“Carousel”
Trying to smile, but it’s hard. :(

My last date with Coney Island – the scruffy amusement park that I’ve come to love so much over the past 10 years. This Brooklyn landmark that’s been around since the 1860s is finally getting reworked by the city with the hopes of turning it into ‘the nation’s largest urban amusement park’ by the year 2011.

Suddenly, I feel like I’m losing an old friend – despite the fact that I’ve been to it a dozen times (I’m only 20 minutes away), I feel guilty – almost like I haven’t visited it enough. This season, it truly is the summer of last good byes for all the Coney lovers.


Today like yesterday: Coney Island as of August 2008

If you let your imagination take you almost a century back, you will see that Coney Island was once an extremely prosperous resort. Hotels, public and private beaches, horse racing, and, of course, several amusement parks once populated this flourishing business area. The Island’s development stagnated and eventually took a nose dive after World War II; the park had been neglected ever since. People kept coming – although not as frequently and not as many as before – but Coney Island froze in time. Nothing new was built here since the 1960s, and the air of eerie timelessness engulfed the place.

Yet, Coney Island lives. You will find any entertainment imaginable here – freak shows, bumper cars, Ferris Wheel (don’t go in the white cars or you’re in for a scare!), and of course, the ancient, wooden roller-coaster known as The Cyclone! (You know it passed the inspection but feel like you’re hanging on for dear life anyway!) If you want to know what it’s like to live and breathe history, I recommend you visit Coney Island before it closes later this year.


Thumbs up for everyone’s favorite ride: Bumper Cars


Friend Ralph and Mark in front of inflatable palaces and Ferris Wheel


Totonno’s: famous Coney Island pizza (we had to wait in line to get in). SO good!


Mock-up that comes alive if you put a coin into it!


Coney Island’s banana flavored sort-serve – the best!

The Future of Coney Island

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A rendering of the revived Coney Island in 2011

So what’s going to happen to Coney Island after its renovation is completed? Will it become just another  slick resort with modern shopping malls, movie theaters and hotels? Will the developers preserve its retro feel or chuck it like an old rug? I don’t know. Maybe one day the bright lights and freshly painted coasters of the new Island will fill me with excitement – but right now all I feel filling me is tears in my eyes. Silly perhaps. Maybe I’ll love the new Island. Until then, let me drink this all-American bottled coke to honor Coney Island’s old days.