Alliance for Coney Island Executive Director Daniel Murphy Talks Coney Island History

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

**Lisa Mateo** (0:07)
Well, right now, this is the place to be, Coney Island. There have been people lining up here since before six in the morning to get a spot on the beach. You can see the boardwalk is pretty busy for this time of the morning, but it is Fourth of July. This is the home to about 350 businesses, 50,000 residents, and a boardwalk that is a national landmark here in New York City. So here to tell us more about it, Daniel Murphy, he's with the Alliance of Coney Island. You're the perfect person to talk about this. Good. Thank you for joining us out here.
Talk about the Alliance of Coney Island and what exactly the purpose is for it.

**Daniel Murphy** (0:40)
Well, the Alliance for Coney Island was an organization put together in 2012, mostly by the businesses in Coney Island and also with help from the city, especially the Economic Development Corporation. At that point, it was Mayor Bloomberg who set this up. And what it was, was to create an environment where the businesses could thrive. A lot of our businesses are seasonal and need all the help they can get. We also have a local community with business needs of its own. So we were there to create that. And one of the things we were set out to do from the beginning was to create a business improvement district, which is what we did actually in last December when the council passed it into law.
And so from now on, Coney Island will have a permanent structure to empower the businesses through a local tax base so that they can keep the streets clean, keep the streets safe, promote our local businesses and bring ever more people to Coney Island.

**Lisa Mateo** (1:34)
Well, you mentioned a lot of these businesses. You talk with all the business owners, whether they're large or small. How are they feeling? How are they feeling right now?

**Daniel Murphy** (1:42)
Well, business people are always nervous.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:44)
Yes, of course.

**Daniel Murphy** (1:44)
Well, so that's good. It keeps them on their toes.
But they're generally excited about the prospects of Coney Island now because Coney Island is on the rise. I mean, literally on the rise. If you see some of the buildings behind you that have gone up in just the last five years, this all comes out of the city planning that looked at Coney Island as a place for opportunity and not for a place in the past, but for the future of it. And so we've created that.
The city is now going to invest a billion dollars into the boardwalk to create a safer, more accessible boardwalk for the businesses and the people and for the local community, very importantly, this is their park. So we're very excited about the future. You know, businesses day to day always look out. They look at the weather a lot here. But, you know, Coney Island businesses bring their own weather and it's always bright, especially from May through September.

**Lisa Mateo** (2:40)
And you mentioned the people. So what are some of the concerns of the people? Or how are they feeling at this time?

**Daniel Murphy** (2:47)
People are actually worried about climate change a lot.
But that's why they come here, to come to the water and to enjoy kind of this. This is a communal experience, Coney Island. When people come to Coney Island, they come not only just to experience a historical location, but also to be with their fellow Americans. And so anybody has access to Coney Island, through the subway or through a car. You can park here if you want. But nobody has more access to the beach than anybody else. A billionaire can lay down his blanket right next down to the transit worker. So it's really great, it's an amazing thing. People come here to get away from their worries. This is the people's playground, and so they come to play.

**Lisa Mateo** (3:27)
It is the people's playground. Now, every Friday you have fireworks. You're having extra fireworks tonight for 4th of July to celebrate the 250th.

**Daniel Murphy** (3:35)
It's not extra, we do this all the time. Coney Island is about fireworks every Friday night in the summer. And July 4th, this is the best place to see fireworks, because Coney Island is America.
It's where people can come to. It's where you have folks coming to Coney Island, who have been in the United States for five generations or more. And we have people who are coming who came to the United States last year. And they're here to celebrate the freedom and the ability to basically enjoy all of this without fear.