You are currently browsing the stories about the Coney Island neighborhood
Lost in Coney Island
by Bonnie J. Glover 03/01/2020Neighborhood: Coney Island, East New York
Each summer it was a requirement that my brothers and I attend summer school. We could not be idle. We must all do something to further our education. My mother, Dot, laid down the law. She was formidable—not standing more than 5’4”, she wielded the power in our household. My father, though technically present, […]
What the World Can Do
by Steven Goldleaf 12/02/2018Neighborhood: Coney Island, East Village
In the summer of 1973, my younger brother and I shared a basement apartment on East 12th Street in Brooklyn off Avenue J, a nice middle-class sort of area. We had lost our parents to cancer and a stroke, ten months apart, a few years before this, when he was fourteen and I was sixteen. […]
Carlisle the Violinist
by Stas Holodnak 09/16/2018Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Coney Island
On the Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend, I found myself seated at a snow-white draped table next to a card featuring my first and last name in italicized letters. The joyous occasion was the wedding of a childhood friend. It was no different from the other weddings I’ve attended, except for a violinist, who […]
If Dad Was A Doll
by Royal Young 04/09/2017Neighborhood: Coney Island
My father took me to the Coney Island Freak Show every summer growing up. My artist Dad seemed unfettered from his day job as a social worker, sketching subway riders on the hour train ride from the Lower East Side, where we lived surrounded by junkies and prostitutes wandering derelict streets. On the boardwalk, he […]
The Ancient Swirl of Time that is Always Present Over Coney Island
by Pat Fenton 10/20/2014Neighborhood: Coney Island
It’s a bone chilling day in winter as I park my car on a side street next to the Cyclone roller coaster. My head is spinning with all these old Brooklyn memories, and I’ve come back here now looking for signs of them, looking for pieces left behind from the sad sweep of time. Sometimes, […]
Spa Day
by Marcie Muscat 09/06/2014Neighborhood: Coney Island
The massage was about three-quarters of the way through when Galina stopped what she was doing and disappeared, leaving me face down and naked on the table, without a word of explanation. Galina? Bafflement gave way to blessed relief that her thumbs had, for a moment, ceased bullying me into a state of relaxation. I […]
I Love You, U-Bet
by Candy Schulman 03/26/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay
When I was a young man—no bigger than this A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed Some U-bet’s chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk Stir it up into a heady fro—tasted just like milk You scream, I steam, we all want Egg Cream. […]
My Father’s Father’s Coney Island Costume Jewelry Shop
by Mara Grayson 07/19/2011Neighborhood: Coney Island
“It was 1958,” my father says, “the year my dad opened Marcelle’s Jewelry Store on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island. You should have seen this place. I wish there were pictures now, but who would have taken pictures of some shoddy storefront on Mermaid Avenue? Displayed in one window were all the pieces of costume […]
Things Inside My Head
by Sarah Fay 09/12/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Coney Island
I. It is a popular misconception that autistics can count hundreds of matches in the blink of an eye and draw fantastic pictures. In reality, few are like this and less than one percent fall into the idiot savant category. Most are mildly to severely retarded and autistic. Some are autistic and emotionally disturbed. Some […]