Even a hobo needs a holiday...

So every year around this time, if I haven't done it already, I like to drop down into that "hole in the ground", where ever it might be, and pay my 2 dollars or so for a subway ride down to Coney Island and Brighton Beach.  Its kind of an interesting prospect to head down into a subway station somewhere in Manhattan, hop on the N, Q, ,2, 3, or  some prosaically named train , and in a matter of 20 minutes or so, emerge into the daylight on the elevated line somewhere in Brooklyn to travel for another half hour or so to the end of the tracks, which happens to be Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island.  Where else but NYC can you head downtown and for two dollars, end up getting off on the subway platform at the end of the line and look out over the ocean.  New York/New York, so nice. they named it twice (no, I did not make that up.....wish I did).

There are many ways to start your journey to Coney Island.  This year, I was staying on Canal street, so I headed up Mercer Street to Prince...

Turned right on Prince Street and caught the downtown/ Brooklyn N train at the corner of Broadway and Prince...If you are in a hurry, don't take the N, it is a local that literally stopped at every station.

And down into that underground art gallery they call a subway station...

On to the N train, and 45 minutes later Stillwell Avenue/Coney Island.   Across from me was a guy in a bathing suit and tee shirt with a beach chair who was also in no particular hurry, and spent much of the trip on his cell phone talking  business, which seemed to be Wall Street related.  I normally would have moved to avoid him, but I was taken by the notion of being able to escape NYC, continue to do "big" business in in a bathing suit on the way to the beach, and not miss a beat.  Admittedly, I was jealous and intrigued by it all.  Pretty soon, we were at  the Coney Island stop and we all got out. 

And out onto the street...

You'll notice the empty lot across the street from the subway station.  That used to be part of a whole street of older buildings that housed skeeball, bumper cars, facination, a freak show, some cheap hotels/SROs,  and a variety of other things Coney Island, that have been torn down in the name of urban renewal, to join Steeplechase and the rest of Coney Island that used to be, leaving nothing but Nathan's, which I appreciate, but I wish they left more.  I figure that there is something political about it.  Maybe some politician with a soft spot in his heart for the annual hot dog eating contest.

Except for Nathan's,  the Wonder Wheel, and the skeletal remains of the parashute jump, of which there are countless photos you can refer to, there is nothing left of the Coney Island of the 50's I remember, which was only a remnant of what was there before.  Now there is nothing but the beach and the boardwalk, which was only sparely occupied on this warm August Sunday.

I walked along the boardwalk to Brighton Beach.  I took no pictures, because sadly, there is nothing left to see.  Only the sounds, Russian, Spanish, Brooklyn, arguments, laughter,  and the smells, grease, sweat, and garbage.  OK, I did take one photo, Paul's Daughter, because I took a picture of it last year with Paul's daughter's camera and her standing in front of it (which I don't have) , and because it will be torn down after this season to make way for whatever is part of the new improved plan for Coney Island.

Paul's Daughter, as the sign says, has been there since 1962, but soon to be no longer.  People often ask me if I have a picture of my daughter, but until recently, I didn't have anything current, but at long last, here is a picture of Paul's daughter.  As you can see, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.  Now, if I can only get her to take her camera a little more seriously.....

After a pleasant, but generally unremarkable walk down the boardwalk, it was over to Brighton Beach, where it started to drizzle, so it was up to the elevated line that runs above Surf Avenue, and back to Manhattan.

If this posting sounds a little wistful, or at least disgruntled, it is.  There is nothing left of the Coney Island of my mind but memories.

Next year, the hobo's summer vacation will be the A train to the Rockaways.  There is not much left there either, thanks to Mayor Lindsay who had 50 blocks worth of bungalows torn down leaving one large empty lot along the ocean that has been vacant for over 35 years.  But it too carries many memories of summers spent in the 1950's, and  its a nice ride.  I digress, but there is this certain photograph taken in the Rockaways in 1924 of my grandmother standing in front of a bungalow, holding my mother, who was about one at the time, and my grandmother was smiling.  It is the only time I remember seeing her smile.  But maybe that was the only period in her difficult life that she had something to smile about.

According to a number of recent NYT articles, there is a renaissance going on in the Rockaways right now which sounds quite positive and worthy of a look see.    I have great expectations, and my father who grew up there will be looking forward to my reports.  So next year, the A train.

                                                                           Pablo