CONEY ISLAND

New Yorkers are never slow to give advice. They kept telling me to get my 'ass' down to Coney Island. Maybe they thought I belonged in one of it's legendary Freak shows but I like to think they wanted me to see the true face of New York...where the real New York spirit lives on away from Manhattan's tourism.

Coney Island is the last stop on the Brooklyn line. Walking along its long boardwalk you have the Atlantic on one side and high rise poverty on the other. It no longer attracts the vast crowds like in the 1930's & 40's when the great photographer Weegee captured a beach scene so packed that all you can see is a sea of faces (the picture made it's way onto a George Michael album cover...apparently). Occasionally though the whole place comes back to life like on "Puerto Rico day"(left).

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coney island boardwalk