Creepy Coney Island
Coney Island is weird. And not particularly in a good way. It has that awesome boardwalk, a historic roller coaster, a minor-league baseball team, a stellar sandy beach even by California standards -- yet it's still creepy.

The first time I went out there was a few years ago when my parents came for a visit. Among the memorable things we saw was a guy beating up his girlfriend, who kept running back to him begging his forgiveness. About 40 feet away, five or so cops stood in a group chatting, completely ignoring the violence.

This past Friday, I took the new B train from my Park Slope neighborhood out to the end of the line at Brighton Beach. My original plan was to ride the entire route of the B train, but I didn't have enough time and hadn't yet picked enough interesting stops along the way. So that's for another day.

Friday turned out to be maybe the most gorgeous warm and sunny day we've had all winter. I took the B from 7th Avenue and Flatbush, arriving at the last stop about 30 minutes later. I headed over for some lunch at Cafe Glechik on the recommendation of Alex Zucker, who makes his living translating novels from Czech to English. Alex, I assume, has a much easier time ordering from the menu here. The thing about Brighton Beach - this cafe included - is that English is an afterthought. Nearly everything is in Russian -- the newspapers, the signs, the menus. I ordered soup and some water, just tap water.

"We don't have tap water, only spring." - waiter

He brought me a plastic bottle of Poland Spring water. I thought he was maybe making fun of me until I went to pay the bill and it was clear he only knew a few words of English. "Tap" obviously wasn't one of them. The soup, by the way - vegetable with chicken meatballs - was quite good.

I walked a couple blocks over to the beach, finding the boardwalk to Coney Island nearly empty except for several hundred old Russian women (and a few men) sitting on the benches or walking slowly. Many of them were on cell phones. They were mostly overdressed -- with long floor-length fur coats and fur caps with ear flaps. It must have been close to 60 degrees outside and a blinding-bright sun.

The boardwalk stretches from Brighton Beach along to Coney Island, with retirement homes, parks, restaurants and some shops along the way. (Though most everything was closed when I was there.) Everything looks past its prime. I pass one park with basketball courts and it's crowded entirely with blacks. Shortly after that I reach another park with squash courts - packed entirely with whites.

As I pass the New York Aquarium, two big guys fitting every Brooklyn stereotype you know come up behind me. One's walking, the other's jogging at a very slow, labored pace. As they come up behind me -- "jogging" but still way too close considering the boardwalk's nearly empty, I hear the one guy is pontificating on Haitian politics.

"Most of those Haitians are homosexuals and they carry AIDS. I bet you didn't know that." - creepy Brooklyn guy

I stop and the guys nearly bump into me - they're that close on my heels.

I walk across the sand down to the water. I've always had a hard time going to a beach and not sticking my feet in the water - so I take off my boots and socks and foolishly let the icy Atlantic shock some sense into me.

Finally I'm down at the amusement park - all closed of course - to take a look at The Cyclone, big barking Rottweilers, frightened cats and carneys who offered to take me on a free ride if I came back later. Then I find "Shoot The Freak."

A mere two storefronts down from the famous Nathan's hot dog stand on the boardwalk, some enterprising soul has used a polluted vacant lot to build a Midway-style paintball shooting gallery with "live human targets."

Shoot the Freak
How Much
5 shots $3.00
15 shots $5.00
35 shots $10.00
75 shots $20.00

Down in the lot below the boardwalk trash is strewn all over the place: a rusted, metal storage drum, bricks, a giant pink Elmo-type doll, busted chairs, milk crates, piles of concrete rubble left over from the building that formerly occupied the site. The walls on both sides and the back are spray painted with graffiti and advertisements for the game. The place was totally empty when I was there, though it was clear the "Shoot the Freak" sign draped across the front of the lot had been hung recently. (I Googled "Shoot the Freak" when I got home and found that Newsday did a story on it in July. There's also a better picture of the game in action from local photographer PicPatrol.)

I walk down Stillwell Avenue and have a cheesedog at the big Nathan's location that stays open year-round. There are two cops in the line next to me and one's on his cell phone taking orders from his buddies, I'm getting my food and they're finally done with their order and ask the woman behind the register if they can get a discount for that. "No," she says and laughs at them.

The Coney Island subway station is closed for renovation until Spring, so I queue up for the bus to take me back to Brighton Beach. There are a bunch of people standing there, including an old Salty Dog-looking guy in shorts, sneakers, tall socks and a cap. He's probably in his 60s and everything about him says retired sailor. About a dozen of us are waiting to get on the B68 bus and up walks this guy in his late 20s -- fitting yet another stereotype -- with two women in their 50s. One is clearly his mother and he's trying to get her to the F train as we all come to hear.

"This goes to Brighton Beach," Salty Dog offers to the loud guy.

"All these people are stupid!," yells the crazed twenty-something. "Make up your mind!," he now yells -- at his mother. "Why are you so stupid?"

Salty Dog turns to him and says: "This no longer goes to the F train. They changed it. it goes to Brighton Beach."

Crazed guy grabs his mom and leads her away and yells at her again: "Don't listen to him. He's a fuckin' narc!"

Finally I'm getting on the bus myself, and I want to make sure the bus is indeed going to Brighton Beach, where you can get the Q or the brand-new B line, which has only been in service since Sunday. Apparently it's even too new for my MTA bus driver.

Me: Does this go to the B?
Bus driver: No.
Me: The Q?
Bus Driver: Yes.

Indeed a few minutes later it did stop at the Brighton Beach B/Q stop and I was home half an hour later.
- posted by Amy @ 2/29/2004 09:19:00 AM