Sexy Sword Swallower Heather Holliday Opens Up for 'Hot Girl, Cool Job'

By Oliver Noble

From http://www.asylum.com/

Heather Holliday became the world's youngest sword swallower at 19, after taking an internship at the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. Now, at 25, the beauty with the iron esophagus performs more than 500 shows a year, deep-throating 2-foot blades without so much as smudging her glittery lipstick. Recently, she even became the poster girl for a high-alcohol-content beer which bears her name. The combination of all these factors lured us out to Coney Island to meet this talented young lady ...

Coney Island Subway Complex Gets First-of-its Kind Solar Energy Installation

Written by Tina Casey

From: http://cleantechnica.com/

Coney Island, home of famous hot dogs, sideshows, and a heart-numbing roller coaster, has just added a pioneering solar energy installation to its roster of points-of-interest. The new solar array has been installed at the New York City Transit Complex, a maintenance and repair facility that services many of the city’s subway cars.

Though by nature investment in mass transit is a sustainability measure, the new installation underscores how much can be accomplished by retrofitting existing systems. In addition to reducing energy costs and cutting greenhouse gasses, the installation’s cutting-edge solar thermal technology enables it to function in cold weather without using toxic antifreeze chemicals.

Solar Thermal Technology and Anti-Freeze

Solar energy thermal installations use a heat-exchange mechanism to capture power from the sun and transfer it to water, as compared to photovoltaic systems that convert solar energy directly to electricity. Solar thermal installations are used to provide hot water for various uses. In warm climates an anti-freeze is not necessary, but it is essential in cold weather, and partly for that reason large-scale solar thermal arrays are still relatively rare. Because of its closed-loop pressurized design, which uses a vacuum to provide insulation, the Coney Island installation operates without any antifreeze at all, making it the first of its kind in the U.S.

New York City Subways and Energy Efficiency

The Coney Island installation consists of 48 panels, replacing an electric hot water tank. It will help provide hot water for cleaning subways cars as well as for wash-up facilities used by the employees. The $1.1 million array, combined with new high efficiency lighting system recently installed at other transit facilities, is expected to save about $170,000 per year in energy costs and cut the city’s mass transit greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3,000 tons. The New York Power Authority, which provided financing for the projects, has invested a total of $3 million on energy efficiency upgrades in recent years, including the solar installation and lighting upgrades, wireless remote-control power systems, a fuel cell, and a photovoltaic array.

Mass Transit and Greenhouse Gasses

There is no such thing as a no-brainer when it comes to broad new climate change initiatives, but more investment in mass transit sure comes close. Making the present system less reliant on fossil fuels is just part of the picture. Availability and affordability are also essential, and yet due to the economic crisis many U.S. transit systems are cutting operations while raising fares. Senator Chris Dodd’s new emergency funding bill for mass transit is desperately needed as a stopgap measure, but only a permanent, massive shift in public resources away from fossil fuel subsidies will accomplish the long term goal of making sustainable mass transit more available and affordable.

Image (altered): Coney Island rollercoaster by nitdoggx on flickr.com.

Nathan's Famous on Coney Island could be saved by landmark status

BY Michael Lipkin and Erin Durkin
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Siegel for News

Nathan's Famous at Surf and Stillwell Aves. in Coney Island has been an unofficial landmark for decades, and its supporters want it granted official status so it isn't replaced by high-rise.

It's already a landmark for hot-dog lovers around the world - and now they want to make it official.

Advocates are pushing the city to landmark the building at Surf and Stillwell Aves., where Nathan's Famous has been dishing out dogs since 1916, to prevent it from being demolished as Coney Island undergoes sweeping redevelopment.

Under a zoning plan passed by the City Council last week, a hotel tower of up to 20 stories could be built at the corner currently occupied by Nathan's. It's one of four sites along Surf Ave. where hotels will be allowed.

Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun said landmark status is necessary to stop Nathan's from going the way of such mainstays as Astroland, which closed last year.

"To not have Nathan's would be insane," he said. "Even when you build new rides and businesses and hotels ... the appeal [Coney Island] is going to have is the history.

"You don't want the new Coney Island to be indistinguishable from a suburbanized, homogenized, standardized amusement park off the New Jersey Turnpike," Zigun said. "You want it to be special."

Landmarks Preservation Commission spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon said officials are still weighing the historical and architectural significance of the building.

Two other historic Coney buildings, the Shore Theater and the Coney Island USA building - home to the original Childs Restaurant - have been deemed eligible for landmarking, de Bourbon said.

Landmark status has already saved other Coney icons like the Cyclone and the WonderWheel from the wrecking ball.

Nathan's Famous CEO Eric Gatoff said the company has no position on the landmark proposal, but insisted the hot-dog emporium isn't going anywhere. He noted Nathan's - which doesn't own the building - has 18 years left on its lease.

"We expect to be in that building forever," Gatoff said. "Our expectation is there will always be a Nathan's on the corner of Surf and Stillwell."

The Handwerker family, which founded the original Nathan's and still owns the building, could not be reached for comment.

More than 125 people have signed an online petition launched three days ago to push for the landmarking - and most frankfurter fans were all for it.

"It should be a landmark already," said Bill Funk, 69, an upper West Side accountant who has visited the stand once a week all summer for the past 50 years. "There deserves to be change here. There should be better development, but this should stay."