Traders are frustrated and tourism is absent

"Coney Island" is a popular beach in New York that was abandoned by visitors due to the pandemic

Coney Island experienced a major collapse between the 1970s and 1990s.

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With its rollercoaster and annual hot dog competition and its many diners reflecting the city's diversity, Coney Island is New York's most famous beach, but this year the pandemic has drastically reduced the popular crowds along the once-enchanted waterfront.

Never before has this neighborhood in the far southwest of Brooklyn has gone through such a difficult period since it was founded 150 years ago.

"It's really horrible and frustrating," said Dennis Forderis, 61, who owns with his brother the fully closed "Dino's Wonder Well Amusement Park".

He explains that he was expecting a good year for his company in 2020 with the 100th anniversary of the huge 45-meter wheel in his amusement park.

But with the closure, the quarantine and the absence of the majority of tourists, the Grand Wheel has stopped working this season for the first time since 1920, and the Fordyris brothers have had to suspend a project to expand the amusement park that they have so far spent $ 12 million on.

"Normally our revenues are millions of dollars," Dennis Forderis says with regret.

This year, revenues are still nil.

We go through very difficult nights. ”

Elsewhere on the shingle waterfront by the sea, the situation is also difficult in the restaurant "Rubies", which opened its doors in 1934.

"Our revenues are 75% down compared to the normal days before the pandemic," says restaurant owner Michael Sarrell.

We will not be earning enough money to pay the rent this season.

Frankly, we are seriously considering selling the restaurant. ”

And Coney Island became a recreational site in the 1880s, when on normal days seven million people flock to it annually to brown, swim, stroll on the waterfront, and eat ice cream, fried potatoes or spinning girls.

“People come from all walks of life and mix easily, and they seem to be happy to live,” said Lula Star, a clothing store owner for 20 years.

This is charming and very important to the city ».

Starr fears that the pandemic will pose a fatal blow to the store. "It is the most difficult stage in my life," she says.

I fight so that my shop does not collapse. ”

Coney Island witnessed a major collapse between the seventies and nineties of the last century, like many other neighborhoods in New York, but it has been experiencing a renaissance since the turn of the millennium.

On normal days, seven million people a year flock to it to sunbathe, swim and stroll on the waterfront.

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