The Department of Buildings last week approved demolition permits for the Shore Hotel, shown at the right, and the Bank of Coney Island in Brooklyn, both owned by Thor Equities, according to an article today by Joseph de Avila at wsj.com.

"The pending demolition of these structures is the latest setback for community groups that tried to have the buildings preserved as landmarks earlier this year," the article said.

The article quoted Juan Rivero, a spokesman with Save Coney Island, a community group working to restore Coney Island, as saying that "This is a failure of imagination. It shows a tremendous disregard for Coney Island's history and Brooklyn."

Thor Equities owned about 10 acres in the famous amusement area, but last year sold more than half the property to the site for $96 million.

The article quoted a spokesman for the company, Stefan Friedman, as saying that "As the City of New York has said repeatedly, these buildings have no significant historical value...If we are to make Coney Island a viable and economically healthy destination, then it's essential that we upgrade and transition the local decaying and outdated infrastructure."

"Some Coney Island residents have become angry with Thor Equities and its chief executive, Joseph Sitt, for evicting businesses owners and leaving those spaces vacant. The planned destruction of the bank and the hotel, both currently empty, is the latest slight from Thor Equities, these residents say. 'There were a lot of attempts to reach out to Thor Equities and Joe Sitt, who in the past was an accessible guy,' says Dick Zigun, who runs the Coney Island Museum and the annual Mermaid Parade. 'Suddenly he has not been accessible. He is not talking to anyone. He is just forging ahead," the article continued.

Thor Equities, the article said, plans to replace the bank and hotel with temporary buildings that will be ready at the start of the 2011 summer season, Mr. Friedman said, adding that "From the moment Thor started investing in Coney Island, numerous employees - including Joe - have constantly engaged with the community to discuss the company's exciting plans for Coney Island."

The Bank of Coney, built in 1923, has been vacant since 1997. The Shore Hotel, built in 1903, was operated as a hotel up until two years ago.

"Earlier this year, an application was submitted to the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission to protect the bank and the hotel along with other buildings, but that application was denied, according to the commission. Since then, Save Coney Island and several other groups applied to have Coney Island registered with the National and State Registers of Historic Places."

Earlier this week, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has declared that Coney Island's amusement district meets the criteria for inclusion on State and National Registers of Historic Places.

In a letter dated Aug. 12, the agency wrote that "the historic core of Coney Island appears to meet the criteria for listing to the Registers as an historic district."

The Determination of Eligibility states that the amusement district is "nationally significant ... as the birthplace of the modern American amusement industry." It also states that the area's surviving historic buildings are "valuable cultural assets worthy of recognition and consideration in preservation planning."

The other two threatened structures are the amusement district's oldest building, the Grashorn Building (built in the 1880s), and the Henderson Music Hall (built circa 1899 and where Harpo Marx made his stage debut).

The state office's letter explicitly cites each of these buildings as being among the historic district's "key buildings," according to Rivero.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission decided last June that the four buildings Mr. Rivero's organization wants to save were "too significantly altered" from their original condition to qualify as a historic district.