Good morning. It's Monday. James Barron is on vacation. Today we'll look at why the Cyclone in Coney Island was taken out of service just before Labor Day weekend.
The Cyclone roller coaster, the crown jewel of Luna Park, Coney Island's seaside amusement complex in Brooklyn, has been taken out of service just one week before Labor Day weekend. The 97-year-old roller coaster, whose crosshatched wooden tracks and glinting neon sign are beloved symbols of summer in the city, has been out of commission since Thursday afternoon, when it was stopped in the middle of a ride. The roller coaster was making its 85-foot ascent when amusement park operators abruptly stopped it, and passengers had to be escorted out of the cars to safety, according to the city Department of Buildings. A video of the incident captured by a witness shows one rider gripping the railing of the roller coaster and walking cautiously down the track's wooden slats with the help of a worker. The roller coaster was stopped because of a crack in a piece of its motor-room machinery, called a chain sprocket, according to the Buildings Department. No one was injured, a spokesman for the department said in an email, but the city did not learn what had happened until a local news station reached out for information on Thursday night. The steel-and-wood Cyclone, a designated New York City landmark, has retained a certain allure since making its debut in the summer of 1927, even as the surrounding amusement park has weathered seasons of boom and bust. In 2010, the Zamperla family revived Luna Park on the heels of the 2008 financial crisis, and the Cyclone, with its blazing red sign, has remained one of the park's foremost selling points. On Friday morning, the Buildings Department conducted an inspection and slapped the owners of Luna Park with two violations, one for failing to maintain the roller coaster and another for not immediately notifying the city of the incident. The Cyclone has remained shut since Thursday while the park makes repairs, leaving an eerie quiet in a place usually humming with its rhythmic rattling, and disappointing many would-be thrill seekers in the final weeks of summer. On Sunday evening, Luna Park was abuzz with activity. The Wonder Wheel was spinning tranquilly in circles, and children carrying giant plush animals and other spoils waddled through a maze of amusements. Just across the street, the Cyclone stood motionless, its entrances locked behind a metal gate. "It looks dangerous," said Tatiana Cotto, 36, who grew up in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn and made the trip to Coney Island every summer when she was a child. Cotto said she wouldn't ride the roller coaster today even if it were open, in part because of its age and state of disrepair, but she said she hoped the city and the park would revamp it for the next generation. "When you get off the subway, other than the high rises it's the first thing you see," she said. Coney Island is "nothing without the Cyclone." In an update on its website on Sunday, Luna Park said the Cyclone was "temporarily closed due to a mechanical problem." According to the Department of Buildings, it will need to pass an additional inspection once the repairs are finished before it can reopen to the public — the timing of which has yet to be announced. "D.O.B.'s priority is the safety of our fellow New Yorkers," the spokesman for the department said on Sunday. It is not the first time in the Cyclone's nearly century of operation that it has run into mechanical issues. During the park's opening day in 2015, the Cyclone got stuck several feet from the uppermost point of the track after the transmission belt slipped off the drum, causing the car to lurch to a halt. In that case, too, riders had to descend the tracks to safety, but when the roller coaster reopened the next weekend, seven of the dozen passengers who had gotten stuck returned for another go-round with vouchers the park had supplied them. Aleksandr Malkiyev, 28, who grew up nearby and rides the Cyclone every year, said he could remember many other similar closures. He expects the roller coaster will be up and running again soon. "It will definitely outlive me, I'm pretty sure about that," he said, adding, "I'd prefer if the lights were still broken because that's how I remember it." WEATHER It will be sunny during the day, with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the mid-80s during the day and will drop to the high 60s at night. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Sept. 2 (Labor Day). The latest New York news
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N.Y. Today: The Cyclone goes silent in Coney Island
August 26, 2024
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