If the 1930s-vintage city-owned building, which is on the shoreline of Coney Island Creek, is able to be rehabbed, the EDC is interested in “investigating options to activate the site,” he said.

“This would need to be done in coordination with broader resiliency planning efforts,” Fried added.

The pumping station is also included in the EDC’s Coney Island Creek Resiliency Study, which is formulating flood prevention and mitigation strategies for the area. See related story.

The primary goal of the EDC study about the pumping station is “to understand the structure’s integrity,” Fried said. “As a following step, we want to understand whether there may be potential programming options. There is currently no funding for additional activities.”

The study will be completed this year.

Will the pumping station be demolished?

For three and a half decades, the pumping station was on the city Landmarks Preservation Commission’s calendar for landmark designation consideration — and therefore could not be torn down without the preservation agency’s okay.

That protection is gone, gone, gone. On Feb. 23, landmarks commissioners voted to remove the pumping station from the calendar.

The vote was part of their campaign to clear up Backlog95, a list of 95 sites throughout the five boroughs that had been on the landmarking calendar for as long as a half-century.  

So. What are the chances the pumping station will be torn down so the site can be reused? we asked.

“It is unknown at this time, but we recognize the importance of this site to the community and for long-term resiliency planning efforts,” Fried replied.     

And what about the four pairs of Pegasus sculptures that originally stood outside the Coney Island Pumping Station? After vandalism, Coney’s Ponies were loaned to the Brooklyn Museum, where they are kept in a back plaza surrounded by a parking lot.

Will the winged-horse sculptures be returned to the pumping station site?

“We are considering all options but have no specific arrangements at this time,” Fried said.

The former FDNY pumping station, which was decommissioned in 1976, was designed by the late Irwin Chanin. The famous architect is known for his magnificent designs of Upper West Side apartment towers and the Chanin Building, an Art Deco office skyscraper near Grand Central Terminal.

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