Coney Island in Winter

My trip to Coney Island on a mild winter day was a short one but a pleasant one, apart from the Aquarium and the train station, everything I passed on my visit there seemed to be closed. I was expecting this though, after-all it's a beach in Winter and outside the regular tourist season. To be honest I was kinda glad it was very quiet as it really contrasted with the busy of the streets of New York from the New York Giants homecoming parade I attended in the morning. This was the afternoon of the day Norngirl and I did our own thing and this was the one thing I had managed to think up for the day - mainly to be by the sea and walk along the beach but also to see this famous place I'd heard so much about.

The one thing that struck me when I got off the subway train at Stillwell Avenue Station...

and walked to the sea front...

...was how sparse the area is. In my mind, Coney Island was a tightly built up coastline like Blackpool in the UK, it turns out it's not so densely built up, at least these days, certainly there were lots of car parks.

I walked a good way along the beach, there didn't seem much to see to the West so I headed East leaving a train of footprints in the sand:

The sun was out and it was surprisingly warm, if we'd have visited on plenty of other years it could have been freezing cold and snowing but this is the scene of bright sunshine beating down on a pretty empty beach that I found.

The sand at the top of the beach was getting in my shoes a bit so I ventured down to the waters edge where a few other sensible people were already walking.

It was nice and relaxing with a frequent small wave breaking close by.

Lots of Seagulls had also decided to loiter and perch on the rocks, waiting for anything washing up in the surf.

Coney Island is very much a people beach. There were some less pretty sights, like this tyre:

But for the most part it was quite traditionally beachy:

Looking back up the beach, Deno's Wonder Wheel was towering over the gulls.

After a while my legs began to tire so I made my way back up to the boardwalk... and that's where I'll take you in my next post - here.