A rare off-weekend in the Pines finally provided an opportunity to see the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, which usually takes place around the summer solstice.
Even without cellphones we managed to find Florian and Roland, his roommate, in the crowd on Surf Avenue. I've been a big fan of Coney Island since the 80s, when it used to be a regular stop on my parts-of-New-York most-tourists-never-see tour in Herr Cucaracha. More recently, I discovered that Thom never had been, either, and he grew up in Queens!
We arrived too late to see David Johansen as King Neptune, a role Lou Reed would assume five years later with his wife, Laurie Anderson, as Queen Mermaid. Other hipster royalty has included David Byrne, Moby, Deborah Harry, Lynda Barry and Queen Latifah.
Participants typically dress in campy, often gender-bending marine life costumes.
Some are more revealing than others.
I'm not sure who this guy thinks he is but notice his camera lens and his sheath are pointed in the same direction. Different times!
Party time on top of the bus.
If memory serves, it ran on vegetable oil.
Crowd gazing is part of the appeal, too. I wonder what this guy looks like now?
We ended the day with a stroll on the no-less colorful boardwalk. I'll never forget the night of my first visit, with some pals from the New York Public Library. Young people of color boogied from one moonlit end to the other, moving in time to the rhythm of blaring boomboxes carried on the shoulders of their sherpas.
The hipster wanna-be and the German tourist train back to Manhattan.
A young Ukrainian woman flirted with Florian. She was barking up the wrong tree but it made a sweet photo.
More Coney Island:
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