Coney Island Redux

Sunday afternoon was this guy's birthday, which meant for us a second trip to the famed Coney Island. My first ever excursion to the far reaches of the civilized world was back in May, and I liked it so much, we decided to make a return trip. Erik would like to think it was all about this birthday, but really, its all about the pizza.

The day started off with the usual subway ride under the Hudson River. Sadly, thanks to the Port Authority's incompetence coupled with construction at the World Trade Center, our train was routing through Hoboken. Since Hoboken is a terminus for almost half of NJTransit trains -- and the subway is responsible for connecting these people to the city -- the subway was packed like Tokyo rush hour. This is when we met Alice. We actually didn't get her name, but I'm calling her Alice just the same.

Alice is a feisty older woman -- old enough to be my grandmother -- but in excellent physical shape, and sharp too. As it turns out, Alice took the train from Ramsey, one of those far off suburbs up north. She didn't have very good things to say about the Port Authority. "Why don't they run more trains?" she asked. I gave her my thoughts; "the Port Authority is lazy." "Lazy? Incompetent is more like it!" Alice said, "We should all skip out on the fares, then they'd take notice!" She might be right.

We left Alice at 33rd Street, off to the ballet or a Broadway show-- she apparently frequents high culture when she isn't getting ready to lead the revolution. Once in the city, we navigated through a street fair on Fifth Avenue up to Bryant Park where we met the birthday boy and his wife.

There we boarded the subway bound for Coney Island. The trip out is both wonderful and awful at the same time. Its awful because even on the best of days it takes more than an hour. Its wonderful because usually after the second or third stop into Brooklyn, the train is empty and you can have a nice conversation. Then we met Ronnie.

Ronnie boarded the train on Atlantic Avenue, the last big stop for most passengers on the D Train when we were expecting to have a chat about real estate and English football. Ronnie wanted none of that. "The bridge was closed today thanks to those damn Democrats," Ronnie said when he entered the near empty subway car. The bridge he meant of course, was the Verrazano Narrows, closed for the day to accommodate the New York City marathon. What the Democrats had to do with this I'm not quite sure. The race has been run since 1970, but a Republican has been mayor of the city since 1994.

Ronnie took a seat beside Amy, despite the fact that the car had three other passengers on it. We thought all was fine when he opened up a copy of the Post, that he would STFU and we'd have a lovely ride. That was not to be the case. The post had a story on Clinton's campaign which set him off again, "As though she'll beat Giuliani. I don't think so." He then called Clinton "thunder thighs" and "stinky."

Ronnie was clearly looking to have a conversation with us, whether we wanted one or not. He talked about his heroes, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and suggested Bob Dylan as a good running mate for Clinton.

When he was finished with politics, he started up on the Mets and the Jets, though he never mentioned the Nets. That's when I got to thinking again about Rudy; the man spends his whole life in a Yankees hat, and then in some effort to suckle a few extra votes out of New Hampshire, Rudy goes out and says how he's pulling for the Red Sox. Cheating on your wife is one thing Rudy, but cheating on your team-- that's inexcusable. I did not tell Ronnie this.

Anyway, the train was now deep into the heart of Brooklyn, and at this point Ronnie was talking about life cycles-- people are born in Brooklyn, move to Staten Island, then have a few kids and move to Jersey before shipping off to Florida to die. "Eight of ten people do that," he said, demonstrating pure ignorance to demographics. Ronnie stood up as we approached 25th Avenue, his stop. He was headed to his family's restaurant. He offered us one last piece of advice; "I'm not going to say who will be President, but all I'm saying is you better like ravioli." I guess Ronnie's vote is for Chef Boyardee.

Then the train didn't stop.

"These are the people you want running healthcare?" he asked us. "I don't think the MTA is going to be running healtcare," Erik said. "No, not the MTA, the government. They can't even stop where they are supposed to," Ronnie said. He would have had a point, perhaps, had he not referred to the subway as a bus. "I can't believe they didn't stop the bus where they are supposed to," he said, confirming he was a fucking lunatic.

Then the train sat waiting for a signal. Ronnie kept looking down at the city below, pacing up and down the car and prying at the doors-- "that's where I want to go; guess I'll take a cab; they want me to go to Coney Island to get back to 25th Avenue!"

When the train finally arrived at Stillwell Avenue, we hurried down the platform to get as far away from Ronnie as we could. Before we were out of the station, we overheard him harassing some unsuspecting folks about the performance of the MTA. Not a conductor though, just some poor passengers in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We landed on the street across from Nathan's, though we restrained ourselves from any corn dogs. The boardwalk loomed ahead of us, and even though Coney Island in November is more desolate than Coney Island in May, we were hoping for an arcade to throw skee ball. Everything on the boardwalk was closed down though, even Shoot the Freak. We did spy some hipsters taking photographs of themselves in front of the display.


No trip to Coney Island would be complete until Erik stuck his feet in the water. He and Clayton removed their shoes and braved the glass littered beach for the opportunity to risk frostbite.





When the remainder of the birthday party arrived, Clayton and Erik dried their feet and we hiked over to Totonno's, the main event. There were eight of us, so we filled up the small restaurant. The crotchety hostess / waitress at first didn't want us putting together two tables because it would have blocked her workstation. Or something like that. Mostly she was interested in being rude. I'll put up with the attitude for that pizza though. Luckily, a more level headed member of the staff told her to shove off and then we rearranged the tables.

The party gorged itself on four pies. Two margarita pies, a white, and a sausage. The white pie is definitely the best, but a trip would not be complete without a margarita pie.

Afterward, stuffed with warm pie, we head back to the station. We were all taking the F train back, even though we had arrived by different means. This meant taking a shuttle train two stops and transferring at the famous Avenue X. Alright, there really isn't anything famous about it, other than Erik's insistence that we one day return and hang out at Avenue X for no reason at all. Once on the train, Amy pulled out some cupcakes, and we sang Happy Birthday.

Luckily Ronnie was still lost somewhere in the backwater of Brooklyn, otherwise he no doubt would have some words of wisdom.

Coney Island

Our trip to Coney Island began on a whim on a Saturday morning in early May. Mandee and I were in the middle of breakfast when we made the decision. We had for months been discussing a trip to the famed beach, an excursion we wanted to make before Coney Island was reinvented by the much needed redevelopment. I sent off a message to Erik, who agreed on the condition that we would stop for pizza.

An adventure to Coney Island begins with a rather long subway ride. We met Erik and Amy in Bryant park, and after caffeinating with a double espresso, we boarded the D train. A half hour into the trip we were deeper into Brooklyn than I had ever been. We were on elevated tracks after a few minutes, speeding along above the rooflines of the borough. It is only from this vantage point that Brooklyn’s enormity becomes apparent. In every direction, as far as I could see was a skyline of low rise buildings punctuated by the occasional church spire or glimpse of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Then as the train approached Bay Parkway, the conductor informed us we’d need to disembark and wait for the next train.
We waited on the elevated platform for the next train.

The subway deposited us directly in front of Nathan’s Famous, the original hot dog stand now adulterated with food court franchises. But the original Nathan’s serves a far better corn dog and fresh lemonade then its knock off cousins. After our snack we wandered toward the beach, walking passed the vacant lots that one day may be the high rise development of Thor Equities. The block between Nathan’s and the boardwalk is a depressing sight. There are landmarks of better days of course, remnants of amusements from the last century, but for the most part, the neighborhood of Coney Island is reminiscent of Chernobyl, minus the deadly radiation.

The beach wasn’t much better. The sand had more shards of glass than seashells. Glass of course, did not prevent Erik from removing his shoes. Since it was early spring, the water was frigid, though Erik braved it. Later we wandered down the beach to a pier where townies mingled with tourists with the main difference between the two being sobriety. We wandered down the boardwalk passed Shoot the Freak, a game where some poor sap stands in a yard waiting for people to shoot him with paintballs. We played some Skee Ball, winning enough tickets for plastic bracelets for the ladies, a few paratroopers, and a handful of green plastic army men.

Finally it was time for pizza. Erik had been talking up Totonno’s pizza for weeks, this being the primary reason for the journey. Grimaldi’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn might have a better PR firm, garnering praise from Rachel Ray and Zagat’s, but its Totonno’s that has the better pie. The unassuming building, little more than a shack, is a half dozen blocks from the beach, on Neptune Ave. There are imitations in the other boroughs, but none compare to the genuine article. This explains it all:
Afterward, stuffed on cheese and sauce and crust, we wandered back toward the subway station, boarded our train and returned to the city. Coney Island is a lot like Niagara Falls; its one of those places you need to see, but shouldn't really bother going. Except of course, Coney Island has Totonno's, and none of those pesky Canadian pennies.

South Beach

Italy

Roma

In the summer of 2000, I accompanied my grandfather to Rome where many of his cousins still live. My younger brother and friend Erik also came along.

Our first stop was Vitinia, a small suburb of Rome. Vitinia sits almost perfectly between the center of Rome and the beaches of Ostia. The metro station was just a fifteen minute walk from my cousin’s house, where we were staying.


Nearly every bedroom in my cousin’s house had a balcony overlooking the town. To the right is the view from our bedroom's balcony. The bedroom was on the third floor of the house; houses there take advantage of vertical space.

Our first day of being a tourist took us to Rome. We took the metro to the Pyramid station and walked to the forum, the Colosseum, and then up to the Spanish steps. This is quite a walk.

The forum area is largely taken over by tourists. There are actors dressed as Hollywood’s version of Roman legionnaires looking for a few Euros from tourists eager to have their picture taken with a guy who could have come from Ceasar’s Palace in Atlantic City.

Then of course there are the venders selling trinkets and plastic busts of great Romans, modeled on the marble sculptures from the Uffizi. Erik took it upon himself to ask one of these fat venders whether or not he had any busts of Mussolini. That went about as well as anyone might expect. The vender muttered a few curses and yelled at Erik telling him to essentially fuck off.

We decided at that point that maybe it would be a good idea to hurry up and move along.

Just before the trip to Italy, I had recently completed my Introduction to Art History Class, a primer for art and architecture that worked up to the Roman Imperial period. As a result, I was really quite into the triumphal arches scattered around the city. Sadly though, I somehow missed the Arch of Titus, one of the more significant arches.


Arch of Constantine

Arch of Septimius

Arch of Giano

Arch of Drusus
Walking through the Roman forum is not like walking past relics from American history, a mere three or four hundred years old. At nearly two thousand years old, the forum has held up remarkably well, but still is mostly just the skeletal remains of its former self. The old Roman Senate building has been restored / rebuilt, but otherwise, for the most part, all thats left are pieces of stone or in some cases columns and foundations.

What still is working perfectly though is the plumbing. At several places throughout the forum, as in most of the country, public fountains produce a constant flow of ice cold water ready to drink and free for the taking. The forum also provided a great place to eat our lunch-- prosciutto and Parmigiano Reggiano on fresh bread. I'm not much for sandwiches. But that's probably because most sandwiches back at home don't have such fresh ingredients.

The old Roman Forum merges with the modern city of Rome near the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of a united Italy. The monument was built at the turn of the 20th Century.

The monument has been called "the wedding cake" because its rather over the top aesthetic sensibility. The structure incorporates corithian columns and a statue of Victor Emmanuel II. The museum of Italian unification is also in its base.

Also in the heart of Rome is the Pantheon, a model for Roman architecture. The temple has a traditional facade with relief sculpture and columns. Inside, the cofferred ceiling allowed for an impressively high concrete dome. The center of the dome contains an oculus allowing for light to enter the temple. The passage of time can be marked also as the sun spot created by the oculus travels around the inside of the temple.

On the day we visited, we had our first encounter with an old Italian Gypsy woman. She was hobbling around with a gnarled cane and bent half over with a massive hunch back protruding in the air. She moved as if she nearly blind. Later we saw her standing up straight. Such are the gypsy women in Rome.

The Vatican

The Vatican is its own little city completely surrounded by Rome. Obviously for some folks who still hold onto their ancient religions, the Vatican is a pilgrimage worth taking for the sake of the soul. For me though, my interest was in the art and architecture safely guarded behind the walls of the Vatican Museum.

The museum is quite expansive, in part because the Church has always been a huge patron of the arts, but also because they have the resources to become serious collectors. A number of ruins from the ancient Roman period have made their way to the Vatican Museum. Inside the Basilica of Maxentius and Constatine was a massive statue of Constatine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome. Little remains of the former statue, but like many folks, the Vatican has his head.

The other obvious monument at the Vatican is the Saint Peter’s Basilica. Unfortunately for me, I had not yet taken the second half of the introduction to art history class, and had not studied Renaissance or Baroque periods of architecture.


We purchased Rosary beads for my Aunt from a street vender—these sorts of venders are everywhere in Vatican City. Rosary beads are a series of beads on a chain, ending in a cross. They are symbolic of several Catholic prayers that should be recited daily. The beads are of varying size and used to keep track of the number of times each prayer has been said. Catholics have a whole lot of pomp and circumstance that separates them from the other Christian sects.

Firenze

After a week in Rome and a Sunday afternoon watching Formula 1 while eating too much pasta, we took a few side trips deeper in the country. The first stop was Florence where we stayed at a small hotel not far from Santa Croce.

The tourists know Florence for Michelangelo’s David at the National gallery and the Uffizi gallery of art. We skipped the national gallery in part because outside the Palazzo Vecchio, a replica has replaced the original David. After seeing the line at the National Gallery, we assumed that the replica was good enough for us.

Below, three of the churches from Florence: Santa Maria Novella, Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo), and Santa Croce.





Palazzo Vecchio
Palazzo Vecchio was once the seat of government for the Republic of Florence, a city-state that rose to power because of its merchant class. Like everything in Florence, it now serves as a museum.

We headed to the Uffizi on the second day in Florence. Since the line was terribly long, we waited until late afternoon. This meant we had only about ninety minutes. The gallery space in the Uffizi is not terribly large, but Erik is one of the slowest museum goers I've ever been with. We saw a few important things like Botticelli's Primavera and a whole lot of busts of Romans. And then the museum was closing, and we were getting kicked out.


Bargello
We did though find ourselves in one of Florence's lesser known museums, the Bargello. A former prison, the Bargello is now a sculpture museum.

The museum has the lesser known David by Donatello. The little bronze statue is a rather flamboyant rendition of a boy rather than a man. The original was first installed in the courtyard of Palazzo Medici, then the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio.

In addition to numerous versions of Adam and Eve, the Bargello is also home to dozens of animal sculptures. Most of them are not even the regal variety such as a lion, but instead much more mundane works like a goat, or the camel below.

Pisa

Pisa is an awful little town in Tuscany. We took the train north which turned out to be much more interesting than the city itself. The train traveled along the cliffs overlooking the sea, as well as next to a nuclear reactor.

When we arrived in Pisa, there was little going on. The streets were fairly quite compared to Rome, or even Florence. The bus howerver, was rather loud. It was a fifteen minute ride from the train station to the leaning tower.

The cathedral at Pisa sits inside a gated compound. If I had property in Pisa, I'd want ten foot high walls too. On one side of the compound were dozens of street venders. Then on the other, the Cathedral, Baptistry and tower. Of course, everyone was there for the tower, mostly ignoring the Cathedral and Bapstistry. I saw no less than five people taking photographs posing as if they were uprighting the tower.

Whale Watching

During our first whale watching expedition four or five years ago, we happened to come across a few humpback whales, one of the more common varieties found off the coast of Cape Cod. During that first venture, we were lucky enough to come across a few whales meandering along occasionally popping their backs above the water.

This year’s marine safari began a similar fashion. Twenty five minutes or so out of Provincetown Harbor we came upon a whale bobbing along poking its dorsal fin out of the water.
We quickly realized however, that our adventure this year was going to be a bit more exciting as we came upon a dozen or so individual humpbacks.

The whales scoop up vast amounts of water, and with it, food, as they approach the surface.
As the morning progressed, the whales continued to impress us with their performance. Whales use a variety of techniques to feed, including slapping their fins on the water giving the effect that they are waving. Humpbacks are well known for their ability to leap from the water before gravity brings them crashing back in a tremendous splash. Breaching is not exactly an activity most whale watchers see every day. Below the whale strikes the water.