Coney Island, NY – After the collapse of talks with gaming giant Genting to create a casino and convention center in Queens, Borough President Marty Markowitz is stepping up his bid to get a casino at the seaside amusement mecca.
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“It would be a tremendous thing for the future of Coney Island, and it’s the right place to put it,” said Markowitz, adding he’s had preliminary conversations with Cuomo administration officials.
The Queens proposal had drawn skepticism from critics who thought the location was too far flung.
Backers say a Coney casino would be a better bet because there are already other attractions that make the area a destination.
Coney Island “Mayor” Dick Zigun noted the ocean-front playground had a thriving gambling scene before betting was outlawed in the state a century ago.
“Coney Island is closer to Manhattan. It already has major transportation, four subway lines, we’re immediately off the Belt Parkway,” he said. “And we have other things to do with an amusement park and a beach.”
“People are attracted to lights, clubs, casinos, hotels. That’s what attracts people on vacation. We got all these empty lots. said Dalia Trevino, 50,manager of Coney Island Bar and Grill on Surf Ave. “We need something built here. Tell Cuomo I got his back.”
i think its a great idea!
Maybe then the MTA will bring back the X29 Express Bus which went to Coney Island.
Attention frum community, coney island is at the end of ocean parkway and much to close for comfort. Do whatever is necessary to not allow this to happen! I can just see adults from our own community being swept up in gambling addictions. This is serious news.
Well, it would only seem fair – after all, Manhattan has already has a casino. (Commonly known as “Wall Street”.)
If casinos come to Coney Island, you can bet all the real estate in Boro Park near the Kineser, are gonna skyrocket! They are very heavy gamblers.
Y I thought gambling was illegal?
Gambling brings little more than poverty and pain. I tell you what, instead of building the casino, just threaten to.
Go to the nearby casinos in New York and Jersey tell them you are willing to build this new one. But for a small consideration you are willing to not implement the plan.
Boom, we get some portion of what a casino would have paid but without inviting in all the problems a casino brings with it.
Might be a great idea, it will keep more of the pan handlers out of the city and they will all congregate on the boardwalk. Or on the other hand, noone will go to Atlantic City anymore and the rest will fool around a few times a year or more in their own town. Have fun.
we have filters TO MAKE computers kosher.
Now we need filters to make all the vices kosher that come with casinos.
It will provides jobs in the center of one of the very poor sections of New York
But it will provide many vices and curiousities and a source of addictions.
I hope THIS IS PRINTED AS A WARNING TO BORO PARK AND WILLIAMSBURG. your communities keep your children in closed mentality. You keep them in a vacuum not aware of the evils in this world. You keep them innocent , to innocent.Your kids are not street smart and you want them like this. You cannot live anylonger where they speak only yiddish and trust every stranger to the evils in this world while you too are in your own world. I hate to mention the recent tragedy of the young beautiful boy A’H in boro park AS AN EXAMPLE OF INNOCENCE…. You are no longer in a european ghetto.
YOU MUST PREPARE YOUR CHILDREN, I BEG OF YOU TO PREPARE YOUR MINDS TO THIS EVILS CREEPING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO YOUR HOMES. PLEASE WAKE UP, EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN . Get your local police department to speak in your shul about this world today and having your children walk alone and trusting anyone that comes to them asking questions
Y I thought gambling was illegal?
I live in the vicinity of 4 or 5 casinos…. is the money REALLY going to be “such a blessing” to some of you, that you’re unwilling to see all of the pain, marriage problems, gambling, addiction & financial collapse, this could cause, amongst your people?!
I am surprised to see so many G-d fearing people get on here & proclaim the casino as a “great idea!” & how they “can’t wait” for it to come to their neighborhood!
YEAH! Why don’t they just build you all a strip club, a few more sports bars & a dirty movie theater over there too?! I’m sure all of THAT will generate a lot of money.
Seriously… I can’t believe what I read on here sometimes!
As I stated above, I live by 4 or 5 casinos & can personally attest to the destruction of relationships, people getting their cars repossessed, people lying to each other in their marriage, spending every shred of $ they have on it, etc.!
Do you think the Jewish Nation is immune to such problems?!
In gentile communities this isn’t shocking… but that’s the point! Why would you want to BRING these problems to your community too?!
Why infiltrate the Jewish Nation w\such garbage?! What “good” could it bring?
Is money WORTH it?! 🙁
This is a great idea. This shouldn’t be opposed simply because you think it is a threat to you or your community. Coney Island is far from Broro Park and there’s a simple way to avoid it; DON’T go there.
This is not going to happen just because a borough president wants it. There are a ton of hurdles to building a casino, look no further than the two decade effort to build casinos in the Catskills. Even building the Barclays Center in Brooklyn was much more complicated than Ratner thought it would be. By the time the environmental impact statements, the NYPD, the people trying to develop in the Catskills, religious and civic leaders, and the Native American casino people in Uncasville all come to say their piece, this project is dead on arrival.
What most fail to see is the great opportunities for the heimeshe community that might come with a big casino complex within commuting distance from the frum neighborhoods in willy, BP, crown heights etc. They would provide entry level jobs for young men and women who currently have few opportunities in their own neighborhoods and allow them to gain important important skills and experience that might lead to a better parnasah. It also means that there would be some entertainment options for motzi shabbos and sundays which wouldn’t involve going to the beach or movies and wouldn’t require driving up to Foxwoods or down to AC.
When casino organizers talk about bringing money into the community, they mean the menial jobs for people who work at the casino. How many people from the frum community will want a job at the casinos?
You need cops for those areas and Bloomberg took away the cops!!
Entry level jobs? What now our yeshiva boys and daughters are going to be working at gambling tables and as cocktail waitresses? Or maybe as cashiers? It would be a shame if they bring las vegas or atlantic city to flatbush. And by the way a lot of jews do have alchoholic addictions its the same with all addictions gambling, internet.. Just ask all the frum therapists around. Why bring problems to flatbush?
mewhoze, you must not live here in Brooklyn and know a keewhoze about the traffic we deal with on a daily basis. This will make it much more impossible.
There is nothing so insidious as gambling and worse than that are corrupt and evil politicians who try to balance their personal (sorry, municipal) budgets on the backs of the poor, dumb and reckless.