Subway Reads: To Do: Coney Island

The promotional copy for Professor Solomon's book Coney Island asks "Is there still a Coney Island?" It's a question that seems especially relevant as the planned redevelopment of the boardwalk, arcade, and surrounding neighborhood looms ever close. The developer has said he is scaling back his plan and wants “[to show] the world what Coney Island can be” (New York Times).

Of course, what developer Joseph Sitts thinks Coney Island can be may be different than what you, or I, or the city, or neighborhood residents think it can be--or what they want it to be. And in fact, the thing I love most about Coney Island is that there is no pretense of being. With its boardwalk and gritty food, dirty sand and teaming surf, it's just a place that is. A place where every kind of New Yorker stands in line for a hot dog with every other kind of New Yorker and the music spills from the gazebos with abandon. 

I wish I could say that I trust the developer's conception of Coney Island to ally with my own. Yet in this city money trumps all, and I fear that the beach's egalitarian nature will be stripped away with the peeling paint.

In celebration then, of this most New York of places, make your way down the F line (or the D, N, or Q) for the 25th annual Mermaid Parade. The parade starts at 2 p.m. this Saturday, and festivities continue through the night at the Mermaid Parade Ball.