-halffoot,
red fabric banner — and
the partial reconstruction of
the fi re-escape staircase that
currently hangs outside the
shorter, four-story side of the
split-level site, which used to
house the former theater.
The partial staircase the
designers will restore will
not be operational, but rather
serve as an element of continuity
amid the other changes
to the building at Surf and
Stillwell avenues, according
to Pye Property’s chosen architect.
“It’s more art than it is
function — it’s going to act
as a relic for what used to exist
on the building,” said Randolph
Gerner.
The updated proposal also
included other new details
that the preservationists did
not specifi cally request, including
an illuminated sign
for the forthcoming spa, replacing
brickwork on the theater’s
facade, and installing
exposed-bulb lighting around
the building’s base.
Other proposals in the developer’s
original plan for the
Continued on page 12
Vol. 74 No. 12 UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
Shore Theater’s next
act approved by LPC
Coney Island’s oldest remaining building to be demolished
Photo by Steve Solomonson
Changes to Coney landmark greenlit
/BROOKLYNPAPER.COM