Cold and Lonely at Coney Island
We think Coney Island in the winter time is quite beautiful in a stark, bleak kind of way, but then again we don’t run a boardwalk storefront. The Times’ Nicholas Confessore (great name, huh?) paints a vivid picture of the area, though we half-expected to read of tumbleweeds rolling down the street: On Stillwell Avenue,…
We think Coney Island in the winter time is quite beautiful in a stark, bleak kind of way, but then again we don’t run a boardwalk storefront. The Times’ Nicholas Confessore (great name, huh?) paints a vivid picture of the area, though we half-expected to read of tumbleweeds rolling down the street:
On Stillwell Avenue, bumper cars were arranged in neat rows, unridden. Near the Boardwalk, skeletal plastic frames and a few shreds of tarp were all that remained of the tents and tables that sell toys and trinkets during the summer. The crack of baseball bats in the cages is months away, and a ghostly whistle — the wind rushing through the trusses and cables of Deno’s Wonder Wheel a block away — seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. A man bundled against the cold stabbed a wire coat hanger into the guts of the soda machines lining the street, hoping to pry change loose.
Amid the desolation is one eternal optimist: Jospeh Sitt. The ambitious developer, whose plans for CI we covered in November, is looking to build a billion-dollar hotel and residential complex along the Boardwalk between 12th and 21st Streets. “I utilize the Boardwalk all year round,” said Mr. Sitt, who jogs along the sea every morning. “And it’s a terrible, terrible shame that that place goes to sleep for six months a year.”
Cold and Lonely Coney [NY Times]
It would be great to see a thoughtful revitalization of Coney Island. My family’s summer vacations were spent on its beautiful beaches while I was growing up in the 60s. We children would get so excited at the first whiff of salt air as we got off the train at West 8th Street elevated station and made our way down to Bay 10 (which was less crowded than some of the other parts of the beach). We would also occasionally go out there on to see the Tuesday night fireworks displays while sitting on the beach in the darkness. Great memories. It’s not uncommon for shore/seaside communities to go dormant in winter, it’s only natural. Little by little, Coney Island will come back and be even better than it was. However, I hope the inevitable development of the area doesn’t go overboard.