"The city last July passed the rezoning which we thought was a disaster,” said Juan Rivero, the tour guide. ”The are several problems with it [the rezoning]. The most notable ones are that the rezoning reduced the amount of land that was zoned for the outdoor amusement from 60 acres to 12 acres.”

Rivero said the high-rise buildings that might be built present a visual wall to the amusement area.  “You came out of the station and instead of seeing the display of amusement, you’ll see a wall of high-risers,” he said.

Rivero also laments the impending demolition of many buildings that are not official landmarks but nonetheless are historic and an integral part of Coney Island.

"With that in mind we started planning for that location for the Landmark Designation of several of these buildings,” he said, adding that about a month and a half ago the group leaned that this season is going to be a summer of demolition in Coney Island.

The group followed then with an application for a creation of the historic district for the area that would save the historic buildings in the area.

"The application was turned down,” said Rivero. “Now we are looking for other ways to save these buildings.”

The Sunday tour highlighted the eight buildings that Save Coney Island group would like to see restored and re-used as a historic heart surrounded by the modern rides and world class amusements, including Luna Park.

“The preservation and development are perfectly reconcilable with one another,” said Rivero.

The eight buildings are Shore Theater, Nathan’s Famous, Henderson’s Music Hall, Shore Hotel, Herman Popper Building, Child’s Restaurant, Bank of Coney Island and Grashorn Building.

An artist, activist and at the same time a long time Coney Island resident, Richard Eagon said that much of American popular culture was born in Coney Island.

"The first roller coaster was developed right here, in Coney Island, in 1884,” he said. Coney Island is also the site of the first modern carousel and of the American hot dog.

Nathan’s Famous, built in 1920 at 1308 Surf Ave., is not the birthplace of the hot dog, as many might think, but it did make the frank famous. Polish immigrant Nathan Handwerker had worked at German butcher Charles Feltman’s Coney Island stand where the idea of placing a sausage in a bun was first put into practice; in 1916 he decided to open his own business. He halved the price of the hot dog to a nickel, which brought crowds to the store and made the hot dog the first American fast food.

The building with its original signs from the 1940s is on the demolition list, with plans to build a 30-story hotel on its site.

The Shore Theater, built in 1925 at 1301 Surf Ave., might be destroyed as well.

“There are marine-theme decorative elements all throughout the inside of this building,” said Eagon. “Today you can imagine national acts performing in the restored auditorium in the theater building in Coney Island.”

Developer Thor Equities proposed demolishing Henderson’s Music Hall that was built in 1899 and replacing it with a one-story retail strip.

"The potential for the re-use [of this building] is tremendous,” said Rivero. “You can think of it as a night life complex, you can think of using the roof for projecting movies, you can think of it as a some sort of a spa complex, swimming pools, bowling alleys.”

The Grashorn Building from 1889 that is located on 1104 Surf Ave is believed to be the oldest building in the amusement district. The former hardware store that equipped maintenance workers in Coney Island, survived many fires, but might not last this summer, because it is on the demolition site. “This building is entirely made by wood, and it’s a miracle that it still stands. It’s in a very good shape, ready to be restored,” Eagon said, adding that it could be a transformed into a museum or a themed restaurant.

Rivero said it’s easy to think that these buildings don’t look promising, but other structures and buildings that have become part of the historic landscape of New York were not all that attractive before restoration. “The Parachute Jump didn’t look like much, the Immigration Museum in Ellis Island didn’t look like much,” he said, stressing that city officials should think more creatively about combining the new development with the historical importance of Coney Island.