The last full day of the holiday, so we decided to go to Coney Island. We took the metro again, which took a while. The station at Coney Island is interesting as it seems to have been extended several times, and now overhangs the road quite a lot.
The station one stop up the line is only short distance away and you can clearly see that the trains are on two levels here, with some strange structures housing the platforms. The impression we got is that this place got seriously busy during its heyday.
Since it was just after the ‘Labor Day’ holiday, many of the rides and amusements were shut and being worked repaired. This is the crew doing ongoing maintenance on the ‘Cyclone’ which is a famous old-style wooden rollercoaster built in 1927 and officially an historic monument.
… and this is the Ferris wheel a short distance away which was working. Also rather ancient as these attractions go. The carriages do an interesting slide into the inner ring on their way up, and then roll out to the outer edge on the way down. Never seen one quite like it before…
There is also this amazing tower/ride. This was the ‘parachute jump’ which closed in 1964, but the iconic structure remains.
After having walked along the boardwalk some distance, we turned back inland and walked around the back of the amusement park. We found the Coney Island brewery, but it was shut.
Heading further away from the attractions there are some rather grand-looking houses which are now a bit run down
We got to the north side of Coney Island (it isn’t actually an island) and could see across the inset to the Verrazano Narrows bridge that links Brooklyn to Staten Island. This is still the longest suspension bridge in America, and was the longest in the world from 1964 until surpassed by the Humber bridge in 1981
We walked on the sand along the north side of Coney Island, past lots of people fishing
and lots of seagulls
The sea defences have obviously had a bit of a battering
and there has been a lighthouse at the end of Coney Island since 1890:
Then we walked back along the boardwalk some more. We didn’t walk all of it which is a shame as it is the second longest boardwalk in the world. The beaches here are really nice too, with miles of nice sand. By this time the wind was blowing the sand off the beach and across the boardwalk, which was not so great for walking.
