Amusing the Zillion

Video: Coney Island Dancing 2012 by Jim McDonnell

September 13, 2012 by Tricia

For the past two seasons, photographer and film editor Jim McDonnell has released a video titled “Coney Island Dancing” after the boardwalk dancers pack it in for the season. We’re happy to report that the 2012 edition has arrived just in time for, well more dancing on the Boardwalk! The Coney Island Dancers have announced that they are extending their season of free outdoor dance parties with an October Fest from September 29 through Halloween.

Posted on Labor Day, “Coney Island Dancing 2012” opens with the legendary Tony Disco before segueing to the legendary dancing doll known as “Miss Coney Island.” Both are charismatic old-timers who are famous in Coney Island and deserve wider acclaim. Nice to see them start this show, which distills a season’s worth of dance moves on the Boardwalk and the Polar Express and at Luna Park, Wonder Wheel Park and the Mermaid Parade and Ball into a joyous four minute forty-five second video. Here are links to Jim’s dance vids from 2010 and 2011 in case you missed ’em. Party on!

San Gennaro: Cannoli, Connie Francis & A High Striker Queen

September 12, 2012 by Tricia

Festival Wheel at San Gennaro, Little Italy. September 18, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

It’s that time of year when you get to ride a Ferris wheel set up on the street like in the early 1900s and peer inside apartment windows as you whirl by! The 86th Annual Feast of San Gennaro in New York City’s Little Italy, the world’s most famous street fair, opens on September 13th at 2pm with a Cannoli Eating Contest. If you’ve got the appetite, registration for the contest is now open on Major League Eating’s website. The guy to beat is Patrick Bertoletti, who consumed 32 large cannnoli in six minutes at last year’s festival.

A contingent of Coney Island game and food concessionaires have already decamped from the People’s Playground for Manhattan’s Mulberry Street. Monica the High Striker Queen has packed up her trio of strikers and sundry hammers and prizes, though she says she’ll be back to finish out the season in Coney after the feast ends on September 23rd. This is the spunky gal who told a Voice of America reporter that independent attractions like hers give Coney Island its soul. “Our spirit will live on long after we’re dead, honey. We are the blood, sweat and tears on the block,” said Monica in a feature about Coney’s amusement parks.

Look for Monica, the High Striker Queen of Coney Island at San Gennaro. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Also making the annual pilgrimage to San Gennaro are the proprietors of Gyro Corner, formerly on Coney Island’s Boardwalk and now on the Bowery. They serve different menu items than in Coney: it’s strictly calamari and Mama’s homemade sauce. Cha Cha’s outdoor bar and Steeplechase Park on Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island are now closed for the season, but John “Cha Cha” Ciarcia is also the owner of Cha Cha’s in Bocca Al Lupo Restaurant on Mulberry Street. They are among the more than 35 restaurants and 200 vendors along Mulberry between Houston and Canal and neighboring streets. Buon appetito!

The official feast day marking the anniversary of San Gennaro’s martyrdom is September 19th. After the 5pm Mass at Most Precious Blood Church, the statue of San Gennaro is paraded through the streets. If you go to the feast, make sure to bring crisp new bills, preferably in large denominations, to pin to the beribboned saint, and stop by the Italian American Museum at Mulberry and Grand Streets. At another parade on Saturday, September 15th, legendary singer Connie Francis, born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, will be one of the Grand Marshals riding on a float. Will she serenade the crowd with a medley of her hits from the 1950s and ’60s? A “Meet and Greet” with Connie Francis is scheduled for 4pm on Saturday at the feast’s performance stage at Grand and Mott Streets. The street festival runs from 11am till midnight.

ATZ slide show of the 2009 Feast of San Gennaro…

Let’s Have an Eldorado Bump-A-Thon In Lieu of a Debate

September 10, 2012 by Tricia

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

In lieu of one of the presidential debates, let the candidates come to Coney Island and ride the world-renowned Eldorado Bumper Cars! There’d be no equivocating, no need for fact-checking. The slogan here is “Bump Your Ass Off.” We have to thank conservative columnist Derek Hunter for inspiring this wacky idea with his snarky tweet:

Mitt Romney will be on Meet the Press this Sunday, Joe Biden will be on the bumper cars at Coney Island trying to figure out how they work.
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) September 7, 2012

Of course, Joe Biden did not come to Coney Island on Sunday. As everyone knows by now, he was photographed at Cruisers Diner in Ohio, winning the biker chick vote while two dudes looked on disapprovingly. The photo cracked us up. Perhaps Coney Island USA should invite Biden and the biker gang to the upcoming Tattoo and Motorcycle Festival? Obama also had an amazing photo op in a Florida pizza parlor on Sunday, where the owner lifted him off his feet in a bear hug. We prefer the pic of him riding the bumper cars with Sasha at the Iowa State Fair in 2007.

Coney Island could use this kind of publicity, especially after Labor Day. When we took these photos last Wednesday, Surf Avenue was a ghost town thanks to rain earlier in the day. Only the Eldorado, Game World and Nathan’s were open. (See comments below for clarification.) As far as we know, the last time a presidential candidate campaigned in Coney Island was on Labor Day 1960, when the GOP candidate for Vice President Henry Cabot Lodge was filmed chomping on hot dogs at Nathan’s. Fifty years is too long between campaign stops.