Saturday morning hurt a lot. But Anna and Jeff [who responsibly left Marie’s Crisis early] were up and at `em early in the AM. And by early, I mean 11. They were heading to Coney Island. I didn’t know much about it, other than the fact it was really, really far from us [1.5 hours on the subway]. But I decided I would join them.
Usually, we walk east to Broadway to catch the subway at 157th Street Station. To catch an express train to Coney Island, we walked about 15 minutes to 145th Street Station. We walked south down Riverside Drive for the first time. And we found all the white people. They were out jogging, pushing prams, walking, etc. on Riverside. Riverside is purely residential, consisting of mid-rise condos like ours. It’s funny that we rarely saw white people on Broadway, suggesting that these people leave the neighbourhood to access commercial uses. Weird.
Coney Island is a semi-abandoned amusement park on the Atlantic Ocean. Its glory days were in the early 20th Century and it started to decline after WW2. Today, there are rides, some operate, some do not. There are concessions and games [including ‘Shoot the freak’… Anna wasn’t down with it]. There’s also a great deal of high modernist era social housing. The signage is all original from the early 20th Century and has a bold, graphic, colourful quality. There was a boardwalk and the beach, of course. It was fairly busy for April. We stopped at Nathan’s, home of the infamous ‘hot dog eating contest’, complete with a digital countdown to the next even [months away]. We stopped for some traditional American food. I had a cheese dog and chili fries. It wasn’t the best idea and it sure didn’t agree with me a couple hours later.
The three of lounged on the beach, played some pinball and browsed the Coney Island museum. The museum had a large section dedicated to designs for the new ‘Dreamland’. It was designed by a man [who’s name escapes me] who was inspired to study psychology after Freud visited the park. Naturally, the designs were all sex related. The central building was called the ‘Pleasure Palace’ and it was shaped like a pre-pubescent girl. A train connected all the outlying buildings. It was pretty bizarre.
Erin warned us that we would see some characters. She was right. We saw one gentleman in sort of a tin foil tutu with a colourful wig and a parrot on his shoulder. I didn’t get a photo, but Anna did. Maybe she can hook me up.
Erin texted me as Anna, Jeff and I were planning to leave. She had some free time so I went back to Williamsburgh to hang out with her. It required going from South Brooklyn to lower Manhattan and back to Brooklyn. It was a bit of a trip. Erin told me she appreciated my spontaneity and my ability to read maps. I had no problem adjusting my plans and navigating the City for a little more quality time.
Back in Brooklyn, Erin and I were unable to find a venue that had both seating AND was not closing in 5 minutes [it was really, really weird]. So we grabbed some take away tacos and hit up a small park on the river. The park was actually a former ferry dock that connected Brooklyn and Manhattan. Ferries ran every 5 minutes beginning in 1880! In St. Catharines, buses stop at 5pm on Sundays. I’m not kidding. Erin and I chatted longer than anticipated, as usual. And I had to run back to the condo to get ready to go out.
I virtually sprinted back to Bedford Station to see that the next ‘L’ train didn’t come for 42 minutes. HWHAT?! I nearly had a heart attack. I didn’t understand how that was possible. The thought of waiting 42 minutes was obscene. It was Saturday night in New York, not weekday rush hour in St. Catharines. Oh, snap. I started plotting an alternate route on the sketchy ‘JMZ’, trying to figure out if I would save any time by walking 15 minutes south or not. Then the train came. Apparently, the sign lied.
Back at the condo, my friends were pretty low key. Chris and Matt had an unfortunate rough day. I convinced Anna and Jeff we HAD to go out for our last night in New York. I’m good at that. We went to Greenwich, as it was an easy jaunt from the condo. As we were walking down the street, a woman was herding passerbys into her bar by saying ‘$5 Cosmos’. Yes, please. We were sold. As Anna and I sipped Cosmos [I have to say it… soooo Sex and the City], Jeff nursed a pint. All of a sudden, a girl tripped and spilled her drink all over me. She apologized and ran off. I was pissed. I looked damn good that night. I went to the bathroom to towel off and stopped suddenly when she was in the bathroom. I double-checked the sign on the door. I was right. But she was the last person I wanted to see at that moment. She continued to apologize profusely. I MAY have diva’d out when I said things to her like ‘I guess I’ll live’. I joined Anna and Jeff slightly dryer and left the girl in the men’s bathroom. A few minutes later, a guy came over and introduced himself as the girl’s cousin. He gave us $40 and told us the next round was on him. We thanked him for being generous, but we told him that was far too much money for a round. He insisted we keep it. And we did. We bought two more rounds of drinks and when we were sufficiently drunk, we got pizza. It was all free. Delicious!
At the pizza place, a bunch of frat types were trying to see how many saltines they could eat at one time. I’ve never heard of this game, but I want to play sometime. Anna thinks she can eat one million saltines at one time:
It was SO hard to leave on Sunday. We had such an epic trip. We got to experience living in New York, without any responsibilities, and a whole lot of disposable income. Is that what it’s like to be independently wealthy... or a trustafarian? That’s the life for me!
Chris and Matt drove back to Kingston. Anna and Jeff rode the Megabus back to Kingston and I lugged 50lbs of luggage on the subway to JFK to fly back to Buffalo. At the airport, a stranger gave me a note and walked away. It read ‘You’re very attractive. I hope you have a good flight, where ever you’re going.’
It must be the beard.
