Whenever you get tired (as I often do) of the Manhattan cliché, for an easy but radically change, get on the Q train to Brooklyn, Coney Island destination. A less than one-hour subway ride takes to you a 21K New World translation of a Fellinisque adventure.
Already at the exit of the train station, at 8th Street you encounter Vito Acconci’s Wavewall: the integration of the artwork into the station architecture makes the façade bulging out.
The Luna Park greets you with the aging iconic open frame megastructures: the Wondel Wheel and the roll coaster rides. And, of course, the no longer used Parachute Jump, built for the 1939 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Park, and then moved to Coney Island for a thrill ride on cable operated parachutes.
If you don’t like (fearing motion sickness as myself) to indulge on the thrill rides, you can jog, power walk or simple stroll on a two-mile long boardwalk, parallel to the Atlantic coast, bringing you the mighty ocean breeze.
Coney Island offers you several miles of public beaches; the almost one-thousand foot Steeplechase Pier takes you to the ocean.
And back from the ocean to the land: the world famous boardwalk awaits you, with its is constellated by not-so-healthy food concessions —and several interesting pavilions providing shade and comfort stations.
And if you still have some energy left you can visit the New York Aquarium
Following my shadow on the boardwalk, at the end of the afternoon, on my way to Brighton Beach.Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project
“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"
