Coney Island

On Sunday I went to Coney Island for the first time. It's hard to believe that I've lived in NYC for over a year and never made it that far into Brooklyn. But I hadn't. So away we went, adventuring to the last stop on the DF/NR train. We got off and there was nothing but boardwalk. Down a few steps and out into the blinding light of the Sun on the water. And that light is always blinding. There is the smell of fried food and sea salt and you can hear the laughter of children and seagulls. It was amazing. I felt alive for the first time in days.

We started heading towards the amusement park, towards the Cyclone and The Wonder Wheel and all the carnies and games that had been there for so many years. It was like stepping back forty years. I expected to see hippies and drifters. And while there were plenty of both they were too modern to keep up my fantasy. I wonder what it must have been like coming to Coney Island on that first Memorial Day in 1920. Stepping out of carriages and jalopies and off the subway (still very new) and entering into an amusement park on the beach, a boardwalk that literally fed into the sea.

Things are older now. You can tell watching the rides that they have been around for the last 86 years. But at the same time nothing has changed. The games are essentially the same, the Wonder Wheel is still using all it's original parts, and you can still get baked clams and hot dogs with your soda. There are families running around, mothers shouting at their babies not to get too close to the water, lifeguards sitting up in the bright orange stands. People fishing off the pier. People sunbathing, listening to the radio, breathing in the air. It feels alive.

We went on the original rides- the Cyclone (1:50 of the worst part of your life), the Wonder Wheel (screeching metal cars swinging you out over the park), the Spook-a-rama (small cars swinging you around in front of "scary" monsters and dead people). We ate until we were sick- sausages and funnel cakes washed down with cold sodas. We played the games- I won a Care Bear shooting water into a hole that propelled a bear upwards. We sat on benches on the boardwalk watching some seagulls fight over a hotdog bun.

We were actually leaving, cutting through a side street when we saw what would by-far be one of the most interesting experiences i've had in New York. A freak show, promising fire eaters and an inflatable boy was only $6. It was continuous, running for nearly 18 hours. We watched in horror as a woman carefully danced with a 13.5 foot albino python, as another ate fire, tribal symbols tattooed across her face as the lit batons swung casually around her. Each act only took a few minutes but was more grotesque than the one before it. We watched the world's youngest female sword swallower as she deftly took on a four foot long, at least five inch thick blade then BENT over to allow someone else to pull it out.

It definitely made the experience seem surreal. And i think that's what makes Coney Island so great is that it feels surreal. You are truly Alice stepping through the Looking Glass.