"Sands of Time" & Coney Island

[Photo courtesy of the Daily News]
We didn't take note of it yesterday, but Jotham Sederstrom's package of articles on Coney Island in yesterday's Daily News is absolutely worth checking out. The story doesn't dive into the odd negotiations that have been going on (or the various agendas of the negotiators and those floating the stories), but presents a nice picture of what has brought us to the current state of affairs. Interestingly, one of the stories in the package notes that Coney attendance is up this season. One indication is that between April and July, average weekend ridership at the Stillwell Ave. train station leaped to 83,068, a 26% increase from the same period last year. Beach attendance is down, though, with the Parks Department estimating that 6.4 million people used Coney Island beaches from Memorial Day and Aug. 1, a decrease of 40.5 percent from last summer.

Here are links to the individual pieces:

• Sands of time catch up to Coney Island
• A big bump in attendance
• Life was a beach with everything from romance to race rioting
• Boardwalk of history
• Photo Gallery