coney island is america

by sam on 07/16/2017

I try to get out to Coney Island at least once every summer – it changes so much year-to-year, while retaining its essential Coney-ness, that going out to photograph it always seems like a good idea. Not necessarily a good idea? Deciding to do this on a really beautiful, and hot, July 4th. I did try to take precautions, like looking up when the hot dog eating contest was supposed to start (and end), but apparently published times are not accurate. I arrived at 1:30, almost perfectly timed to get trapped in a wall of humanity that was being blocked from moving anywhere while protesters tried to disrupt the main event.

So after that claustrophobic mess, I finally made my way to the boardwalk for my yearly photo stroll. This year with many, many more people. Next year I’m going back to my normal tradition of going out there at 6am on a random non-holiday. Still glad I went. Despite what others might think, New York is the most quintessentially American place on earth.