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Lottery to Become Member of Coney Island Polar Bear Club

Posted in Events, News, video, tagged Coney Island, Coney Island Polar Bear Club, membership, Polar Bear Swim, winter bathing, winter swimming on November 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Coney Island Polar Bear Club, November 6, 2011. Photo © Bruce Handy via Coney Island Photo Diary

Best known for their New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge, the Coney Island Polar Bear Club actually goes for a dip in the Atlantic every Sunday at 1pm from November through April. Today, November 3rd, is the first swim of the 2013-2014 season for the country’s oldest winter bathing club, founded in 1903 by Bernarr Macfadden.

In this video by Polar Bear Capri Djatiasmoro, taken on April 28, 2013, the final cold water swim of last season, the Bears “circle up” at the ten minute mark. The water temp was 50F / 10C. Want to join them? For the 2013-2014 season, the Coney Island Polar Bears are accepting 10 applicants for membership chosen by lottery.

To register for the lottery, you must sign up here and will be notified of the results by November 9th. Selected applicants are required to pay a $25 application fee (non-refundable), participate in 12 swims within a single season between November and April and be voted in by a majority of the membership. The club has approximately 150 full-time members with about 100 coming out for weekly swims. Here’s another vid, also by Polar Bear Capri Djatiasmoro, of the group walking to the water on a cold day in January. Can you say camaraderie?

You can also join the Coney Polar Bear Club for one guest swim. Just show up at the Bears “Clubhouse” at the Aquarium’s Education Hall on the Coney Island Boardwalk at West 8th Street by 12:30 pm with your bathing suit, a towel, surf boots or an extra pair of sneakers, and some warm clothing.

Membership is not required for the January 1st Polar Bear Plunge, a fundraiser for Camp Sunshine and local charities. Besides being a great way to start off the new year, the event raises more than $20,000 annually for Camp Sunshine, a retreat for children with life threatening diseases.

Banksy Does Bumper Car, Has Yet to Do Coney Island

Posted in art, video, tagged Banksy, Better Out Than In, Coney Island, Eldorado Arcade, Eldorado Bumper Cars, Os Gemeos, Reaper, Steve Powers, street art on October 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

Yesterday, Banksy unveiled a Bumper Car-riding Reaper in Manhattan and posted this video set to the tune of “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The installation is at Houston and Elizabeth Streets, where it’s on view from dusk till midnight through Sunday. “Welcome to the fair — which life isn’t,” says the audio guide to the piece.

With 5 days left in his “Better Out Than In” tour of New York City, we’re still waiting for Banksy to create a piece of street art in Coney Island. He has chosen locations in the South Bronx, Staten Island and Queens but the majority of his pieces are in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, Williamsburg, Red Hook, East New York and Sunset Park. How can you visit the City for a month and not do Coney Island?! There’s still time, Banksy– Coney Island’s amusement rides are open through Sunday, but the rest of Coney is open year round!

Os Gemeos Mural on Stillwell Ave, Coney Island. October 30, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Coney Island has a rich tradition of street art. Guerrilla art by RAE and post-Sandy MERCY graffiti by an unknown artist have appeared this year. OverUnder, ND’A, Veng, Radical and Ephameron painted murals for a project curated by Keith Schweitzer for No Longer Empty in 2011.

Os Gemeos, the Brazilian twins whom Banksy collaborated with on 24th Street in Chelsea have a 130-foot mural on Coney’s Stillwell Avenue that dates back to 2005. Work by Steve Powers, whose Dreamland Artists Club in collaboration with Creative Time brought new signage to Coney Island, can still be seen on the staircase at Coney Island USA, West 12th Street’s Miss Coney Island and Skin the Wire, and the Eldorado Bumper Cars on Surf Ave. Sideshow banners by Marie Roberts have emblazoned the facade of Coney Island USA’s headquarters since 1997.

Tonight at the Eldorado Bumper Cars and Arcade, there’s a “Things That Go Bump in the Night” Halloween party. Free unlimited “Bump Your Ass Off” bumper car rides are included with the price of admission. The DJ lineup includes Groove Therapy artists Bass Age, Chris See, Dali, Hardbass Addicts, Nicky Twist, Steve Nice and TJFX. Time: 9pm – 3am, Age: 18+, Tickets: $20.

UPDATE October 28, 2013:

Banksy’s newest work is in Coney Island! A robot spray-painting a mysterious barcode on Stillwell Avenue at Neptune

Eldorado Auto Skooters sign by Steve Powers, Surf Avenue in Coney Island. September 5, 2012. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Traveler: Osteria Ai Pioppi’s Homemade Amusement Rides

Posted in Amusement ride, Travel, video, tagged Ai Pioppi, Coleman Guyon, documentary, documentary film, Fabrica, Italy, Luiz Romero, Osteria Ai Pioppi on October 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Restaurants with amusement rides in the U.S. tend to be of the Chuck E. Cheese variety, but deep in a forest in Treviso, Italy, the Osteria Ai Pioppi offers a magical playground of handmade, human-powered amusement rides. The documentary “Ai Pioppi” released last week on Vimeo, where it was a staff pick, features a tantalizing peek at the park and an interview with Ai Pioppi’s creator.

Homemade Slide at Ai Pioppi, Treviso, Italy. Photo via aipioppi.com

“The first big ride I made was that iron slide and that was forty years ago,” says Bruno, who built the rides in his workshop after learning how to weld. “At that time it was big news. There were not many strange rides like that.”

Homemade Roller Coaster at Ai Pioppi, Treviso, Italy. Photo via aipioppi.com

Ai Pioppi’s swings, gyroscopes and roller coasters call to mind the hand-cranked carousels of the earliest days of amusement ride history and the Swingin’ Gym carnival ride of the 1960s. The source of Bruno’s inspiration? “A branch falls, a leaf floats down, a stone rolls. And I say to myself. Maybe I can use this movement. That’s how my ideas are born.”

Beautifully photographed by Coleman Guyon and written by Luiz Romero, the documentary was produced by a team from Treviso-based Fabrica, a communications research center, studio and school.