City Is Leaning to Keeping Steeplechase a Fun Place

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The city is on the verge of abandoning its plans for a park on the site of the old Steeplechase amusement area in Coney Island. Five years ago, the city paid $4‐million for the 15‐acre site.

Sources within the Beame administration say several city officials now consider the 1969 acquisition of the Steeplechase land and the area of the Cyclone roller coaster a mistake. They feel the famed but shabby Surf Avenue strip of fun and games would he better off if it were refurbished rather than torn down.

Steeplechase, the vast amusement park whose parachute jump, Panama Slide, carousel—and electric steeplechase course —helped make the Brooklyn seaside a national legend, opened in 1897 and closed in 1964. In 1965 the site was bought from its owners, the Tilyou family, by Fred C. Trump, the real estate operator, for $2.5‐million.

High‐Rises Opposed

Mr. Trump's plans for building high‐rise apartment buildings on the site met with heavy community opposition. Four years later, the city took title to the land under condemnation proceedings and gave Mr. Trump more than $4‐million for it.

Mr. Trump's lawyer in the profitable turnover was Abraham M. Lindenbaum, one of Mayor Beame's closest friends. Mr. Lindenbaum was also a member of the City Planning Commission until early in 1969. He resigned that yeat when a furor broke out over a Private fund‐raising luncheon he had held for builders and contractors on behalf of the primary race of former Mayor Robert F. Wagner. Mr. Trump pledged $2,500 at the luncheon.

When the city took over the Steeplechase site, the John V. Lindsay administration said it intended to clear the land and redevelop it with trees, a swimMing pool and bathhouses under a Federal “open space land” program. The Federal Government promised to reimburse the city for either $2‐million or half the cost of the park.

As a supposedly temporary measure, the city then leased the land to Norman Kaufman, owner of a small amusement park, on a corner of the Steeplechase land, for $20,000 a year—the same amount he was paying to Mr. Trump.

Now the city, is suing Mr Kaufman in hopes of getting more rent out of the property, contending the lease gives the city the right to terminate the rental agreement.

Judge Samuel A. Welcome is expected to rule in the Civil Court on the city's suit today. The city has submitted to the court an appraiser's report of 1 last June that suggested the minimal rental on the property should be $158,446 a year.

Mr. Kaufman's lawyers contend that his client is being harassed because the city has become involved in a dispute with thee Federal Government over the lease.

Task Force Set up

For three months, a task force made up of representatives of five city agencies has been discussing the future of the the amusement area.

Hoberman and Wasserman, an architectural firm acting as consultant to the city, criticized the park proposal in a study in September, 1973.

They suggested that the city instead take title to the entire amusement area land, set up a public interest corporation and create a new midway that would preserve some of the historic rides.

Ralph Perfetto, head of the Coney Island Neighborhood Improvement Organization, said yesterday that instead of a park “We'd like to see something a little more glamorous, like Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.”

Asked about the various plans for Coney Island, Donald J. Trump, president of the real estate firm, replied, “There's such a preponderance of lowincome housing people don't. want to go there any more.” The Trump organization owns a great deal of middle‐income housing on the edge of Coney Island.