Coney Island

I’ve really missed doing the TWM blog, but my money is disappearing at a much slower rate since I’ve put it on hold. And I’ve also had a lot more time to look for work and develop job leads. Plus I’ve also been taking online classes and tutorials to develop skills to help get me work in other fields of the industry I work in, since the jobs for things I do appear to be shrinking. Oh, and I’ve also had about 17,967 beers since we’ve last gotten together!

People kept commenting on my hold post and I was really touched by everyone’s nice wishes and good luck comments and felt bad I wasn’t putting anything new up there for all of you. So I’ve decided that for the time being, I’m going to put up one post a week, on Monday. That’ll give new content to check out once a week and it’ll give me something to do to break up the job hunt for a little bit of the week. And so here we go...off to Coney Island!

Shawn Chittle is this week's special guest star on TWM. We had a couple pre-Cony Island beers at my place and then...

We make the descent into the hot, muggy, buggy bowels of the NYC subway system.

And, through the magic of the internet, you're spared a sweltering five minute wait for the Q train and a 45 minute ride and right now the train is approaching Coney Island.

And here we are, let's go check it out.

As you can see, there's a big crowd here today.

And here we are on the boardwalk.

Well this is a little sad, this used to be Cha Cha's bar, but they got chased out and it's been replaced with this makeshift Italian Ice stand. Let's just move along and pretend we didn't see this.

This is a new store, the Brooklyn Beach shop, we looked in, saw that they were selling t-shirts for twenty bucks and quickly left in search of a drink.

And here's where that much-needed drink can be had, Ruby's bar. I don't care much for the new sign, but it was one of the concessions they had to make to get their eight year lease, so I guess I can deal with it, if they haven't changed it too much inside.

At least they've kept their old hand painted signs in front of the bar on the boardwalk.

And, happily, inside it looks pretty much the same. Ruby's is a great place for people watching.

I noticed Mike, the third generation owner of Ruby's working outside and said hello and congratulated him on the lease.

Mike pointed out that the bar has been revamped and is made out of wood taken from the boardwalk.

The tables in the back room are also made of wood salvaged from the boardwalk and there's also some of it on the walls and ceiling. All in all there's 6000 feet of boardwalk wood in Ruby's. Pretty cool!

Nice to see that the jukebox is still here and packed with great soul music.

And I'm happy to report that Harpo is still behind the bar.

I had to get an order of fried clams, especially when the woman working the stand is this pretty! Great smile!

Here's a shot from our view at the table.

And part of the old sign hangs on the wall inside. They had to take down all the vintage photos in here to paint the walls, but they're slowly putting them back up, which is good news.

And here's a shot for Al Rizo, Miami Beach never looked so good!

After a few beers, we decided to wander around a bit.

Yikes, I get dizzy just looking at rides like this one!

Nice to see that Paul's Daughter survived the cut on the boardwalk, but it's a too bad that they painted over all the hand-painted signage on the place.

At least there's some down below, maybe they'll add some color to the top as the season moves forward.

But the people behind the counter are colorful and friendly and that kind of makes up for it.

Nothing better than a hot dog slathered in mustard at Coney Island in the summer.

Thankfully, the Cyclone remains untouched.

It's the oldest roller coaster in America. I've ridden it once and I still get shivers when I think about it, but at least I did it.

Back to the boardwalk as the sun sets on Coney Island.

I had to get a shot of the Wonder Wheel and here it is.

We decided to have a nightcap at Ruby's and pretty Alexa serves it up.

Cheers from Shawn and I!

Usually I get a hot dog at Nathan's on the way to the subway, but I had already had a corn dog, fried clams, a hot dog and mucho beers, so I just took a photo...

And we went back to the subway, Manhattan bound.

Here's an obligatory window/mirror shot from the subway. Thanks to Shawn for coming along, lots of fun as always!

Further Reading: Amusing the Zillion, Kinetic Carnival and Shawn Chittle.

She's the moon in the mist to me,
She's my Coney Island baby,
She's my Coney Island girl.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!