Joe Sitt

Even in these days of increased transparency when it comes to the City Council's appropriation of member items, the process remains, unavoidably, one that rewards people who know people.

For example, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a non-profit group whose executive director, William Rapfogel, is married to the Assembly Speaker's chief of staff, Judy Rapfogel, got $556,250 in member items this year.

The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center, a group founded and closely associated with Vito Lopez, an Assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic County Leader, got $658,089 in member items.

In the comments section of my original post on these member items, Mendy points out that Leib Glantz, a politically active Satmar rabbi, is a big winner because his group, UJCare, got a $200,000 member item to fund "a variety of services.  read more »

The jukebox at Ruby’s Bar & Grill was cranking out its usual eclectic mix of beachy classics—Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers In the Night,” Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It on the Rain”—this past Saturday when proprietor Michael Sarrel abruptly pulled the plug.

“Finish your drinks!” he told patrons of the venerable Coney Island venue at 5:22 p.m.  read more »

Pat Singer, the founder of the Brighton Beach Neighbors Association, has lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood for 44 years.

But she is not, as she estimates roughly 80 percent of her neighbors are, a Russian immigrant, and does not speak the language.

So she had a hard time one evening around Thanksgiving of last year explaining to the 20 or so elderly Russian Brighton Beachers what they were doing at her organization’s offices at Brighton Beach Avenue and 14th Street on a Monday evening.  read more »

“I think it’s very bad-ass,” said Brooklyn burlesque queen Angie Pontani. “It’s a really bold move and I’m proud of the city for coming up with it.”

She was referring to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s controversial plan to redevelop Coney Island.

“In the face of Coney Island becoming a high-rise luxury condominium development, I think this is definitely a really good scenario,” Ms. Pontani told The Observer. “I think anything that preserves the amusement district is a good idea.”  read more »

The mayor did a good job last week of making his Coney Island plan look like a done deal, but it is far from over. The local City Council member, for one, is casting doubt on the idea of acquiring the land in the core amusement area and turning it into city-owned parkland the way the Bloomberg administration is proposing.

“I believe there should be hotels. I believe there should be an amusement district,” Domenic M. Recchia, Jr. told The Observer. “But in my view, the result should be different than the one [Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff] proposes. I believe that we should recreate an amusement district and work with the present landowners and not map it parkland. You still have other landowners besides Thor Equities that were there for 50 years when nobody else was, and they won’t be able to capitalize on the plan if you map it parkland.”

Thor Equities, founded by developer Joe Sitt, has bought up about 80 percent of the area in the past few years and has proposed turning it into a modern amusement park with hotels, time shares and condominiums. He is not a particularly popular player to root for, but there are a few other landowners who would be affected as well.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg wants a year-round amusement park—just like the area’s big landowner, Joe Sitt. So why the power struggle?  read more »

Joe Sitt's PR rep sent us the developer's reaction to the Bloomberg administration's proposal to acquire his Coney Island properties. Notably, Mr.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg is proposing to acquire the property that Joe Sitt has been buying up at Coney Island, throwing a wrench into one of the most aggressively marketed real estate ideas in recent history and putting the city into the unusual role of playing carnival barker.

In a speech today before the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Bloomberg said that he wanted to turn the central amusement area into city-owned parkland that would “preserve the world’s most famous urban amusement park in perpetuity,” according to his prepared remarks.

The Bloomberg administration and Mr. Sitt, the chairman of Thor Equities, have been battling over just what should go in the 15 acres stretching from the Cyclone to Keyspan Park, a minor league baseball stadium. Mr. Sitt has wanted to rezone it to permit a phantasmagoria of rides, entertainment, retail, restaurants, hotels—and, most infamously, condos.

“The city will work with existing landowners to acquire many of the properties in Coney East," the mayor said. "We hope to achieve a win-win outcome with each of them. That’s what we want for all the people of Coney Island, and Brooklyn.”

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. You are in for a ride.

Thor Equities boss Joe Sitt just keeps caving to the carny lobby -- extending leases along the boardwalk, possibly preserving Astroland for another summer -- all the while his ambitious Coney Island renaissance scheme remains on the backburner.

Can't a developer catch a break?

This week's Brooklyn Paper keeps piling on, with more Sitt-ripping comments from Yale-educated freak-show operator Dick Zigun:

The so-called mayor of Coney Island, Dick Zigun, last week sent a formal denouncement of the developer to city decision-makers. In the letter, Zigun, the founder of the Coney Island Museum and the popular Mermaid Parade, called Sitt a “bully.”

Zigun has his own gripe with Sitt, accusing him of backing out of [a] deal to sell Zigun a historic Surf Avenue building for a new home for the Coney Island Museum.

“I am totally outraged,” Zigun said about his dealings with Sitt. “He told me and the city for a year and a half that he would work to preserve the character of Coney Island and save this building, and now he is not.”

What, Thor Equities not follow through on its stated goals? Somebody better inform the folks at Albee Square.

A number of community groups thought they might have forced the city to reconsider a downtown Brooklyn real estate deal by packing public hearings with dissenters, but the transaction closed anyway last week pretty much as planned.

The big difference was that the developers have scaled down expectations for the number of apartments—a change that might end up diminishing what critics thought was the one redeeming, if limited, feature of the plan: affordable housing.

The buyer, a partnership consisting of the White Plains-based Acadia Realty Trust, MacFarlane Partners and two smaller entities, closed on the deal to buy real estate developer’s Joe Sitt’s groundlease for the Gallery at Fulton Mall on June 13, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation. The purchase price was reportedly $120 million, compared to $25 million that Thor Equities, Mr. Sitt’s company, paid in 2001.  read more »