"Suddenly I am at the seashore and no recollection of the train stopping.   Everything is sorted, shoddy, thin as pasteboard.   A Coney Island of the mind.  The amusement shacks are running full blast.  The shelves full of chinaware and dolls stuffed with straw and alarm clocks and spittoons.  Over it all in a muffled roar comes the hiss & boom of the breakers.   Behind the pasteboard storefronts the breakers are plowing up the night with luminous, argent teeth.  In the oceanic night Steeplechase looks like a wintery beard.   Everything is sliding and crumbling.   Everything glitters, totters, teeters, titters.  Everything is a lie- a fake.   Pasteboard.  Everything is made of nuts and bolts.  The monic of the mind is a monkey wrench.  Sovereign.  Pasteboard.   Power."

Henry Miller

          The Atlantic stretched further than it would allow me to see, with seagulls occasionally flapping by and picking up food from the few that strolled the boardwalk.   I turned on Stillwell to get a picture of Henderson's dance hall.  It was hard to believe that at one time throngs of people jitterbugged the Twenties away here and walked down the Bowery.  Their eyes must have been assaulted with so much.   The lights, the barkers, the people, what throngs of people must have descended on this place where hedonism, multi-culturalism, seduction and the tail end of Victorian culture all existed together in one form or another.

          My dad went in Nathan's Famous to warm up as I proceeded east down Surf Avenue.   I stopped at the Union Cigar building.   It is amazing that the building to stand the test of time at Coney would be a small shop built over 115 years ago.   Down Jones Walk past the cigar building the "Wonder Thrills!  Wheel" neon sign stood quietly.   No hum of bulbs, just standing guard as it waited for winter to pass before the sign could send out its famous message across the island to the families and friends who still visit.  

          The B&B Carousell was now open, waiting for patrons.  The operator co-owner too, Mike, looked up from his copy of Amusement Business, almost surprised I had trekked out on this winter day to enjoy this trip through the past.  He said, "I'll give you a nice, long ride."  The radio stopped playing, he turned the organ on, and the mighty circle slowly creaked as it made its first revolution of the day.   I felt a little foolish, as I often do, while the carousel made its first few turns.  But then the lumbering ride helped me remember why I love amusements so much, from the carousel to the coaster, it just makes me feel so alive and like a child all at once.  I looked with surprise as the operator stepped up to the ring machine and lowered it to me.  Was this happening outside of Knoebels?   Yes, I grabbed for the first and eventually got all ten before dumping them in the waiting basket on one of my final passes.   Eventually my trip back in time was slowed, and then stopped.   I thanked him for the great adventure, took a few pictures and headed down the sidewalks of New York. 

          I enjoyed two hotdogs with sauerkraut and some steaming Manhattan clam chowder (I don't go for the Boston kind).   As we walked in silence to the station, I wondered, what will my next visit to Coney see?  Despite the fact that the island is America's oldest amusement center, sometimes I feel like it has the least sense of permanence.  Coney Island remains split in my heart.   Half of me loves the B&B Carousell, the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel.  But every visit I long for the half-moon signs that read "Luna" to replace the furniture store, one trip on the Steeplechase ride instead of an empty field, a beer at Stauchs and just one chance to see the people that made up Coney Island when it was more than an amusement park, more than a beach more than a subway stop. Just one visit to when it defined America.

"Down here at Coney Island toward the end of the season I am made to feel very sad.   The mammoth, empty buildings, planed by extraordinary optimistic architects, remind me, in an unpleasant manner of my youthful dreams.   There is a mighty pathos in the gaunt and hollow buildings, impassively and stolidly suffering from an enormous hunger for the public."

Stephen Crane

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Adam Sandy, Copyright 2001.