Bring On The Gigantic Tattooed Elephants!

I can’t believe they found a way to make Coney Island classier than it already is but somehow they have:

Architectural renderings obtained by The Post show a grand vision of the famed summer amusement area’s rundown streets being transformed into a glitzy year-round playground and public attraction.

In one image, Stillwell Avenue becomes a fantasy-filled boulevard marked by larger-than-life street furniture, such as a mermaid swimming in a martini glass and a gigantic tattooed elephant.

Now It Begins

The New York Press may have jumped the gun back in 2005 by saying that “by summer 2006 much of Coney Island will be gone, and gone forever”, but it looks like that prognosis finally will come to pass:

Close the Zipper and shoo the Spider.

Those amusement rides — along with go-carts, batting cages and carny games — have been ordered out of a Coney Island site as redevelopment begins.

“Everybody’s heartbroken,” said Eddie Miranda, who has owned the W. 12th St. rides, including the Zipper and the Spider, for eight years. “We were all hoping for one more season.”

Eight renters received notice last week from their properties’ new owner, developer Thor Equities, telling them to be out when their leases expire Dec. 31.

Six tenants are in the Henderson Building on Stillwell Ave., a turn-of-the century structure that once housed a dance hall and hotel. The other two are are along W. 12th St. and Stillwell Ave. Combined, they operate more than a dozen businesses.

. . .

The redevelopment plan calls for a new promenade on Stillwell Ave. along with residential, entertainment and amusement components, Thor Equities spokesman Lee Silberstein said.

“The effort to transform Coney Island and recapture its past glory involves the demolition of a number of existing structures,” Silberstein said. “Therefore, to allow the new development to proceed in a timely manner, occupancy agreements with some of the tenants are not being renewed.”

Then again, it could just be a matter of perspective:

Some beloved Coney Island boardwalk mainstays — facing the bulldozer because of a proposed $1.5 billion renovation project — are getting a reprieve, The Post has learned.

Thor Equities — which purchased 10 acres of waterfront land hoping to create a glitzy amusement complex — said yesterday that 11 boardwalk businesses would be allowed to remain open at least one more summer.

Thor spokesman Lee Silberstein said the attractions — including Ruby’s Bar and Grill, Cha-Cha’s and Shoot the Freak paintball — will be given the opportunity to move into the proposed complex.

Location Scout: Coney Island.

I’d Use The Words “Meta” And “Ironic” If I Could Only Remember What They Meant

And we’d watch but the infinity mirror started to hurt our head too much:

The Burg is a single-camera scripted series filmed mostly inside this apartment and on a few street corners around the block. The episodes, ranging from one to 15 minutes in length, can be viewed at www.theburg.tv or downloaded through iTunes. Or observed in real time at any number of stops along the L train.

“The thing about Williamsburg,” said Kelli Giddish, a blond aspiring actress who plays a blond aspiring actress on the show, “is all the ugly people are trying to look pretty and all the pretty people are trying to look ugly.” She paused to let the observation sink in, then pulled a faded white satin nightshirt over her starlet-thin frame, belted it up tight with an oversized tan suede sash, topped it off with a white crocheted shawl and pronounced the new look “Granny Chic.” Several of her co-stars applauded.

The Burg is about the precious scenesters of Metropolitan Avenue and the silly things they do to be cool. Ms. Giddish has another soap job, on actual television, playing a onetime stripper named Di Kirby on ABC’s All My Children. On the Web, she plays Courtney, a sporadically anti-capitalist ditz.

Courtney’s friends in the Burg are more of the same: Spring, played by Lindsey Broad, is a youthful brunette who cares about the environment and wants to break her generation’s credit cycle. Jed, played by Bob McClure, wears thick black plastic glasses and forcibly prevents his friends from drinking anything other than Pabst. Xander, played by Matt Yeager, is a starving artist with a huge inheritance.

In place of holding steady jobs or contributing to the local economy, Spring, Xander and the gang spend their days coordinating their American Apparel leggings and their thrift-store cowboy boots with 18 plastic bracelets and two vinyl headbands from junior high. Their days are occupied with chemical boycotts, bike trips to Astoria, auditions for independent films and hours spent cursing gentrification and analyzing the complicated etiquette of modern bohemia.

It’s like Rent, only instead of AIDS, some of them have trust funds.

Then Again, If You Need A Map To Tell You Where To Look, Maybe Brooklyn’s Not Exactly Right For You

The Brooklyn Paper reports that real estate powerhouse the Corcoran Group is being accused of housing discrimination:

In a report released Tuesday, a coalition of 220 fair housing organizations charged Corcoran with ignoring black clients, offering more detailed financial options and incentives to white home-seekers and directing these white clients to white neighborhoods.

A “gentrification map” is a key piece of evidence in the National Fair Housing Alliance’s federal discrimination complaint filed this week with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“This racial steering tactic is reminiscent of discriminatory conduct from the 1970s,” said Shanna Smith, president of NFHA. “Then, real-estate agents would [trigger] white flight by showing . . . where an African-American family had bought a house. The twist here is that the agent used a map to tell whites where they should [move] to.”

The map was uncovered in a sting operation at Corcoran’s Brooklyn Heights office on Montague Street.

Four white investigators posing as yuppie homebuyers were flashed the doctored street map — complete with hand-drawn boxes and red arrows identifying neighborhoods considered to be “changing” for the better as well as established enclaves of young professionals.

A Corcoran Group employee directed the undercover agents to Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights and majority-black Prospect Heights, which fell in to the category of “changing.”

Four black investigators, posing as buppies, weren’t shown the map.

. . .

In a statement, the company said it condemned the conduct alleged by NFHA and would conduct an internal review of the individual agents involved.

The question is what investigators did to pose as yuppies . . . that would have been a fun one to plan!

Brooklyn Neighborhood Wants Overzealous Sanitation Department To Toss Out Violations

Dyker Heights residents are banding together to protest ridiculous sanitation tickets:

After getting blitzed with $25 tickets for allegedly putting recyclables in their trash last week, some homeowners on 71 St. between 10th Ave. and Fort Hamilton Parkway are refusing to pay.

One resident was cited for tossing 30 “unsoiled” paper plates out with her trash.

Lina Giammarino also found a city Sanitation Department violation posted on her door the morning of Oct. 3.

But Giammarino said she places only grease-soaked paper plates in her trash — and at most, three or four.

“I want to know, are we supposed to wash them and dry them and put them in the recycle?” demanded the outraged grandmother.

. . .

Resident Tony Mastellone said he was ticketed for recyclable materials passersby tossed into his trash cans.

“Should we be policemen over our garbage?” asked an indignant Mastellone, 52, a retired sanitation officer.

Anthony Pandolfo, 72, was hit for not recycling a plastic food container and hanger. One problem: The city considers neither item recyclable.

While confusion over what to recycle reigned, Giammarino had no qualms about what to do. She waited for a Sanitation truck to arrive the morning she was ticketed and asked the crew to inspect her black garbage bag — which she said the ticketing agent had not bothered to open.

“Even the sanitation man said they were covered in grease,” Giammarino said.

You don’t think they have a quota, too?