At least one part of the city's planned rehabilitation of Coney Island seems to pay homage to the amusement district's gritty history. Newly installed sections of the Coney Island Boardwalk are already starting to fall apart — less than a year after they were screwed down. "It's not even a year old, and we're right back to square one," Todd Dobrin, chairperson of Friends of the Boardwalk, told the Daily News. "Something is wrong, and we need to find it out now before we waste all our resources on something that needs to be done again."
Planks are coming loose and screws are popping out on a 15-block stretch of the 42-block esplanade, where the city has already spent $5 million (a total overhaul of the 3-mile walkway would cost more than $200 million). A Parks Department spokesman said the city is fixing the "small percentage" of broken planks using a more secure method of installing screws. Locals say the problem might be the fact that Police Department and Parks Department vehicles drive on the boardwalk. The Parks Department says it has reduced the number of vehicles on the boardwalk, though trucks still drive down it to pickup trash.
