81 Years Without A Death . . .

. . . but whiplash is a different matter:

Coney Island’s famed Cyclone roller coaster isn’t just terrifying – it’s downright dangerous.

There were at least seven incidents last summer in which riders suffered serious back and neck injuries, records show.

At least two lawsuits stemming from the incidents have been filed, including one demanding $1 million. But the ride’s operator, Carole Albert, has quietly worked to settle the suits, insisting on ironclad confidentiality agreements, a source said.

In the lawsuit discussions, lawyers for Albert’s company, Astroland Inc., admitted the problems were caused because the ride made its first 85-foot drop with too much speed, the source said.

Location Scout: The Cyclone.

God Of Thunder!

Cross the powerful, get spanked:

A member of the city’s Coney Island Development Corp. has been quietly living in a beachfront building rent-free on the taxpayer’s dime, thanks to a $3.6 million sweetheart deal he cut last year with the Bloomberg administration, the Post has learned.

And now, board member Dick Zigun is showing his ingratitude by planning to resign from the agency overseeing Coney Island development to protest the administration’s revamped vision for the fabled amusement district.

Zigun confessed Friday that he’s lived for the past decade on the second floor of the majestic Surf Avenue building that also houses a nonprofit organization he founded in 1980.

Zigun’s Coney Island USA — which runs a world-famous circus sideshow and museum and organizes the annual Mermaid Parade — had been paying $100,000-a-year rent on the site until 2007, when the city handed it $3.6 million in taxpayer-funded grant money to buy the building from its previous owner as part of an expansion plan.

But Zigun’s secondary use of 1208 Surf Ave. as his home appears to be a blatant violation of the funding agreement with the city.

The agreement stipulates that the site must be used “for the benefit of the people of the city,” such as for a museum or cultural arts center dedicated to preserving Coney Island’s history. It doesn’t include provisions allowing the building — which is zoned for amusements and entertainment — to be used for residential use.

At The Bar, The Wrong Kind Of Lock In

But the man gets big props for trying to Google his way out of the bar:

The night in question started innocuously enough for [Kyle] Hausmann, 24, a Harvard graduate who lives with a roommate in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It was May 20, a Tuesday, and Mr. Hausmann’s roommate was the D.J. at Trophy Bar in Williamsburg.

Mr. Hausmann got to the bar at 8 p.m. It was a spirited night. There was dancing. There was drinking. Mr. Hausmann downed a few more drinks than he normally would.

“Really sweet guy,” Mandy Misagal, one of the bar’s three owners, who was bartending that night, said of Mr. Hausmann. “Really wasted but super nice.”

The hours melted away. Four a.m. approached, closing time, so Ms. Misagal tallied the night’s receipts as a worker cleaned up. Mr. Hausmann was milling about with the last stragglers. Then, around 4:30, he went into a bathroom. And for reasons that are unclear even to him, he stayed in there for quite a while.

The bar emptied. Ms. Misagal flipped off the light in one of the bar’s two bathrooms, reached for the doorknob of the second bathroom and found it locked. “Curious,” she thought. Seeing no light coming from the bathroom, and hearing not a peep, she figured that the other bar worker had accidentally locked it behind him. Then her car service showed up and honked. Ms. Misagal went outside. The other worker pulled down the security gate and padlocked it from the outside.

They both left.

A few moments later, Mr. Hausmann opened the bathroom door. That is when he realized he was locked in the bar.

. . .

He wandered around the bar, trying to figure out what to do. Then he happened on a laptop on the bottom shelf of the D.J. booth.

“I checked my e-mail,” he said, “which was completely not helpful. My friends were planning a get-together. And I wrote back, ‘Yes, this will work. If only I could figure out how to escape from the bar I’m trapped in.'”

Next he did a Google search for “what to do if you get locked in a bar.” “But Google did not have any good answers,” he said.

I Can’t Believe I Watched The Whole Thing

Brooklyn Paper’s Gersh Kuntzman visits a sex toy store. Innuendo and bad puns ensue. It almost makes you want to opt out.

If It Looks Like A Niketown, Sells Like A Niketown And Acts Like A Niketown, Then It Probably Is A Niketown

One of Coney Island’s own, who had once backed the ambitious master plan, has rescinded his support:

Dick Zigun, the so-called mayor of Coney Island plans to resign from the group charged with redeveloping the amusement mecca, the Daily News has learned.

Zigun said he would bow out of the 13-member Coney Island Development Corp. to protest a revised city development plan he charged could include a shopping mall near the center of the 47acre plan.

“This spring, without the CIDC ever having a discussion or ever taking a vote, the strategic plan that I had been a major cheerleader for was totally changed and compromised in a way that no amusement park lover could possibly be happy with,” said Zigun, founder of Coney Island USA, which runs a world-famous sideshow.

In a blistering attack, Zigun said that the revised city plan would also mean a significantly smaller amusement park if passed by the City Council next year.

The shopping mall, which would usher in retailers such as a Toys “R” Us with its looming Ferris wheel or an FAO Schwarz with its giant floor keyboard, is a concession to developer Thor Equities, Zigun and other critics contend.

“The CIDC plan promised a world-class tourist attraction with an entertainment core — lots of rides complemented by year-round nightclubs and enclosed water parks,” said Zigun in a letter to Mayor Bloomberg.

“Instead the core will now be rezoned for a shopping mall full of Niketowns, Toys ‘R’ Us and four 30-story hotels.”

. . .

CIDC President Lynn Kelly balked at Zigun’s complaints, insisting the role of CIDC members was to create a development plan for the area, not vote on its merits — a job that will be left up to the City Council.

Kelly defended the revised zoning plan and a shopping mall, but said the use of so-called entertainment retail across 15 acres of Coney Island was still being debated.

“We’re still writing the zoning text, but if there is going to be any type of entertainment retail, the driving force is the entertainment,” said Kelly, who used as an example a rock climbing wall at a Niketown store or a Sony electronics store that provides video game demonstrations.

“It’s really about the interactivity with the item,” Kelly added. “We’re carefully considering how you define entertainment retail because that’s really key.”