Summer Times
I took this photo on a particularly foggy summer afternoon. I had skipped out on attending my graduation from the master's program I was in and was waiting for a few other M.A. kids to show up and take part in taking Coney Island in (on an off day it turned out). The fog was intense, you can't really tell in this photo (as it has been tweaked over and over again) but at one point of the day I stood at the end of the long pier extending into the Atlantic Ocean and could see just a small glimmer of the shore line. Funny thing, when I got on the subway to make my way to Coney Island it was a bright and sunny day, the sky was clear the birds were singing, children were swearing like sailors. The moment I stepped off the subway at the Brighton Beach stop it seemed like a thick low cloud had settled over everything. As it was the very start of the season, and the middle of the week, there were relatively few people on the boardwalk or the beach; made the whole trip feel a bit surreal and cathartic which considering this was the day that marked the end of my college education (at least for the time being). To be pretentious for just a second, I felt like my life was also entering a foggy area, out of the clear goal oriented world of academia and into the foggy uncertainty of post-graduate unemployment. Nothing in my future seemed all that clear, I could sort of make out shapes but for all I knew those shapes I thought to be treasure chests were possibly just trashcans scattered on the beach.
Alright moment of pretension has been dealt with. Let me get into the photo itself. I love graffiti. Love it. Think it is one of the best thing that has happened to walls since hapless layabouts decided to hold them up. I also like things in disrepair. You get a better sense of a dynamic history from things that are falling apart than you do with things that are squeaky clean. The vacant lot that makes up the majority of Playland was littered with random trash. Seagulls were resting, munching on corn dogs and fried dough they managed to steal from the handful of people taking a stroll on the boardwalk. You also have to take into account that where there is now grass there was once pavement. You can still see some traces of the pavement here and there but for the most part everything, save the main building, is gone. It was not only taken over by nature but also by the streets (i.e. the tags on the building). The Playland that entertained children and young couples on a carefree date has no become a Playland for seagulls, rats and late night graffiti artists (who are, for the most part, viewed by the City as vermin as well).
Winter Times
This photo I took a few weekends ago. I was only a few days back in the city from taking a short trip to my home state for the holidays and felt the need to go back and check out the scene. Oddly enough there were more people this day than during the summer. Going to Coney Island this time I was in a different state of mind. Things have been going a bit better for me (direction wise), I was pretty much happy and the many trips I made to Coney Island that past summer since the foggy day had cemented a stronger endearment towards the neighborhood. Much had changed for me and low in a pretentious streak of fate much had changed to Playland!
I do not think I even had a slight inkling that I was going to take another photo of Playland that day. I kind of hate retaking photos of the same thing unless it is for a series or I seriously hate that photo I have taken of something and get a random streak of ambition and retake the photo. However, when I sauntered passed (yes I did indeed saunter) I was amazed at how much growth there was in the vacant lot and it was only after I started working on retouching the color (I dislike my camera because the color always needs to be adjusted in Photoshop) that I noticed that the graffiti was painted over and it seems the building itself has been given a cleaning. The building itself is still closed and there is no sign that anything is ever going to happen to the space but regardless it has a nice look to it, and I actually like how the photo came out a bit more than the one from the summer.
Coney Island has gone from being the ultimate play land to one of the seediest sections of Brooklyn to being slowly revived and now on the verge of having (for better or worse) a major redesign. I don't know if Playland will survive much longer. It could have been bought by someone and might be restored to its former glory, or it could be wiped off the map to make room for a condo. Life changes, sometimes it changes slowly like the grass uprooting the pavement, other times it changes as fast as a paint roller or a spray can hitting a wall. All things are transitory, and to me, that's great because whenever I get stuck in a fog bank of life I can always be sure that eventually the fog will lift and I'll have noticed that there's a field of tall grass right before me and oh no! There's a bear!!
Cheers!
~C~
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