Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Coney Island: Always In New York, Now In The New Yorker

The Coney Island photo portfolio which appeared in last week's New Yorker is now available online. The set is about what you would expect. The (frequently foggy) photos that make up 'Coney Island Days' are of obvious subjects (Nathan's, the Wonder Wheel, etc.), and the accompanying text is full of the typical pretentious New Yorker-isms, such as "outer-borough-ese" and "Coney's singular poem is the boardwalk, two and a half elegiac herringboned miles."

As unsurprising and condescending as it may be, though, the portfolio does offer some beautiful shots of everyone's favorite spots.

Coney Island Days [The New Yorker]

- post by Ben Nadler

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree the photos were great and the writing a bit pithy, but I have to admit I liked the description of the boardwalk that came just after the "elegiac herring-boned" bit: "An end-of-a-movie tracking shot or, for that matter, a beginning. What's it to you?"

Coney finds its way into a lot of my own writing (blogging and otherwise) and I think it's because there really is something cinematic about it. So I suppose that's why I liked the "tracking shot" line at the end of the piece.

But an elegiac herring-boned boardwalk? More like a personal-injury lawsuit waiting to happen! :)