Results tagged “thecyclone”

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade was today. If you missed it, there's a chance for you to still get in on an historic boardwalk event this week. The Cyclone Roller Coaster is celebrating its 80th birthday this Tuesday. WNBC profiles Gerry Menditto, who's been looking after the Cyclone for decades, along with a look at the roller coaster itself. The Cyclone still uses the same 100 horsepower motor it used when it opened in 1927.

Coney Island may be changing a lot after its last summer with Astroland scheduled to close and redevelopment of the area, but the people over at the Coney Island History Project are doing their best to preserve memories of the old Coney Island. This season, the project inaugurates a permanent home, which is fittingly under the Cyclone. The Times reports that the space had many previous forms: a souvenir stand, a hot dog stand, and a ice cream stand and that the support pillars in the storefront shake when the Cyclone passes. The project's location has its grand opening on Thursday.

Well, it looks like those faithful to Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto franchise will be able to steal cars in New York City in Grand Theft Auto IV. The newest GTA, which won't be released until mid-October is actually a sequel to GTA III, which took place in a "quasi-NYC". It wasn't enough to have Activision's game True Crime, where you could be a rogue street cop (maybe not so far from the truth), but now you can steal cars beat people up. It's almost like an updated version of Rockstar's own video game version of The Warriors.

Ooh: The Parks Department is looking to rent out the Coney Island icon, The Cyclone. While the current leaseholder for the Cyclone, Astroland, says the city is happy with their performance, with an Astroland spokesman saying Astroland owners, the Albert family, "do an excellent job of keeping it in prime operating condition, despite the extremely hostile environment to both wood and metal." Not to mention the riders themselves. The city is required to bid out the Cyclone's contact every ten years, so the city is adding things like new brakes (very important!) and new ticket booths as improvements to the contract. According to the Post, the Cyclone's current annual rent is $106,000, or 12% of the gross revenue; last year, the ride brought in $1.2 million. Gothamist imagines that Astroland will do what they need to in order to keep the contract, but our fear would be some corporation takes it over and call it "The Commerce Bank Cyclone" - we hope there's a clause that says an operator can't change the name!