Memories Of Coney Island
When I was seven years old I spent two weeks one summer with my Grandma Anna. She lived in a high rise apartment in Coney Island which was approximately three or four blocks away from the boardwalk. Those two weeks became one of the most memorable summers of my life. At that time my grandmother had eight grandkids or so. I was the fourth oldest of the brew. Our Grandma Anna was a one of a kind, warm loving, generous person & it was really special to have her all to myself. Her stories were the funniest, & she would make me laugh far into the night. During my visit she would take me on the elevator train passing by Yankee Stadium as we traveled to the Bronx to visit my cousins. Other times over those two weeks my cousins would travel in from wherever they lived in the city to visit with us.
Today my husband & I took a Sunday jaunt into Hartford to see the Coney Island exhibit at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum Of Art. And so the memories began to spark.
Above is a caricature of Mae West & Jimmy Durante from the Coney Island exhibit.
During the summer the borough of Brooklyn would have fireworks at Coney Island once or twice a week, every week. All the kids of course would be downstairs outside in front of the buildings to oo & ah. Often times as the fireworks disintegrated in the night sky they would call out a kind of pasta with each & every sparkling blast- macaroni, spaghetti, rigatoni. I didn't particularly like this naming game, but I was the visiting kid from Connecticut. It was their turf, their game, & macaroni always won!
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