![]() While studying urban planning and working in affordable housing, I have become more aware of the planning policies that have shaped the neighborhood. While the eastern portion of Coney Island is home to the internationally known amusement district, the western portion is frequently overlooked.Ĭoastal development in Coney Island, 1974, as documented by the EPA’s Documerica project | Images via National ArchivesĪs a teenager growing up in the neighborhood, I was conscious of the architectural forms that dominated the landscape. West 29th Street is located in the heart of the neighborhood’s western portion, a low- to moderate-income residential area bounded by West 37th Street to the west and Stillwell Avenue to the east and home to approximately 27,000 people. On the other side of West 29th Street is the newly built Coney Island Commons, a brand new yellow and red affordable complex and YMCA. Each unit has a large balcony overlooking the boardwalk, but none appear occupied. Beyond the Coney Island Houses stands a recent addition: a five-story market-rate development surrounded by a large, empty lot. The effect of Superstorm Sandy on the development is still apparent: a semi-permanent plywood structure on the sidewalk encloses its external boiler, brought in after the storm to temporarily provide heat for the complex. Further west on Surf Avenue are the five 14-story red-brick buildings that make up the Coney Island Houses, one of the oldest public housing developments in the neighborhood. Across Surf Avenue is the Shorefront Center, a modern rehabilitation and nursing care facility constructed on the site of what was the Half Moon Hotel, built in 1927 to turn Coney Island into a year-round destination. On the northeast corner, rising behind a green chicken coop, is Sea Park East, a sand-colored state-subsidized development with a dramatic setback. ![]() Housing developments at West 32nd Street and the Boardwalk | Photo by Cole Evelevįrom the intersection of West 29th Street and Surf Avenue in Coney Island, you can see half a century of urban planning. ![]() But none of these has yet accounted comprehensively for the historical, demographic, architectural, and economic forces that have shaped it. The area has been the subject of no shortage of plans. In this week’s feature, housing advocate Oksana Mironova, who grew up in the area, looks at this contemporary crossroads through the lens of the neighborhood’s development and planning history. But Coney Island - particularly its western portion - is a community where people live, and those residents currently face multiple destabilizing pressures: the expiration of affordability programs, the impact of flood insurance reform, and the challenges of readiness for the next big storm. And recent city planning efforts focused citywide attention on the future of its amusements rather than its residents. Coney Island is one such neighborhood, with a building stock that overtly reveals the diversity of public investments over the past century, even though we sometimes forget that it is, primarily, a residential neighborhood.Ĭoney Island is a national icon because of its amusement parks and boardwalk. And this range of policy responses is, of course, especially apparent in neighborhoods where poverty has historically been concentrated. Public housing developments, urban renewal projects, tax incentives for affordable housing, state subsidy for single-family homes the list goes on. Certain parts of New York City can be seen as laboratories of subsidized housing strategies.
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