Boardwalk: Photos by Meredith Caliento, Spoken Word by Michael Schwartz

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Boardwalk: Photos by Meredith Caliento, Spoken Word by Michael Schwartz

January 8, 2011 by Tricia

Photographer Meredith Caliento, who lives in Sea Gate, teamed up with Coney Island poet Michael Schwartz to produce “Boardwalk,” a slideshow with words.

“It’s tough to choose a favorite photo from the slideshow, almost impossible,”” says Caliento, who studied photography at the School of Visual Arts. “But I am very fond of the far-off lifeguard chair. It reminds me of the very end of the season, those bittersweet weeks when it’s warm enough to go barefoot in the sand, but no longer warm enough to swim.”

The photographer is also partial to the two old ladies. “They represent some of the spirit of Coney Island, and the image makes me think of all the generations before us who walked on the same boardwalk we walk on today.”

Poet and playwright Michael Schwartz’s work is inspired by his Coney Island boyhood. Funded by a grant from the Brooklyn Historical Society, Schwartz delved into the Society’s Coney Island collection that includes postcards, photographs and artifacts to write his own short stories, poems, monologues, and songs about Coney Island. Schwartz hopes to complete and publish his collected works as a book. He has performed at the Bowery Poetry Club, Coney Island USA, and the Brooklyn Historical Society, among others.