CONEY ISLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 5 October 1929, Page 2

CONEY ISLAND

(By SIR PERCIVAL PHILLIPS.) NEW YORK, August 13. Heat, hmniclity, and the confusion of tongues. Three miles of sweltering humanity in bathing costumes', .packed sardine-fashion on a foreshore at burn,#ing sand. '* A dejected ocean on one side; interminable rows of parked motor-ears stretching to infinity 911 the other. Incessant noik'e, the by-product of liurdv-gurdys, steam pianos, dizzy “Alpine” railways- on stilts, and roundabouts. Thirst, insatiable, and insistent.

In other words, Coney Island, New York’s gigantic playground by the sea. An incredible place. Bigger, fiercer, more strident, more restless than any seaside resort between Land’s End and the Orkneys.

Comparisons are futile. Think of Southend blended with Blackpool, Southport, and Brighton, and even then you are wrong. It simply cannot be done.

Coney Island is slum New York transported to the sea front by underground trains that function like a machine-gun. For 5d the East Side worker is whirled by tunnel under a river and a city to the free' beach. Behind it are the doubtful and less free attractions of circusdom, strung together by an endless chain of food-and-drink booths. There the East Sider sits in extreme undress, usuully preferring snrid to jwlb water, he and his family down to the latest baby.

They are packed so tightly together that one walks with difficulty between the public promenade and th,e water’s edge. Midnight is as noon time, when the thermometer rises above 90 at Coney- Island. Motor-car owners (some of! them are actually newsboys) roll away reluctantly in "the cool of the early morning after 18 hours or so of 1 week-end “ holiday ” on the sand. No early-to-bed City Fathers blight the feverish joys of these revellers. Acres of “amusement park” and

“Fun City” contraption's are' spread over the . immediate background Crash, bang, rattle, roar! None 'of ihem is ever ..still.. Above, the din of the mock racing cars, the aeroplane coaches slung to a giant wheel, the wild howls of the touts, can be heard the voice of the populace ever calling

for “hot dogs,”. Tins mystery member of the sausage family is as popular in August as in, winter. ~, > /-•• • Coney Islanders suffer from perpetual hunger v They ‘ are • eating at all hours and in all attitudes. Never have 1 seen so many pickled cucumbers consumed alongside the Atlantic. ;

Staid town, councillors who consider themselves responsible for the decorum of English seaside resorts would stand aghast at the free-and-easy aspect o' Concy. f , ;and,ifcs, neighbours. Bathing costumes are reduced to. .a minimum, and their.-use is not restricted to the,.sea.. Anyone can lounge about anct pay social calls between the raised, promenade and the water’s edge. Coney ’ Island’s next-door neighbour. Brighton-Beach goes much farther. Bathing suits rife worn far inland The residential .streets are filled with people of all ages, ready for swimming, who may or may not wear a .loose \ outer garment flung carelessly over their bare shoulders. Even the girl who keeps the largest sweet-and-fruit stall, three blocks from the sea she never visits, follows the prevailing

.fashion in undress. ' • Coney Island is but one fragment of the Long Island coast upon , which New Yorkers try .to cool themselves en %msse on these torrid August days. It merges almost imperceptibly with it.-» and you do not realise that have ascended slightly in the scale seaside social life until the blare .of *the mechanised fun machines begins to '■(fie down behind you. Eventually you arrive at Manhattan Beach, and here is a .sight to startle conservative folk.

This hit- of ocean is fenced off by a

high palisade, and admission is ob.tainx ed only by paying 2s. It is well worth the money. The blend of land and sea life on a mixed bathing basis is like nothing in England, or, for that matter, anywhere else this side of Berlin’s odd open-air resort at Wannsee Lake. It is a vast enclosure, this institution called Manhattan Beach, with a strand for timid bathers and rocks for those who like them. But the shore attractions are the most popular. Imagine a County Council park where men and women in ordinary dress are' intermingled on the wooden benches with those in bathing costume. Pretty girls, others not so comely, matrons, arid males of all ages, similarly unattired, stroll up and down the walks, or stapd drinking orangeade at ah open- • air bar, or sit at tables in an open-air restaurant. A quite capable orchestra, perched in a kiosk, plays grand opera, and a lady in a picture hat (and skirt) sings vivaciously, while her audience, mostly in bathing costume, listen appreciatively from the seats below. Occasionally the effect is marred by some pseudo' bather accosting a shod arid clothed passer-by with a fervent request to get off his or her bare feet. Within the precincts of Manhattan Beach, men bathers play baseball and women bathers play tennis. I saw a baby in its perambulator wheeled along a tree-shaded pavement by a mother in the same scant costume. No one cared. No one stared. The only people who felt self-conscious were those in trousers or skirts. Coney Island and its comrades of this crowded coast would excite varying emotions in the English seaside resorts. I can imagine Margate looking enviously upon the unusual free-

dom of Manhattan Beach. Bournemouth, I am sure, would give one