{"id":26208,"date":"2020-10-04T15:35:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T19:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=26208"},"modified":"2020-10-04T15:36:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-04T19:36:15","slug":"coney-island-photo-found-at-a-bus-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2020\/10\/04\/coney-island-photo-found-at-a-bus-stop.html","title":{"rendered":"Coney Island Photo Found at a Bus Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not going to lose sleep over it, but this old Fujifilm Instax print was a strange thing to find at a midtown bus stop. Wedged into one of the panels that contain bus route maps and schedules, this photo shows a woman in a bathing suit standing on what the frame shows as a nearly deserted Coney Island. The wristband suggests maybe she was part of a gathering of people on the beach, with it signaling she was an invitee allowed to eat the food or whatnot.<\/p>\n

\"Woman

Woman at Coney Island Found at a Bus Stop<\/p><\/div>\n

The back of the print reveals it to be a Fujifilm Instax print, with the warning “Don’t put in mouth.”<\/p>\n

\"Woman

Woman at Coney Island Found at a Bus Stop<\/p><\/div>\n

It is an interesting photo in its way, but why anyone would take the time and trouble to deliberately place it on a bus stop sign is a bit curious. It is undated, and I don’t know the Coney Island landscape well enough to tell if the absence or presence of certain structures offer clues to the photo’s vintage.<\/p>\n

Last time I made it to Coney Island was a couple of years ago, when I had not intended to go there but just ended up staying on a D train for the duration. I’d been hunting for PRAY<\/a>, and maybe I found her, maybe I didn’t<\/a>. Since then my PRAY hunting skills have refined considerably, and I know exactly where to find her.<\/p>\n

I’d like to get back to Coney Island. the Aquarium in particular, but I remain reticent about lengthy subway rides or inhabiting any kind of confined space with other people.<\/p>\n

I never made it onto the Wonder Wheel or most of the iconic rides at Coney Island but I once blasted skyward in the old Astro Tower, when it was in an enclosed compartment known as the “bagel in the sky”. Today’s Astro Tower is open air, making it a ride I likely would never want to take. In the scanned photo the Astro Tower is, I believe, right at the center.<\/p>\n

In 2002 I shared the Astro Tower ride with just three other people, among them a man feverishly counting a stack of hundred dollar bills. I wouldn’t know where the money came from but he seemed to have no scruples about counting it in a way that anyone could see. If anything criminal was afoot maybe the dude knew the Astro Tower pod to be a safe haven.<\/p>\n

I got the kind of photo I guess everyone gets from up there, taken with the old Nikon Coolpix 990, showing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (today officially spelled “Verrazzano-Narrows”) off in the distance:<\/p>\n

\"View

View From the Old Astro Tower, Coney Island, 2002<\/p><\/div>\n

The found photo scans are the first scans I’ve made with an old Canon Canoscan 9000F that languished in the bedroom for I don’t know how many years. It seems to work as well as ever. The imperfections in the scanned photo are physical scratches, not dust.<\/p>\n\n