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The event sometimes attracts a couple of thousand actual participants, along with hundreds of thousands of spectators, some of whom have traveled to Coney Island's beach primarily to escape the heat which often marks the beginning of summer.

 

The Parade is followed by the Mermaid Parade Ball, a post-parade gathering where costumed parade participants can get together with each other and parade spectators to listen to live music, purchase raffle tickets, and watch burlesque and sideshow acts performed by some of New York City's hottest burlesque stars.

 

Anyone can take pictures of the parade from the sidewalk as it goes by on the street. If you want to take pictures of the staging area on West 10th Street, you will be charged $5 per camera to enter the staging area. If you are Working Press with an NYPD Press Pass, you can enter the West 10th Street staging area for free.

There is also a Press Pen across from the reviewing stand on Surf Avenue that will open at around 1:30 PM.

You do not have to make reservations to take pictures on West 10th Street. You just have to pay $5 per camera.

 

Coney Island became a resort after the Civil War as excursion railroads and the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad streetcar line reached the area in the 1860s. With the rail lines, steamship lines and access to the beach came major hotels and public and private beaches, followed by horse racing, amusement parks, and less reputable entertainments such as Three-card Monte, other gambling entrepreneurs, and prostitution.

 

The builder and New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses actively opposed the "tawdry" entertainment at Coney and discouraged the building of new amusements. Housing projects, for low and moderate incomes, were built in what had been amusement areas, and the aquarium project, where Dreamland once stood, reduced the available area for more traditional amusements.

 

In 1953, Moses had the entire island rezoned for residential use only and announced plans to demolish the amusements to make room for public housing. After many public complaints, the Estimate Board reinstated the area between West 22 Streets and The Cyclone as amusement only and threw in 100 feet (30 m) of property north of Surf Av. between these streets. It has since then been protected for amusement use only, which has led to many public land battles.

 

In June 2006 Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn (EEK), an architectural design firm working for Thor, released detailed renderings of Thor's planned resort area showing luxury high rise condo towers in place of the hotel with retail on the ground floor. Since the area has both zoning restrictions only allowing amusements and no buildings taller than 260 feet (79 m). Thor initially denied any inclusion of condo towers in its plans and Eek quickly removed the renderings from its site, but not before blogs everywhere published copies of the renderings. Thor quickly released renderings of rides, including a steel coaster that would run above the boardwalk, a two tiered carousel, and a fountain at the foot of Stillwell Av. that would project images of whales and mermaids. Thor admitted that condos would be part of its resort and said that the resort was not economically feasible without the addition of condos. At a public meeting Thor representatives continued to downplay the condos by claiming that the company only wanted to build hundreds of condo units, not thousands. While Thor initially said it only wanted to build 575 condos the number crept up to 975. Late in 2006 Thor announced that it had just purchased Coney Island's last remaining amusement park, Astroland, and would be closing it after the 2007 season. Immediately Thor announced plans to build a Nickelodeon-themed hotel on the site.

 

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