The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) announced the date of the second and final public hearing for 'The Coney' Casino Community Advisory Committee.

WHAT: The Coney Community Advisory Committee Public Hearing

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025, 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Members of the public may arrive no earlier than 4:30 pm.

WHERE: CONEY ISLAND YMCA, 2980 West 29th St, Brooklyn, NY 11224

Your presence and testimony at the second and final public hearing and your emailed testimony to 'The Coney' Community Advisory Committee (CAC) are essential. According to the NYSGC, the CAC's job is to “review the application, gauge local support, and ultimately issue a finding determining whether there is adequate support."

If you don't want Coney Island to be replaced by a casino, we urge you to attend the public hearing and sign up to speak. According to the NYSGC announcement for the hearing: "Individuals wishing to speak will be asked to sign up in person. Speakers will be allowed 2 minutes to present their statement on a first come first serve basis. If you spoke at the first public hearing, you will not be allowed to speak at this hearing."

If you are unable to attend the hearing, please email your testimony as soon as possible to TheConeyPublicComment@nystec.com.

The hearing will be webcast live via YouTube, where it may also be viewed afterwards.

For each proposed downstate casino - eight applications were submitted to the state on June 27 - a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) was formed, consisting of six reps appointed by elected officials. Each CAC will hold two public hearings and must vote on their projects by September 30, 2025. Only the bids that receive a two-thirds majority approval from their CAC will advance for further consideration by the state board that makes the final decision. Up to three gaming licenses are expected to be awarded by the NYSGC by the end of the year.

Recent press coverage of 'The Coney' casino proposal:

"Proposed Coney Island casino would create year-round ‘traffic hell,’ adviser says" (New York Post, Aug 11)

"Proposed Coney Island casino could bring heavy traffic, overwhelm parking, according to environmental impact study" (Brooklyn Paper, Aug 9)

Watch Charles Denson's video, The Coney Casino: Greed Kills, linked below. It highlights the serious public safety concerns being ignored by the Coney casino developers, city agencies, and elected officials.

More than 500 oral histories are available for listening in the Coney Island History Project’s multilingual online archive. Among the recent additions are the following interviews recorded by Charles Denson and Tricia Vita.

Fifty years ago this month, Mike Boodley set a world record for consecutive roller coaster rides by riding the Coney Island Cyclone 1,001 times over 45 hours. Now an award-winning roller coaster designer, Boodley shares memories of the ride, how it came about, and the people who cheered him on and rode with him. Other topics in the interview include the influence of Coney Island's Tornado on his coaster designs and memories of Astroland's flamboyant publicist Milton Berger.

Anthony D’Amico tells the secret inside story of how Coney Island’s $350 million dollar Stillwell Avenue Terminal came into being. D'Amico was the Chief Financial Officer in charge of funding billions of dollars in MTA mega-projects, including the the Second Avenue subway, Fulton Transit Center, and rebuilding the Cortland Street Station destroyed in 9/11. D'Amico also describes the highlights of his fascinating 37-year career in public transit.

Ninety-five-year-old Rita Kaminsky describes growing up in Coney Island during the 1930s and 1940s. Kaminsky was born at home in the family's apartment above her grandmother's store at 2717 Surf Avenue. In this interview she shares memories of life during the Great Depression and Coney Island during World War II.

Randy Profeta is the great grandson of Harry Wildman, who was Coney Island's premier sign painter from the 1890s until he died in 1930. Profeta shares family stories of his grandmother Beatrice, Harry's daughter, and her romance with his grandfather, Vito Onorato, who worked in Steeplechase Park. Researching his family history, Profeta learned that Harry Wildman did sign work for Feltmans, Nathan's, Steeplechase Park and Luna Park.

Please listen, share, and if you or someone you know would like to record a story remotely via phone or Zoom, sign up here. We record interviews in English, Russian, Chinese, and other languages with people who have lived or worked in Coney Island and adjacent neighborhoods or have a special connection to these places.

Charles Denson, director of the Coney Island History Project, has recently launched a Substack about Coney Island. You can read and subscribe for free at coneyologist.substack.com. His latest post is a remembrance of Harry James Faulkner, who died on July 28 at the age of 70.

"He loved to fish, and he loved the creek. For 50 years he lived across the street from the creek in Gravesend Houses and watched the creek’s water quality improve, turning the waterway into an asset instead of a liability. It was his front yard."

Charles Denson is the author of the prize-winning Coney Island: Lost and Found and three other books about Coney Island.

By Charles Denson

Coney Island casino developers need a history lesson.  Reisenwebers Restaurant was not a gambling casino!

The Coney Island casino developers are making the false claim that gambling casinos were once a traditional business in Coney Island. Their claim is a major part of the PowerPoint presentation they show at public hearings and to elected officials. The presentation shows an old postcard of a building with a roof sign that says “Reisenweber’s Casino.” That’s the extent of their proof.

The problem is that their claim is absolutely FALSE. There were never gambling casinos in Coney Island. In the past it was common for dance halls, cabarets, bungalow colonies, restaurants, and bathhouses to call themselves “casinos.” The word “casino” had absolutely nothing to do with gambling. 

This is a truth can easily be fact-checked. There are no photographs, tax records, licenses, newspaper stories, advertisements, or recorded memories of a gambling casino ever operating in Coney Island. “The Coney” casino developers sold their claim based on one postcard image, and the New York City Planning Commission bought the lie.

This type of fraud creates serious problems when used to influence public policy. This is exactly what happened when the Planning Commission approved the zoning for the casino on May 7, 2025. 

Here is a direct quote from page 14 of the Planning Commission’s approval of the rezoning of Coney Island for the casino:

“Casinos were once a popular and established use in Coney Island and a gaming facility returning to Coney will not only reinforce the area as an amusement district but also establish a new, year-round destination for residents and tourists, aligned with the goals of the Special Coney Island District.”

In other words, the Planning Commision declaring that the casino project is “appropriate” is based on a lie. Why are the developers creating this false narrative? It’s well known that developers make false claims and play loose with the facts when trying to sell a project. This highlights just one small part of The Coney casino’s efforts to manipulate the public and elected officials. (More on that later.)

The Planning Commission has accepted a blatantly false statement without question and actually expanded on it in their report. There was NO due diligence. The false claim about previous casinos has also been repeated by lobbyist Domenic Recchia and others at several public hearings.

The Coney’s lie morphed into a “Bring Back Casinos” meme that sounds much like Trump’s Make America Great Again motto. It becomes a nostalgic trigger, a wish to return something that never existed.

Something else should be remembered. There once was a racetrack in Brighton Beach where it was possible to bet on horse races. Throughout its history, the track was riddled with corruption, leading to indictments of the track’s owners including the founder of Brighton Beach, William Engemen.

Hopefully, this destructive casino project will NOT happen. Big money brings big corruption. History repeats itself. Be careful what you wish for.

The Sea Gate Casino bungalow colony on Surf Avenue at West 33rd Street in 1940. It was not a gambling casino!