by Laurel A Rockefeller

Created on: September 09, 2008

It was the last ride...September 7th, 2008. Today, September 9th, 2008, Astroland is gone. But yesterday I went back to say goodbye, a mid-western girl whose childhood dreams were filled with Coney Island. Oh yes, I knew of it when I was a tiny tiny child. Before I heard of the Brooklyn Bridge, I knew the name...Coney Island. Coney Island...that was a magical place for little children to go.

I didn't know where it was nor that it was in Brooklyn even. But I knew it was a place for little girls to go. And it was better than Disneyland. I didn't want to go to DISNEYLAND. Oh no! CONEY ISLAND. And I knew that name before I even heard of that icon in New York harbor gifted to us from France...you know...that statue of Liberty!

In 2004 I met my husband, a Brooklyn native. And as soon as the weather warmed from our winter romance I begged him to take me to Coney Island-which he did in the spring of 2005. Ah the romance of my childhood dream come true! Walking on the board walk hand in hand. And seeing that hotdog place that I seriously had never heard of from Nebraska: Nathans!

But it was ASTROLAND I most wanted to see. Sure it wasn't quite what the movies had shown, but who cares! The legend was enough. There were rides a plenty that I knew from the mid-west and I had to savor them all. And games, so many games. It was like the state fair on over-drive and I loved it! Loved the water fights on the bumper boats, loved the miniature golf, loved all that Coney Island, every inch of it had to offer.

Coney Island convinced me I wanted to move to Brooklyn and accept his proposal...which I did, of course!

In 2006, after we bought our apartment in Midwood, my mother came to see our new home. Visiting Brooklyn for the first time from the Midwest, you can guess the first thing my mother wanted to see...CONEY ISLAND! And for exactly the same reasons! That was the summer of 2006 and the last year everything in Coney Island was there...for Thor took away the bumper boats, the miniature golfing and many of the amusements near Nathans at the end of that season. That was the last great season.

And now...there are no more extensions...it really IS GONE. So on the last day, I came to say goodbye. And when the Tilt A Whirl broke while I waited in line, I stood there for 20 minutes until they fixed it, determined not to miss the last ride of my life on it. It was sad, but important I take that ride. Then I went to see if the scrambler was still there...and when I saw it was, I bought my last ticket at Astroland ever, and waited for my turn, speaking to a reporter about being a Midwestern girl who had always wanted to come to Coney Island and how I wanted more than anything to be right there.

Coney Island is more than just a set of rides. It's about history. Thor be damned. The public needs Coney Island to be preserved, restored to its former glory. Thor's plans have nothing to do with restoring Coney Island to its turn of the 20th century glory, but into another shopping strip mall on the ocean.

We don't need that. We need a classic Coney Island where everyone, from the richest to the poorest can come to the beach, play a few games, and take in a few rides. The amusements that have sprung up around the city are too expensive for the average New Yorker to afford. Coney Island was the last place that a family of four with modest means could go.

Now there may no longer be a place for anyone to enjoy the simple pleasure of an unobstructed ocean sunset on the beach without paying big bucks for the privilege.

Sunsets should be free. That's what nature intended, after all.

May it ever be.

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