A rollercoaster is rising from the ashes of a darkish and horrible 12 months for the leisure business.
Coney Island will quickly minimize the ribbon on its latest attraction for thrill-seekers: The Phoenix, a custom-made 68-foot-high coaster reaching speeds of greater than 34 miles per hour, will open by July 4, the theme park’s proprietors advised Brooklyn Paper. The attraction is positioned at Deno’s Surprise Wheel Amusement Park and sits straight subsequent to its namesake star attraction, which turned 101 this 12 months.
“We received one of the best of the outdated and one of the best of the brand new,” Dennis Vourderis, a member of the household that owns and operates the park, mentioned of the adjoining rides’ age distinction.
The Vourderis household has owned the plot of land The Phoenix now sits on since 2019, however they weren’t positive what to construct on it till they visited Dolly Parton’s Tennessee theme park Dollywood and have been impressed by a coaster there.
“We determined to tug the set off on” constructing The Phoenix, Vourderis mentioned. “After which sadly the pandemic occurred.”
The decision to construct the journey anyway proved to be “the appropriate choice,” Vourderis mentioned, because the amusement park has been “extraordinarily busy” since reopening on April 9.
The household determined to call the journey for the hope it represents, a shining beacon of enjoyable following a profoundly troublesome time meant to herald the “roaring ’20s,” a park consultant advised Thrillist in an e-mail.
“It’s not about {dollars} and cents, it’s about smiles and lifting individuals up out of a reasonably darkish time,” Vourderis’ nephew, DJ Vourderis, advised the Brooklyn Paper. “It’s the cause why we named it The Phoenix.”