Day at the Beach

Friday I got up early for a big day, it was overcast though, which was a shame, but still nice. I bussed to a park called the High Line, which is a new park that is built on a raised rail structure from the 1930's that hasn't been in use. All the plants that are there are types that were growing wild, so its pretty cool to walk along and admire the views of the Chelsea area. After exploring along the waterfront for a while I wandered through the Chelsea markets, which was full of bakeries, so I was surrounded by the sweet, sweet smell of muffins and fresh bread. I then caught the E train to the end of the line, which is the World Trade Centre stop. I got off and was instantly lost. All that is there is a huge construction site with mesh fences that are covered so you cant see through. I walked around the entire block then went shopping in Century 21. After that I headed to Wall St. It was pretty intimidating; tall buildings, tight streets, thin sidewalks. I walked around trying to find something interesting. I didn't. So hoped on a train to Chinatown! Yay! It was great, just walked along the streets that were full of people and stalls and shopfronts that had buckets of crazy looking dried plants and animal parts. I bought parsley rice noodles and a red bean steamed bun and ate in a park. Caught the subway to Grand Central - where I walked around in awe once again-then went home to Time Square. I left Michelle's with my backpack and met Chris for a museum date. We ended up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There were Samurai's and horses, and statues of Hercules. It was great. We probably should have gone a little earlier, because you could spend days in there and not see everything, so a couple of hours was nowhere near enough. After the museum closed we went to Lincoln Centre, which is the performing arts school. The huge buildings were all lit amazingly and there is a pond with sculptures and rows of trees. We had dinner at a Mexican place, along with mexican beers, then headed home in the cold.

On Saturday a promising forecast of 8degrees made Chris and I head to the Beach. Coney Island is about an hour away by train, so we left at midday and walked along the boardwalk of the once famous amusement park birthplace. It was freezing cold (definitely not 8degrees) and everything seemed abandoned and rundown. Im not sure if that's just because its winter, but its probably because it is past its heyday. In the late 1800's a guy thought, 'I'm going to build the world's biggest ferris wheel here', and so he did. That started a chain reaction of amusement parks built along the shore front. The first was called Steeplechase (1897); it burnt down once or twice, but ended up being the last to close down in 1965. The second was LUNA PARK (1903), which was famous for it's 'Trip to the Moon'. It closed after a series of fires and trouble with street gangs in 1944. And the third and final of the big parks of the era was Dreamland. Opened in 1904, it was bigger and better and designed to challenge the other parks. It apparently had everything; from a railway that rode through Swiss Alps to a dwarf village. They even had incubators for premature babies (the design had been presented to hospitals to no reaction and was considered a freak show at the park). Anyway, Dreamland closed down in 1911 after a huge fire. The war began and it was never rebuilt.
We had incredible pizza for lunch and went to the museum, which was full of original memorabilia from the parks and had a documentary playing about the history (which is where I learnt all the information above).
The pier provided nice views of the buildings and rides along the beach (and I took a moment to ponder 'should i choose her or the voice? "Hellllooooooooo"')
We walked along the street from the boardwalk to the subway line. There were old tents and broken rides. Coney Island in winter feels like my Dreamland got addicted to cocaine and sold all its belongings (and eventually soul) for drugs, to find itself fifty years later a burnt out husk. Not dead, but close.