While running this morning I couldn’t help but to take in the ” age ” of this building and how it is probably one of the oldest buildings still standing in coney island , enjoy !

Today the City Council’s Public Safety Committee held an incredibly important hearing on gang activity, and legislation we’re introducing to curtail it. I am personally introducing a bill, Intro 945, which will make it a class A misdemeanor for gang members to solicit someone to commit a crime.

From my experience on the School Board to working with Council for Unity – a non-profit that seeks to combat violence – I have always been concerned about gang activity among our youth.

Peer pressure can be a powerful and dangerous instigator. Just recently, 15-year-old Vada Vasquez was shot in the head by a stray bullet. That bullet, meant for another person, could have paralyzed or killed her.

According to news reports, the young men involved in the shooting gave the gun to the youngest member in their group – the only one without a criminal record. The young man who fired the bullet that struck Vada deserves to be punished. But so do the gang members who gave him the gun and encouraged him to pull the trigger.

We need to take every opportunity we can to stop this sort of behavior. Countless parents have told me their children are being pressured by gang members, and they don’t know what to do. Gang violence remains a problem in my Coney Island district.

I believe the bills were discussed today are an important step to stopping gang activity and protecting our children.

We finally have all of our new and holiday designs for our Little Bit of Honesty line of baby onesies, tshirts and bibs up on cafepress.com/vivadm and zazzle.com/vivadm.

Our favorite new ones are “Santa brings me a cardboard box” and the NYC-themed ones.

http://www.cafepress.com/vivadm

http://www.zazzle.com/vivadm*

We recommend the organic cotton (vs. regular cotton) onesies since the collars are nicer and they wash/wear a little better. The t-shirts are nice in either standard or organic cotton and the bibs are, of course, super cute!

Thank you to everyone who helped with the translations of our best-selling design, “My parents are sleep deprived”. We now have that design available in: English, Spanish, German, Danish, Japanese, French, Italian, Yiddish, Russian and British Slang. Soon we’ll have Korean, too!

As always, if you know someone who likes persimmons (or sea turtles) we have cards and posters which make lovely holiday gifts!! Our original line of VivaDM items are for sale at our Etsy store with reduced prices for the holiday season…

Etsy Buy Handmade vivadm

I was looking back through old stuff on flickr and “found” this in my photostream.

I uploaded it just over two years ago, but I distinctly recall shooting it when my wife was pregnant with my daughter. I made the mistake of going to NYC with a big heavy film camera instead of either a smaller film camera or a digital camera and still I managed to score this one. I wonder if it wouldn’t have looked better shot through a Holga…

I was looking back through old stuff on flickr and “found” this in my photostream.

I uploaded it just over two years ago, but I distinctly recall shooting it when my wife was pregnant with my daughter. I made the mistake of going to NYC with a big heavy film camera instead of either a smaller film camera or a digital camera and still I managed to score this one. I wonder if it wouldn’t have looked better shot through a Holga…

Two new prints available in the shop.

Skyflier Summer Fun

Ferris Wheel

Shop Depuis Decorative Photography at: www.Depuis.etsy.com

In anticipation of the Thanksgiving season, I worked with state Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny to sponsor a drive that collected more than 200 turkeys for families in need.

I’m happy to see that, even during tough economic times, people are still willing to be so generous. This has been a tough year for a lot of people. Many families have had to make difficult decisions on what they can do without, but no one should have to go without a turkey on their table this Thanksgiving.

The majority of the turkeys were distributed on Tuesday in Coney Island to families who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford one. They were donated by Forest City Ratner, Costco, Keyfood, Jethro, HealthPlus, ShopRite and Gristedes owner John Catsimatidis.

I would like to thank everyone who was so generous during this drive, and wish everyone a safe, happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Incredible!

13-year-old Francisco Hernandez Jr. spent 11 days in the month of October wandering New York’s subway system until a police officer recognized him from a missing persons’ poster.

From CNN:

Francisco Hernandez Jr., who has Asperger’s, a developmental disorder that affects the ability to socialize and communicate, disappeared on October 15, after he thought he was in trouble at school, according to his mother, Marsiela Garcia of Brooklyn.

Garcia told CNN that she contacted police when her son went missing, but received little help.

Garcia said she and her husband took matters into their own hands and posted signs and fliers around the neighborhood, in public areas, even in the subway. “Nobody told me nothing,” she said.

The teen was eventually identified by a transit police officer in the Coney Island section of New York, after the officer recognized him from the fliers that had been posted throughout the subway system. He was returned home unharmed.

En janvier 1954, François Truffaut signe dans le numéro 31 des Cahiers du Cinéma son article le plus célèbre, “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français” dans lequel il tire à boulets rouges sur la “Tradition de la Qualité” du cinéma français. En Une du magazine, la photo d’un petit garçon tiré du film Le Petit Fugitif sur lequel André Bazin, père spirituel de Truffaut, signe un article de 4 pages…

Si on sait l’admiration que les jeunes turc des Cahiers vouaient au cinéma américain, Hitchcock et Welles en tête, on ignorait en revanche qu’un film que personne n’avait revu depuis plus de cinquante ans ait eu une influence déterminante sur leur vocation de cinéaste : « notre Nouvelle Vague n’aurait jamais eu lieu si le jeune Américain Morris Engel ne nous avait pas montré la voie de la production indépendante avec son beau film, Le Petit Fugitif » déclara un jour Truffaut.

Ce film primé en 1953 à Venise est ressorti en salle le mois dernier. Tourné avec une petite caméra fabriquée pour l’occasion et permettant de filmer sans être vu, en décor naturel (Brooklyn et la plage de Coney Island), avec des acteurs amateurs, Le Petit Fugitif est un véritable petit chef-d’œuvre. Persuadé d’avoir causé la mort de son frère au cours d’un jeu, Joey, 7 ans, s’enfuit à Coney Island, immense plage new-yorkaise dédiée aux manèges et à l’amusement. Il va passer une journée et une nuit d’errance au milieu de la foule et des attractions foraines…

Claquant les quelques dollars subtilisés à sa mère avant de prendre la fuite, Joey découvre le monde enchanté de l’immense fête foraine de Coney Island, entre barbe à papa, tour en poney et saut en parachute. En 24 heures, le petit héros fait l’expérience de la vie et de la débrouille dans un monde qui s’apparente à un spectacle. Les plans de ce film, tous plus beaux les uns que les autres, nous rappellent que le réalisateur et sa femme étaient des photographes de talent. On pense à Weegee ou Robert Franck et à leurs clichés réalistes de l’Amérique des années 50. Ce récit d’apprentissage, bricolé à rebours de la machine hollywoodienne, est un pur enchantement visuel que l’on regarde avec les mêmes yeux éblouis et naïfs que Joey.

Preuve que Truffaut n’avait pas oublié ce film en se lançant dans la réalisation : son premier film, Les 400 coups, s’appelait au départ La Fugue d’Antoine.

Visite guidée dans le Coney Island des années 50 au son du Coney Island Baby de Lou Reed.

Dude, all my adventures in New York are kind of a messed up blur of events, so unfortunately, this won’t be all that neat. But deal!

—

Friday, October 9th
Arrive there, I think, and HsuHan has told me that HsuKen is in town with lady friend, so I meet up with them in the yuppie shopping area, and they go shopping and we go shopping and I buy a couple things. Not too much to speak of. My hostel is fine, but I think I get a lotta weird bug bites from being there… hrm. My roommate Stewart is this British guy, and he seems pretty cool, but I can only stay in that hostel for that evening because the rest of the weekend is all booked up, so I have to change hostels. We loosely chat about going to church on Sunday because there’s this awesome gospel church near where the hostel is in Upper West side of Manhattan. That night we go eat pizza, based on Judy’s recommendation, and it’s delicious! That’s about it, though.

—

Saturday, October 10th
Walk around Central Park with Stewart in the morning and then we split paths. He’s supposed to call me the next day regarding going to church, but he never does! Ass! He went to a miscellaneous white party that evening with random people from the internet so maybe he ded.

Go eat lunch with Jesse [Jensen] and his girlfriend, Fara! It’s been like, five years since I’ve seen him, so it was nice. Him and his girlfriend are really funny and cute together, but are kinda unshy about PDA… ;x Apparently a lot of their friends hate hanging out with them because of that. Jesse goes off on how he hates Brooklyn and when he was there the other night screamed about how people in Brooklyn are ugly and poor or something. LOL! Guess it’s the newfound lawyer in him?

After that, I walk around Central Park a bit. Find some markets. This guy makes this cool paper holder stuff out of polymer clay… there’s the clothespins behind them that when you press them, make the mouths open. SO NEAT! Such a cool material…

BAD ASS.

I very much enjoy this picture since it’s fairly plain in itself.

They’re hardcore about haunted houses in New York. Wish I coulda gone to one…

That night, I stayed with Don [Vu] and Van [Vu] and Phil, Tammy’s boyfriend, in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Their place had mice! I slept on the couch! I actually SAW the mice, too, which was a little weird, but whatever.

We went to eat at some Japanese restaurant, and it was quite delicious. It felt like being in Japan again, which was cool, and the menu was hilarious. Wasn’t cheap, though.

I just ate some takoyaki (was saving money and trying to not be a huge fatass).

Afterwards, they gave us a cup for using with the cotton candy machine. Score!

—

Sunday, October 11th
The following night, I was staying with Judy and Doug! For the day, we walk around and explore Brooklyn. They live in a nice, homey part of town.

Get some mothafuckin veggie pizza which is real nommy! New York pizza rules!

They’re going to go to the show with me at nighttime but we find out that it’s freaking sold out. Aaron tries to see if he can get them on the list but there’s no space… I get on the list, though. But before that, Aaron texts me and lies to me saying that there’s no way they can get me on the guest list because Muse’s bassist is in town and took all their guest list spots. Which I was like, “What? That’s weird,” about but it didn’t occur to me that it could possibly be a blatant lie. Turns out it was in fact a blatant fabrication. A pretty good one, at that. -__- To kill time with Judy and Doug, we get some yummy cupcakes that I’m going to bring to them because Aaron’s birthday was the previous day and he’d never eaten gourmet cupcakes before and that’s a crime (although these cupcakes were, in my opinion, not so good as freaking Cupcake Royale, which I still maintain has the best cupcakes, although people beg to differ).

Anyway, that cupcake shop also has these cakes in a cup… just basically really creamy cake they mash up into a cup. It looks really godamn good! The place is closing by the time we get there, though, so we just munch down and finish up. Then we go putz around this bar and stuff. Just chat. Play some Connect 4. Hollar! Then we go visit their friend’s house — some old musicians — and they pick up some stuff. And since they can’t make it into the show, they go home after that (bummer! But it was a late show anyway and they are early risers for work, so they probably wouldn’t even have seen Le Loup’s set anyway. Ah, well).

I get to the Mercury Lounge to meet up with Aaron and John and James.

Sold out show which must be a good feeling. It was a really good show, perhaps the best I’ve seen them ever, although I guess Aaron felt really weird about it. Went for an aimless walk after their set cuz that’s what Aaron and I do a lot of the time we hang out, and he was talking about his girl problems a lot. Good fun times.

Later on, I’m hungry, so I wanna eat some falafel… so we go next door to this yummy falafel place which makes them SPICY — a thing I’ve never had. Aaron teases me nonstop about how I eat and it’s embarrassing and really messy and self-conscious-making. Post making fun of me, he goes off on some hilarious really long monologue tirade about how he needs to do interviews for me (like for Micachu) and pretends to be a businessman trying to help me succeed and yadda yadda and he says that he understands that I like who I am and don’t want money to change who I am, etc. etc. but that if I just let him do interviews then I’ll have more success than I know what do with, basically. It was a totally really ridiculously long joke where he played some character, and he definitely really got into it. Ha.

—

Monday, October 12th
Wake up and head to Coney Island! It’s in southern Brooklyn and is just a skip and a hop away from Judy’s place, so I head there by myself. After that, I meet up with Judy to give her back her key and then head over to the Bushwick neighborhood where my new hostel is. Bushwick is this really cool (and really small) neighborhood where there’s a whole lot of fun artsy stuff going on, and the New York Loft Hostel is located there. Really awesome hostel, which I highly recommend. It’s not for people who don’t like being in a central location, though, but it is definitely for people who like going to New York just to hang in Brooklyn. Far as I’m concerned, Manhattan kinda sucks. Brooklyn’s where it’s at, dawg. (Although just by sheer quantity of things to do there are at least a few good things to do in Manhattan.)

Didn’t get to eat the highly regarded Nathan’s cheese fries at Coney Island because I was stuffed already. I bought some hummus from the supermarket and ate the shit out of it — while walking, while hanging out on the Coney Island Boardwalk with the seagulls… yum! I love hummussssssssss! Coney Island was more thriving than I’d anticipated; I thought it would be closed for the season but there were definitely people walking around. Not that many people, mind you, but that’s fine, really. It’s kinda small and sad, and I don’t think the average person would find it all that entertaining, but I did, for sure.

Aaron and I were supposed to hang out that day, but he was impossible to get a hold of! Turns out he was chillin real hard at a friend’s place literally like… within a mile from my hostel. Which is kinda funny.

Anyway, I checked into my hostel in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, which I really like cause it’s really small and artsy.

Anyway, I think I walked around and explored Manhattan for a while since I hadn’t really explored it proper, and it was alright.

The giant Toys R’ Us was funny…

Jeanette used to do PR for this company, and it’s ridiculous they have toy phones as well as real phones. WTF!

Indoor ferris wheel at the Toys R’ Us.

Their bathroom ruled. Ha!

Hilarity on the subway. Britney SPARES!

Tried to find a nommy dinner by way of aimless wandering but everything everywhere I went looked really good but was super pricey, and I eventually settled on this Indian food hole-in-the-wall that was pretty delicious but kinda ghetto… like, they had all the plates already sitting there, probably for hours, and when you ordered, they’d heat it up. It was fucking good, though. I’m a bit obsessed with Indian food lately. Not sure what the deal is. I used to just think it was okay, but since I started loving paneer, I started really, really loving the SHIT out of Indian food. MMMMMM.

—

(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN NEW YORK)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM JFK AIRPORT, ALSO)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM BROOKLYN)

No one is exactly certain how a mentally ill teenager managed to evade the long arm of the law but that was exactly the case in New York City.

For 11 days, a 13-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome eluded the juggernaut that is the NYPD, spending the entire time living in the city’s subway system.

Police discovered Francisco Hernandez Jr. while he was taking refuge at Coney Island subway station.

The boy, whom said that he ran away out of fear of getting in trouble at school, rode the trains while living off of vending machine goodies and water.

In spite of the positive ending, the teens mother has found reason to complain.

Marisel Garcia is adamant that police searched less than diligently for her son, sighting the fact that she is a Mexican immigrant as the reason behind her claim, even though authorities posted fliers around a majority of the city and contacted the city.

Photo submitted by © Danielle Kelly

[click on photo to enlarge]

• New York – Coney Island by © Danielle Kelly

Links :
• Follow Danielle Kelly on Twitter – @daniellekelly
• Visit Danielle Kelly’s website – www.dkellyphotography.com
• Visit Danielle’s blog – dkellyphotography.tumblr.com

Have you ever heard people say, ‘they brought their A game’? Or a coach will demand, ‘you need to bring your A game’? Better yet, someone in the losing locker-room explaining to a reporter, ‘we just didn’t bring our A game’.

To me, that’s all wrong.  You need to bring something stronger. Something much better. Something that gives you a better chance of winning.  How about your A+ game!

In big games, your A game will not cut it. In any game, your A game may help you stay close, but in order to win the big games, you need to bring your A+ game.

Every possession matters.  Every shot, every pass and every rebound…matters! Each time you step between the lines, play with energy, defend and take care of the ball.

Step up your game and bring your A+ game!

Observations:

I watched the Denver Nuggets go into LA to play the Clippers Friday night. Bad news for the Nuggets. LA decided to play.  Play hard that is.  Carmelo Anthony started off the game scoring 17 points helping Denver to a 12 point lead early.  He was scoring from all angles.  But Chris Kaman, by way of Central Michigan University took it upon himself to dominate the low post.

The Clippers bench also did a great job led by Sebastian Telfair who thought he was back in Coney Island pushing the ball in transition and dribbling like he was auditioning for the latest And 1 Mix Tour.  Rasul Butler chipped in with 27. Clipper came out on top 106-99.  Do you think Clippers head coach Mike Dunleavy and Telfair sit down and talk Brooklyn Hoops? Dunleavy played at Nazareth High School, Telfair at Lincoln.  Would love to hear those two debate which is better, the CHSAA or PSAL?

“We have to somehow realize that we are everybody’s big game,” said Denver guard Chauncey Billups. “It’s not like a few years ago where you play the Clippers or somebody and it is just another game.”

That’s right CB, you guys are being hunted now!

Speaking of another ‘CB’, Charlie Bell of the Milwaukee Bucks (formerly of Flint Southwestern High School) has filled in for Michael Redd at the shooting guard position and has done a solid job. Last night he scored 19 points on 7-15 shooting including 5-11 from way downtown in leading the Bucks to a 103-98 win over Memphis. Milwaukee is now 8-3.

The New Jersey Nets are now 0-13 after losing to the Knicks on Saturday 98-91. Bring back Foots Walker, Mike Newlin and Mike Gminski!

Rasheed Wallace of the Boston Celtics is shooting 22 of 70 on the season from way downtown. Including 0-8 Friday night against the Orlando Magic.  What, him worry?

“I ain’t worried about it, honestly,’’ said Wallace, after he missed all eight 3-point attempts. “I probably rushed about two or three of them. Other than that, it’s good looks, they’re just not going for me. I’m not worried about my offense now. It’s still early in the season, I know I won’t be shooting like this for the duration of the season.

November 2, 2009

Halloween 2009

First, let me recap a little bit.

As long as I can remember, I always wanted to dress up for Halloween. As a kid, it was pretty easy. This was back in the Ben Cooper era.

A few weeks before the holiday, the candy store down the block would suddenly be filled with stacks and stacks of boxes about the size of cake boxes from the bakery. They were flimsy and had a plastic hole in the front where masks peered out at you. Inside were Ben Cooper Halloween costumes. This is long before anyone realized that if you put a costume in a bag instead of a box you could maximize shelf space and increase sales. (That’s the business spin on Halloween. Any wonder why Bernie Madoff masks were so popular this year?)

Ben Cooper made amazing costumes. One year I dressed up as Frankenstein and I looked just like Frankenstein would have looked had he been wearing a thin plastic overall that tied in the back and had a picture of himself on the front. The Darth Vader costume could have been awesome had it not had the words “Star Wars” plastered across Vader’s chest. And the Ben Cooper Batman costume? Let’s just say that it totally failed to inspire fear in Gotham City’s underworld. I still remember the Mr. Spock costume that had a colorful picture of a hand giving the Vulcan salute on the front of his Starfleet uniform. All these wonderful memories, all those crappy costumes, no wonder Ben Cooper is out of business.

As I got older, all I really needed for a costume was a cape. A black one, with a high collar. Who was I dressing as? Didn’t matter. I was Guy With A Cape. That’s all you ever need. Walk down the street, cape flowing out behind you, that’s cool. More people should wear capes. All year ‘round. I’d wear capes all the time except I have a low tolerance for getting the shit kicked out of me.

Capes were very versatile when I was a kid. Batman wore a cape. Dracula wore a cape. Elvis wore a cape. Captain Kirk wore a cape. He didn’t, you say? He did when I dressed up like him in 1981.

Eventually I got older (at the rate of about a year every 365 days or so) and learned how to drive. This opened up a whole new Halloween era, the Era of Not Getting Invited to Parties. Well, technically I had been living in that era for many years, but now with a car I could find something else to do instead of sitting at home and watching Fat Albert teach Mudfoot Brown to lighten up and come to his Halloween party in the junkyard.

My buddy Marc and I would get in my car on Halloween and drive around listening to Halloween music on the radio. Were we driving to a party? No. Were we picking up other friends? No. We were driving around Brooklyn and Manhattan to see what we could see.

So what did we see?

One year we followed a blimp over the bridge into Manhattan, just bored enough to think it was a UFO.

Another year we solved an age-old dilemma, the building with the big “R” on top, visible from the BQE before the Battery Tunnel. We found the building, but it took a lot of research to discover that the “R” is the only letter left of the old E.J. Trum Playing Cards and Paper Company sign. A lot of research? OK, we asked my Dad. He knew all along.

Then there was The Suicide Dog.

We were driving around Red Hook. Why Red Hook? It was rundown, it was scary, and I was dumb enough not to consider the fact that driving around Red Hook at night was a really stupid thing to do. I drove through an open gate and found myself in the middle of some sort of sanitation complex where it seemed that the city’s definition of sanitation was “dumping brown water into the creek under the Gowanus.” You know, they probably use the same definition today.

Nothing much to see, and of course we were trespassing, so I turned around to get out when the guard dog came rushing out at us. Sure, didn’t make a peep when we rolled in, but trying to get out he came at us. What security. Anyway, the dog rushed out of a building on my right, snarling and snapping, and this is where he got his name, literally jumping under my front driver side tire. The dog, for all intents and purposes, was ready to commit suicide under my front wheel.

I stopped.
The dog stopped.
I creeped ahead.
The dog threw its head under my wheel. What kind of a dog was this? Cujo made more sense.

We eventually got out of there, never moving ahead more than 2 or 3 miles per hour. I was drenched with sweat by the time I got out of the complex.

One year we were driving around Coney Island (always the best on Halloween for me) when we found a beach right outside the Sea Gate fence where the local residents had made a fake graveyard. You know, the kind with tombstones for Frank N. Stein and bad rhymes like “here lies the body of Mary Jones, who was buried with most of her bones” etc. This was OK, but we got out of the car and climbed over the scrub grass and dunes to the actual beach. It wasn’t a beach you’d go sunning on. It was old and dirty, and by that I mean even by Coney Island standards it was dirty. It did have some really cool stuff lying around. There was a broken-down pier that marched into the water. Huge chains, like from ships, were tethered to concrete slabs in the ground. Big rusty metal hatches led into the earth. Wooden planks were half buried in the sand and led off into the scrub. There were broken anchor parts. Once upon a time there must have been some kind of nautical industry there, but now only decaying relics were left.

At low tide we were able to skirt the Sea Gate fence and follow Sea Gate Beach all the way to the lighthouse on the tip of the peninsula.

And that was Halloween. Eventually things changed and no longer did I go on those Halloween drives.

Now flash ahead to 2009. See? I wasn’t lying when I titled this blog Halloween 2009.

All I wanted to do this year was capture just a bit of bygone Halloween with my camera. I wanted to drive up to Dyker Heights and snap the decorated houses there, then I’d get back to that beach after all these years and get pictures of all the cool relics (Marc having deserted me years back by getting married and having a couple of kids. Thanks “pal.”) and have a really nice time of it

It didn’t happen that way. I didn’t even get to wear a cape.

First, Thursday was open school night. That was a bad time to ask another teacher to go with me so I went alone. It was a legitimate excuse for Michelle not to have to give me a phoney excuse not to go, so she really dodged a bullett there.

Secondly, what happened to the Halloween spirit? Almost no houses were decorated. It was really pathetic. I remember when the expensive houses would be filled with carved pumpkins, witches hung out of the trees, vampires peered out of orange-lit windows. Rows and rows of houses, each spookier than the last.

This year sure, a couple of houses had skeletons in the window, but Dyker is also a big Mafia area so who knows if they were decorations or just victims? I bet come December all those houses will suddenly be strewn with tinsel, decorated with bright lights, snowmen, Rudolph, Petey the big-nose elf, and all those other religious icons that celebrate Santa’s birthday on December 25^th. But what about the haunted houses? Witches?  Those inflatable pumpkins that Casper pops out of? Not a single one. OK, maybe one or two. But you just know there’ll be tons of tinsel and sleds soon.

Determined to see some Halloween houses, I drove out to Long Island, which really is a very long island, very aptly if not creatively named. Check it on a map. Staten Island is flaccid compared to Long Island. It is Staten Island after Viagra. But do they decorate anymore than we do here in Brooklyn?

No they do not.

At least the Freeport Haunted Firehouse had clowns out front. Clowns? OK, not mummies, but it was something, and clowns are scary- just ask John Wayne Gacy.

By this point I gave up on the houses. It was getting late and so I figured I’d go back to the beach by Sea Gate. I hadn’t been there since the 90’s. It was about time I got back and took pictures of all the ancient stuff there.

The ancient stuff was not there.

Oh sure, it was there, but it was all buried under ten feet of sand provided by the Army corps of Engineers. Nice.

Back in the 1990’s Coney Island was hit by a series of storms that washed most of the sand into the sea. They eventually replaced all the lost sand and they should have stopped there, but no, this is the government. Remember the old song by the Drifters, “Under the Boardwalk”? It was about some guys who hung out under the boardwalk on Coney Island. It was actually possible, until the mid 90’s, to walk under the boardwalk. Not anymore. The boardwalk used to be elevated high above the beach, now the sand comes right up to the planks. The army just poured sand right up to the top. Too bad for the Drifters. Three of them were still hanging out under the boardwalk and only one made it out alive, the other two being buried under all that sand.

They did the same job to the other side of the peninsula, and all the cool stuff I was dying to photograph after all these years are now under tons of sand. I’ll have to go back with a metal detector and an excavator if I want any shots.

They also seriously compromised the security of Sea Gate.

Sea Gate is a gated community, meaning “hey you, keep out.” (More truthfully, it means, “hey you poor black people, keep out. We are a wealthy white community.”) The fence once extended right out and down the beach and at high tide it was in the water. You could skirt it at low tide, but if you weren’t out when the water came back you’d have to wade around it. Anyway, the fence is nearly buried for most of its length. At its new highest point it rises a majestic sixteen inches out of the sand, a formidable hop for the most brazen of crickets but not any security against the normal burglar. Unless he trips over it or something. And then he might have a lawsuit.

So what did I take out of Halloween 2009?

Nobody plays Halloween music on the radio anymore, though I did hear Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult. That probably doesn’t count since Q104 plays it all year ‘round.

I still have sand in my car.

With or without a cape, a Ben Cooper costume could not have helped me this year. Alhough the cape could have kept me warm on the beach.