Robert Egert

Coney

I grew up in coney island. We moved there when I was in the early half of high school, I think. Probably my freshman year. The ocean, the sounds of dolphins from the aquarium, the broken down junk stores and first wave of Russian emigrants all crowd together in my memory. I used to run on the boardwalk early in the morning mostly--but sometimes at night feeling superior to people who only came to the boardwalk in the summer.

Wonder Wheel

On a late Autumn afternoon, Coney Island doesn't look too different than it did in the 1970's and 1980's, when there were more decayed and semi-abandoned rides, shooting galleries and games. One of my favorite games was ski-ball. Ski-ball was a game that you played by pitching a ball down a long track about 2 feet wide. At the end of the track there was a little ramp and the ball would become airborne. The object of the game was to get your ball into one of the holes just past the ramp. They were arrayed like a bullseye and the holes in the cetner had a higher score than the ones on the edges.

The Cyclone

Everyone seems to know the Cyclone. In the early eighties Woody Allen made a movie called, Brighton Beach Memoirs, or something like that. The lead character grew up in a wooden building underneath the cycone. Well, my childhood wasn't so different actually. In the summer I could hear people screaming as the roller coaster raced around the curves.

Empty Spaces

Once the amusement park closes for the Winter there are lots of odd, empty spaces and alleys that are packed with people in the Summer. The Wonder Wheel is located in a strange dog-leg spacee squeezed between other, larger amusment areas. This is the entryway.

Roller Coasters

In all the years that I lved across the street from the Cyclone I think I actually only rode on it once or twice. All I can say is that after riding on it some part of me said, stay away, forever after. As we get older our brain fluid must get thinner (or something) because quick jarring action in the head is not pleasant and takes time to recover fomr. When I was younger I was afriad of throwing up. Today I'd be afriad of being dizzy for days after a ride on the Cyclone.

Home

The apartment I lived in is still there of course. It took a while to get used to the sound of the elevated subway just outside my window. There's actually a double-decker elevated line there: two separate trains running (as if one wasn't enough). It meant that the deafening noise came about once every 5 minutes during rush hour and at least once every helf hour even int he middle of the night. If I was on the phone I'd have to tell people to hold on until the train passed. I can still remember the first night sleeping in my apartment there: I dreamt that a chorus of angels was singing the most beautiful songs and when I woke it was the screeching of the F train around the sharp curve outside my window.