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ASTROLAND FACES THE END

The end could finally be here for Coney Island’s fabled Astroland Park.

Longtime operator Carol Albert sent a recent letter to lawyers for the site’s landlord, controversial developer Joe Sitt, threatening to shut down the 46-year-old amusement park if she doesn’t get a two-year lease extension by Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. at the same rate, sources said.

Sitt, however, isn’t budging.

“We are extremely disappointed that Carol Albert has decided to give up on the future of Coney Island when her current lease isn’t even up for a number of months, said Sitt spokesman Stefan Friedman,” adding Astroland would be replaced next summer by new “amusements, games, shopping and entertainment galore.”

Astroland appeared doomed only last year until Albert and Sitt struck an 11-hour deal to keep the park open through 2008.

Many expected Astroland to return in 2009 since the city is at least a year away from implementing an area rezoning plan that, in part, would replace Astroland and other attractions with new amusements.

The news comes while many other boardwalk business owners who rent from Sitt are also sweating it out over whether they’ll be back next summer. Like Astroland, they went through the same dragging process last summer.

Lynn Kelly, president of the city’s Coney Island Development Corp., said ” it would be an absolute shame if Astroland’s lease is not renewed for another season, but even if it is, this year-to-year existence will not lead to the revitalization Coney Island needs.”

“The Bloomberg administration’s rezoning plan will create an enhanced amusement district more than twice the size of the one we see today, new housing elsewhere in the area and thousands of new jobs. That’s the kind of long-term solution Coney needs,” she said.

Critics, however, argue that the mayor caved in to Sitt and other property owners by trimming a planned 15-acre amusement park to nine-acres to make room for more hotels and retail space.

The Albert family sold the 3.1-acre Astroland property to Sitt’s firm Thor Equities in 2006 for $30 million, but negotiated last year’s deal to squeeze in at least one final go-round for Astroland and its employees, many of whom are neighborhood residents with years of service.

Joseph Carella, an Astroland spokesman, said the park needs a multiple-year extension so it can offer its staff stability.

rcalder@nypost.com