Enriching Coney Island's commercial landscape with public art that expresses its vibrant history, culture, and diversity through the creative eyes of the community artists - past, present and future.
Leader
Melanie Hirsch
Location
Mermaid Avenue between Stillwell Avenue and West 37th Street Brooklyn, NY 11224
Coney Island’s commercial corridors have not evolved or changed much over the past few decades. Mermaid Avenue, Coney Island’s 17 block long primary commercial corridor, sits two blocks North of the Amusement District, and consists of 120, primarily immigrant owned businesses run by extended family members. Through a collaborative effort with artist talent from Coney Island residents, the Alliance would like to see the creation of storefront gate murals that recognize the distinctiveness of the Mermaid Avenue commercial corridor and the iconic Amusement District, without losing sight of their respective relationship to the greater Coney Island community.
The challenges facing Coney Island's commercial corridors are deeply rooted in the separation of the internationally known summer destination of the Amusement District and Riegelmann Boardwalk that sees more than 5 million visitors annually, and the greater Coney Island community. The 50,000-year-round residents and struggling mom and pop businesses do not believe that they reap the economic benefits of the visitorship. Historically, these businesses have faced significant economic challenges.
The next phase of the Alliance's strategic plan is to continue to improve and cultivate relationships with community stakeholders, while simultaneously developing a branding campaign that will engage merchants, consumers and local artists in promoting and sustaining existing businesses. Included in the first steps is creating murals that clearly depict the many faces of Coney Island. The artist the Alliance has in mind to coordinate this project, has utilized their creativity and expertise in not only creating murals in Coney Island, but working with other communities in achieving a similar goal. Although not an easy task, it is quite simple: improve one’s surroundings and the community stakeholders will take pride in those very surroundings. Once Mermaid and Surf Avenues as well as the small businesses on the Reigelmann Boardwalk improve their visual character, the economic potential of Coney Island will be within reach, leading to the launching of an effective collaborative marketing campaign to both retain the long-term businesses and attract new businesses along the neglected commercial spine of Coney Island.
In due course, the creative storefront gate murals will complement the limited public art currently in place, enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the corridors and thereby the first step in establishing a walkable linkage between the businesses and visitors to the Amusement District, ultimately increasing the visibility of Coney Island’s deep-rooted mom and pop businesses.