started circulating in February 1965. On July 2, 1965, the property was sold to developer Fred Trump and he subsequently announced his intention to build luxury apartments on the old Steeplechase property. Though the sale was opposed by the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce, it was consistent with the area's gradual conversion into a residential community. Later use of the site Trump ownership and Kaufman operation On the site of Steeplechase Park, Fred Trump proposed building a enclosed dome with recreational facilities and a convention center, a plan which was supported by Brooklyn borough president Abe Stark. Trump demolished Steeplechase Park's Pavilion of Fun during a highly publicized ceremony in September 1966. At the demolition, he was said to have sold bricks to ceremony guests to smash the remaining glass windows on the Pavilion of Fun. Trump supposedly destroyed the pavilion to circumvent a landmark law being proposed by the city following the demolition of the old Pennsylvania Station in 1963. In October 1966, the city announced its plans to acquire the of the former Steeplechase Park so that the land could be reserved for recreational use. Although residents supported the city's action, Trump called the city's proposal "wasteful". In January 1968, New York City parks commissioner August Heckscher II proposed that the New York state government build an "open-space" state park on the Steeplechase site, and that May, the New York City Board of Estimate voted in favor of funding to buy the land from Trump. Condemnation of the site started in 1969. The city ultimately purchased the proposed park's site for $4 million, with partial funding from the federal government. As a condition of the deal, the sale or lease of the future parkland required permission from the New York State Legislature, thus blocking Trump from developing the site as apartments. Trump filed a series of court cases related to the proposed residential rezoning, and ultimately won a $1.3 million judgment. The Steeplechase Park site laid empty for several years. Trump started subleasing the property to Norman Kaufman, who ran a small collection of fairground amusements on a corner of the site, calling his amusement park "Steeplechase Park". The city also leased the boardwalk and parking lot sites at extremely low rates, which resulted in a $1 million loss of revenue over the following seven years. Since the city wanted to build the state park on the site