See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Will Bredderman
Brooklyn Daily
The rocket is ready for lift-off!
Sources tell this paper that Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park will take over the iconic Astroland Rocket from the city and place it near the funzone’s eponymous ferris wheel.
The rocket — originally called the Star Flyer — made its debut at the 1962 opening of the now-defunct space-themed amusement park Astroland. Seventy-one feet long and made of airplane-grade aluminium, the ship contains 26 seats and a screen that originally simulated a spacecraft launch. In later years, the defunct ride sat atop the roof of Boardwalk raw bar Gregory and Paul’s — now Paul’s Daughter — between W. 10th and W. 12th streets, as an advertisement beckoning Coney-goers toward Astroland.
Astroland closed in 2008, and the next year park owners Carol and Jerry Albert donated the rocket to the city. The city has vowed numerous times over the years to restore the iconic piece of the People’s Playground’s past to the amusement district.
Authorities have stored the rocket at the Staten Island Homeport in Stapletown since then, and sources reported that the rocket got swamped during Hurricane Sandy and damaged by debris carried in the storm surge.
The insiders said that Wonder Wheel Park intends to not just repair the one-of-a-kind attraction, but to restore it as a functioning ride — and to keep the Astroland lettering on its sides as a memorial to the bygone park.
Wonder Wheel Park owner Dennis Vourderis declined to comment.
But repatriating the historic ride from Staten Island would make for a fitting trophy for Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park after the Rock builds the world’s largest ferris wheel to rival the Coney Island original.