Early morning on the Coney Island boardwalk, before the crowds, before the tourists and thrill seekers, before the hot dogs and pizza slices, there are the local fitness buffs – the bikers, the joggers, the skaters, the pull-up... pullers?, and the occasional boxing enthusiast, taking advantage of the two-and-a-half-mile stretch of wide open boardwalk, the sea air, and the relative solitude and anonymity. For these early risers, its’s a chance to be alone with their bodies and their thoughts, something that’s hard to find in a city like New York. It’s a nice time to be here. 

This started out as an exercise to see how many interesting and thought-provoking compositions I could capture on the Coney island benches. And that’s still my primary focus. But the more I traipse up and down the boardwalk, the farther afield I’m forced to look. Two people on a bench curiously looking away from each other? Got that. Lovers sprawled one on top of the other? Yup. Overcrowded bench? Solo sun worshiper? Sleeper? Funny outfit? Odd couple? Old couple? Got em all. So at a certain point, you have to start looking for the subtleties. A telling expression. An unusual shape. Something in the background or foreground. A deeper story. On the benches and on the boardwalk, too. Just keep going further and further afield, and things just keep getting more interesting and more surprising. Shooting Coney Island is like digging for treasure when it’s buried everywhere. You just have to look, first where you think it is, then after you’re pretty sure you’ve found it all, look under another rock, go dig somewhere else. There’s always more, if you look hard enough and go past the obvious places. And sometimes you’re looking right at it, if you choose to notice it. That’s my experience, anyway.

On the train out to Coney Island, a young girl was placing little cards on seats next to people. The card read something to the effect of, “I’m trying to raise money for an operation my mom needs, and for food. Can you please help by buying a pack of tissues.” She went through the train car, then came back the other way picking up cards and whatever money people were willing to part with. I gave her $5.00. She took the money and, without saying a word, went on to the next car. An older woman sitting near me, whom I instantly judged as a hard-core New Yorker, with her very practical attire and shopping cart loaded with crap, started in immediately about what a scam the whole thing is, how she’s seen her before, etc. She was telling it all to a young guy two seats down from me, and I couldn’t hear much, as I had noise cancelling headphones on, but I caught a word here and a word there, enough to get the key points, which were: I was a sucker for giving money to this complete stranger, and I just got ripped off. She was probably right, but my POV on panhandlers, generally, is that either way, whether their pitch is honest or bullshit, they’re obviously desperate and need the money more than I do. What’s a few bucks?

Anyway, that was that. The train arrived at Coney Island, and I headed to the boardwalk to see what I could see. About 15 minutes into my look-about, there she was. The same old lady from the train. She had set up one of those caricature-drawing stations smack in the middle of the boardwalk, surrounding herself with easels showing past work and various hand-made signs to draw attention her way. She sat on a small folding chair, sketching the young girl in front of her, a customer. There were a couple dozen young Orthodox Jewish children surrounding her and watching her do her thing. Maybe they all knew the young girl. Not sure. But their simple and humble dress code gave the whole image an old-fashioned monochromatic look, like it could have been a scene from Coney Island, circa 1930. So I took this shot, and converted it to black and white. 
Not sure if there’s a moral to the story, but in the end, the old lady who criticized me for giving money to a stranger whose motives were suspect, ended up providing me with a nice photograph, which I’ll use for god-knows-what.

My advice to any visitor wanting to get a real taste of New York: skip the tourist gridlock at Times Square, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, hop on the Q and don’t get off until you hear the computerized conductor say “last stop on this train”. You’ll know you’re in Coney Island. Follow the smell of sea air and mustard for one block, and you’ll have reached the Coney Island/Brighton Beach boardwalk, where tourists from all over the world mingle effortlessly with old school Brooklynites, recent and not-so-recent immigrants, Eastern Europeans, Asians, Christians, Muslims and Jews, the old and young, rich and poor, here for the cheap food, the rides, the kitsch, the sea air, the sun, the photo ops, and most of all, the escape from modern day reality. Remarkably untouched by the march of time and the encroachment of hipster chic, it wouldn’t take a lot of imagination to believe you’ve gone back in time 20 or 30 years. No matter what brought you here, eventually your sore feet and need to regroup will draw you to the benches that line the boardwalk facing the Atlantic. This is where lives and stories and agendas intermingle in countless and endlessly fascinating ways – in ways that could only happen in New york, and only in Coney Island.

Often overlooked is the fact that Coney Island actually has one of the more beautiful beaches in the New York area. Expansive and remarkably well maintained, the beach here provides a handy and welcome escape for those millions of working class New Yorkers who don’t have a country house or fancy Hamptons rental to run out to on weekends. Here, it’s mostly a mix of local Russian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Whatever Brooklynites, sharing the sand without prejudice or an eye towards social standing. The tourists mostly seem to stick to the kitschy boardwalk, and that arrangement seems to suit everyone just fine. The Coney Island boardwalk may be world famous for all kinds of reasons, but the beach and the Atlantic still feel like a well-kept secret known only to the Brooklyn regulars.