Three Iconic Bar/Restaurants Sign 8 Year Leases!
December 11, 2011
12/09/201110:39 PM
Businesses Get New Leases On
Coney Island Boardwalk
New long term leases are now in place for three boardwalk businesses in Coney Island, including Brooklyn institution Tom’s Restaurant, which will open a location on the spot where the former ChaCha’s and Nathan’s boardwalk concession operated.
New long-term leases are now in place for three boardwalk businesses in Coney Island.
As NY1 first reported earlier this week, Brooklyn institution Tom’s Restaurant will now be setting up a second location.
The 1936 Prospect Heights eatery will open a Coney Island restaurant with a similar menu.
It signed an eight-year deal to take over the spot where the former ChaCha’s and Nathan’s boardwalk concession operated.
Also signing eight-year leases are longtime boardwalk businesses Ruby’s Bar and Paul’s Daughter.
It’s a twist of fate for the establishments, which were evicted at the end of the 2010 season by the new landlord Zamperla.
All three businesses are expected to be open for business in April.
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B&B Carousell to Return to Coney in 2013
November 18, 2011
NY1 Exclusive:
Historic Carousel Is Jewel Of New
Coney Island Park
11/10/11
As the city starts construction on a new park next to the Coney Island boardwalk, NY1 has an exclusive sneak peek at its design, which includes a historic carousel that is a neighborhood landmark. Borough reporter Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.*
The B&B Carousel, a fabled part of Coney Island history, used to sit on Surf Avenue. Now, developers will place it next to the landmark Parachute Jump, in a two-story pavilion with folding glass doors that open out toward the boardwalk.
The designer, David Rockwell of Rockwell Group, explains that he wants to have the famed amusement park’s history mingle with the fun.
“We’re treating the carousel and the 50 amazing original horses and two chariots as kind of a jewel offset with this round building,” says Rockwell. “And around the perimeter, when you’re on the carousel, there will be a small installation looking at the history of Coney Island.”
The carousel will sit in a newly created Steeplechase Plaza. The city starts construction of the 2.2-acre park this week.
“It’s a wonderful little park off the boardwalk that will allow people a place to hang out. There’s a very shaded grove of trees down the hill, and it’s the first public part of reimagining Coney Island,” says Rockwell.
The city reimagined the more than 90-year-old wooden carousel operating in Coney Island’s future. Back in 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg bought the carousel for nearly $2 million, when it was up for sale. It was old but still operational.
The carousel is being restored in Ohio to make its grand return to a $30 million Steeplechase Plaza, which sits in the the footprint of the former Steeplechase amusement Park.
“The parachute jump has always been this amazing icon, but now you’re going to get to enter Steeplechase Plaza underneath it. And as you peek through it, it’ll pull you into the park,” says Rockwell.
The city says the park and carousel will be ready for the 2013 season.
* The blog is waiting on a photo of the rendering of the new building
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Blogger’s Note:
The carousel’s spelling was “Carousell”. On July 4, 2001, Mike Saltzstein passed away at the age of 60, after operating the beautiful “catch the ring” carousell for more than a quarter of a century. The Carousell was later sold to the City of NY, dismantled and went through extensive renovation. I think it fitting that the carousell have a plaque honoring Mike for his dedication and devotion to this beautiful mechanical wonder.
Coney Island USA Purchases New Building
November 18, 2011
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Thursday, November 17, 2011; Posted: 05:11 PM – by BWW News Desk – Broadwayworld.com
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Coney Island USA, operators of the last stationary 10-in-1 Sideshow in the nation, the Coney Island Museum, and the Mermaid Parade, is pleased to announce the purchase of the Denny’s Ice Cream building (1214 Surf Avenue). The purchase was finalized on Monday, November 14, 2011.
Denny’s Ice Cream is immediately next-door to Coney Island USA’s landmarked headquarters (1208 Surf Avenue) and guarantees space for Coney Island USA’s long-term growth. Immediate plans call for the continued operation of Denny’s business while Coney Island USA begins work with architects to transform the space into a new exhibition and special events venue which will be available for weddings, performances, and special events. Coney Island USA will continue the tradition of storefront retail on Surf Avenue even after the space is made available for artistic programming. Coney Island USA Executive Artistic Director Dick Zigun said, “By owning both of these properties, Coney Island USA has guaranteed that 100-years from now, Coney Island will remain a quirky and exciting place for live performance and spectacle.”
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For Coney’s Boardwalk “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
November 4, 2011
Before reading today’s article about Boardwalk busineses auctioning off their wares, I thought it appropriate to add this song by Bob Dylan. Read the NY Daily News article after the lyrics.
The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Bob Dylan
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the
waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched
to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start
swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your
eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the
wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the
loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the
doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who
has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake
your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t
criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are
beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the
new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will
later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they
are a-changin’
Going once, going twice…Iconic
Coney Island Memorabilia Goes to
the Highest Bidder
Boardwalk businesses like Cha Cha’s Bar that lost their leases put items up for auction
BY Erin Durkin
New York Daily News, Wed. Nov. 4, 2011
The famous Cha Cha’s Bar and Cafe on the Coney Island Boardwalk is being forced to auction off most of its property after failing to get a new lease.
A white upright piano went up for sale, along with a Stuff-your-own-teddy bear machine, a disco ball, a fog-making machine and piña colada and funnel cake stands, as businesses slated to be evicted from their Boardwalk spots sold off their wares.
There were dusty speakers, weathered beer signs, bar stools, cigar boxes, and plates painted with images of Campbell’s soup cans.
“I’m selling these neon signs, one, two, three, four, five,” rattled off auctioneer Joe Benigno. “Can’t get these no more, guys.”
A small crowd of bargain hunters gathered to snap up the items. Among them were memorabilia dealers, business owners looking for supplies, and curiosity seekers looking to spend a few bucks on a beat-up artifact of the iconic Boardwalk.
“People want to get old-fashioned stuff for their bars, memorabilia that was part of Coney Island,” said Benigno, of Best Buy Auctioneers, who conducted the sale along with Vincent J. Casale & Co.
Two of the businesses initially hit with eviction notices by amusement company Zamperla – Ruby’s Bar and Paul’s Daughter – have since been offered eight-year leases to stay. But others are facing the end of the line – and are cleaning house.
Cha Cha’s Bar and Coney Island Souvenirs auctioned off whatever they could sell, while Ruby’s offered up some unneeded items.
“They outright turned me down,” bar owner John “Cha Cha” Ciarcia said of the landlord. “They’re not willing to discuss anything with me.”
So, a pair of blenders from behind the bar sold for a dollar a piece, and a six-foot-high Coors beer sign for $10.
“Glass racks, $25 apiece on these. You just need to clean them up – they’re gorgeous,” Benigno said.
Boardwalk fixture Johnny Corona, 55, took a break from sunning himself on a beach chair – beer in hand, ignoring the early November chill – to buy an illuminated cocktail sign. “We’re regulars…I go back here at least 11 years,” he said. “This is sad.”
Dave Berger, 43, of Ocean City, L.I., bought a guitar, a keyboard, and speakers.
“This is my first (auction),” he said. “It’s Coney Island (and) it’s about to be history.”
Benigno worked his way through Cha Cha’s, bidding out items at a rapid fire pace, until he reached the back of the bar.
“Anything else in here to sell?” he said.
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Great News for Boardwalk Concessions!
October 20, 2011
Two Coney Island Boardwalk icons
set to sign eight-year leases after
escaping eviction
BY Erin Durkin
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Thursday, October 20th 2011, 4:00 AM
Ruby’s Bar and Grill on the Coney Boardwalk is reportedly poised to sign a new lease.
At least two popular Coney Island businesses that had faced eviction are now reportedly set to return to the Boardwalk for the long haul.
Ruby’s Bar and Grill and Paul’s Daughter – among the establishments amusement giant Zamperla had moved to boot from the seaside strip – are now poised to sign eight-year leases in the coming weeks, sources said.
It’s also possible Beer Island and Cha Cha’s will be allowed to stay open, though those talks are more tentative.
Zamperla reversed course after a deal for a Miami-based company to take over the space occupied by Ruby’s and Paul’s Daughter and open a diner and a large international food court fell apart.
The Miami Beach hotel and restaurant operators who opened ice cream shop Coney’s Cones this year clashed with Zamperla over the rent for the rest of the strip, sources said. The ice cream shop is expected to stay open.
A Ruby’s rep said the long-term lease will allow the owners to finally give the beat-up 77-year-old bar a makeover, while keeping its honky-tonk charm.
“While we’ll be modernized, we won’t necessarily be sanitized,” the source said. “The reason we haven’t done it in the past is we’ve been on a year-to-year lease for the past eight or nine years. Now that we know that we have some stability…we’re prepared to put in substantial capital improvements that will improve upon the Ruby’s everyone knows and loves.”
Zamperla, an Italian company that runs the new Coney amusement parks Luna Park and Scream Zone, moved to evict the longtime businesses and replace them with glitzier attractions after taking over the land from the city last year.
The businesses fought back in court and won a one-year reprieve, but they had to forfeit the right to sue, so this year was expected to finally be the end of the line.
Beer Island owner Anthony Berlingieri said he hasn’t been offered a deal but plans to talk to Zamperla officials this week.
“The bottom line is that instead of running around trying to find people who think they know what they’re doing, they happen to have…us here who know what we’re doing. That’s why we’re back year after year,” Berlingieri said.
“We’ve been the ones who have survived Coney Island through thick and thin,” he said. “Hopefully this is the wake-up call…Don’t you think the people who have been in Coney Island for all these years have an idea what it takes to make it here?”
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THIS IS TERRIFIC NEWS!!!!
Fairwell Ruby’s Bar
September 2, 2011
I’m sharing this article from Jeremiah Moss’ Vanishing New York.
It’s painful to see Ruby’s and other restaurants and shops go at the end of this season. Some people may think it’s progress, I for one think blending the old with the new is a good concept. (Diane Howley)
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ruby’s
Bar of Coney Island
Ruby’s Old
Time Bar was opened by Rubin “Ruby” Jacobs just a few decades ago, yet it looks like it’s been on the boardwalk forever. Maybe that’s because Ruby had been there all his life, first selling knishes on the sand then operating Coney’s last bathhouses, Stauch’s, Claret’s, and Bushman’s. Souvenir ticket stubs and photographs from the
bathhouses line the walls of Ruby’s bar, along with hundreds of photos from
Coney’s glorious past.Ruby died in 2000 and now his legendary bar is about to join him, thanks to Joe Sitt, who sees himself as comic-book hero Thor, “protector of the cities.”
Painting in Photo by Robert Leach
When you ask Coney people if they’ll be there next year, they shrug and say, “Who knows?” A counterman at Gregory & Paul’s responded by calling out, “Who knows, who knows, only the nose knows! Step right up for ice-cold beer here!”
At Ruby’s, I asked Frank the bartender if he thought they’d have another season on the beach. He told me, “Sometimes I get a good feeling and sometimes I get a bad feeling. Maybe we’ll get another year, but I wouldn’t put my money on it. Why would someone pay millions of dollars for this property and then let us stay? I’m just taking it one day at a time. Like an alcoholic, or a drug addict.”
Coney Island USA Museum Given Landmark Status
March 5, 2011
The Child’s building, which has been home to the Coney Island Museum since the 1990′s was given Landmark Status. This is such great news since many of the old Coney buildings have been torn down in expectation of new developments.
For the entire article, please see the New York times article link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/nyregion/05metjournal.html?_r=1
YAY!
15,000 Visits And It’s All Because Of You!
February 9, 2011
THANK YOU for visiting Coney Island Playground of the world!
Since the blogs inception in January 2009, we are proud to be celebrating 15,000 visits. It wouldn’t be possible without you and your comments!
The 2011 Season will certainly be a fun an interesting one with frequent updates. Also, more old photos and memories as well. Keep checking back as the Season progresses.
Thanks again for visiting!
Diane Howley
A Wonderful Homage to Ruby’s Old Tyme Bar & Grill
November 4, 2010
What follows are three beautifully written articles by Michael Brick (New York Times, City Room) about a special place, Ruby’s Old Tyme Bar & Grill. This bar has great history and memories. If you wanted a beer and a great view of the ocean and to people-watch, it was Ruby’s. (Please note that drawings mentioned in these articles could not be copied. I have added a few of my photographs.)
November 3, 2010, 8:00 am
Memories of Ruby’s, the Place to Take Coney Island In
By MICHAEL BRICKThe idea was to do an article on summer’s fleeting grandeur, as viewed through the gauzy prism of a bar. Bars are important anyplace you go, but nowhere more than in New York City, where many people don’t have yards or living rooms or even cars to drink in.
Summer at Ruby’s
A series of articles about Ruby’s Old Thyme Bar and Grill, written in 2005 by Michael Brick.
So a reformed baseball writer who still knew something about drinking sent me out to Ruby’s Old Thyme Bar and Grill, the onetime bathhouse turned unofficial headquarters of the Mermaid Day Parade, darling of Coney Island. Caricatured for the past generation as some carnie day labor spot left over after the circus closed, Coney Island was once the people’s beach, as Robert Caro has written, jammed “so full on a Sunday that one could hardly see the sand.”
Somewhat less than a beach by the white sand standards of Acapulco, Coney Island has always been, or at least meant, something more, too. Like the sylvan refuge of the Cloisters, the very existence of an actual beach, silly T-shirts and all, is New York’s way of saying, yes, against all odds, in this great faithless testament to mortar, steel and engineering, the city can even give you this. Come and see.
And the place to sit and take it all in was Ruby’s, where the definition of a regular seemed to require showing up at least every five or six years.
By the time I began my Journalistic Inquiry (an assignment that inspired no jealousy from my colleagues, I’m assured), the bells had been tolling for Ruby’s for a while. Developers, preservationists and other interested parties had fought a century’s schemes on Coney Island to an incongruous draw, as evidenced by the 14-story housing project looming over the New York Aquarium, but by 2005 the Disneyland overhaul of Times Square and the election of a billionaire mayor were taking some salt out of the sea breeze.
The rumored demise of Ruby’s, and of the Coney it represented, draped a backdrop of mortal impermanence on the summer I spent there. The kind of feeling you get listening to the Beach Boys, even before you know about the Manson stuff. Also, it rained a lot.
Five years later, when the city leased much of Coney Island to a developer with the mildly Orwellian name of Central Amusement International, the mayor issued a news release full of phrases like “cutting edge, state of the art.” These are very not-Ruby’s kind of concepts. So when the company declined to renew the bar’s contract this week, well, as they say on Wall Street: We weren’t wrong; we were early.
Links to those old Ruby’s articles are posted here, here and here, if you’re the sort who cares to sift in the past. They were illustrated with marvelously evocative drawings by Campbell Robertson, now the New Orleans correspondent for The Times. Last I checked, those drawings were framed on the wall at Ruby’s, just inside the big garage door looking out on Gravesend Bay. Nobody paid them much attention, but it was good to know they were there.
(photo: d. howley)
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Raising a Glass to the Setting Sun; Last Call on the Boardwalk, Perhaps Forever
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: September 4, 2005
Philly Sanalitro said he got a phone call from beyond the great divide. This guy who had been trying to kill him was there on the line, and the guy called Philly ”Big Jim.”
”I pick it up: ‘Hello, Big Jim,”’ Philly said. He was standing next to the bar at Ruby’s telling this story, and he told it mostly the same all summer long. It was the late summer heat wave and he was wearing a white bandanna and he had another one in his pocket, but he had left his wallet at home.
Philly’s face sags off his nose and he spits when he talks. He leans in and he hits his chest and he worries his hands together, and his blue cap blocks the abominable sun. He said the man on the phone told him: ”’Hey, my friend, I’m dead.’
”I said, ‘How can you be dead? You’re talking to me.’
”He said, ‘I’m in heaven, I’m dead.’
”I told the guy: ‘What’s it look like?’
”’People singing, and music. Like a band singing.’
”I didn’t hear nothing.”
Philly finishes talking and goes home before sundown, and when the sun goes down nighttime is something different at Ruby’s Old Thyme Bar and Grill on the Coney Island Boardwalk. At Ruby’s maybe nothing ever dies, but summer sneaks off in the middle of the night. You wake up and you can’t get it back; it’s gone.
Nighttime at Ruby’s is this: The sand and the gulls and the wind and the waves masked, and clear lines between brightness and dark. Inside, fluorescent lamps shine on the beer girl posters and the old-time photographs and the purblind man selling toilet paper by the ladies’ lavatory. Outside, small bulbs in the blackness describe the faraway roller coaster and the patrol car parked on the wooden slats.
It’s late in the day, late in the season, and Ruby’s is on borrowed time six summers now; Ruby Jacobs dead and buried. His daughter, Cindy, has a day job, and she left Sammy Rodriguez to run things this summer the way he has for years. All around new money is coming into Coney Island, and Cindy does not say what she will do. Her old friend Catherine DeSimone walks around with a camera taking movies just in case.
Sometimes Willy the lady bartender ends her shift at sundown and Sammy stays and tends bar himself. He says the summers are getting longer. He kept the place open Aug. 10 for Victor Deyglio and Lexi Gray to celebrate their anniversary; they had married at Ruby’s with the huckster next door shouting congratulations. The sword swallower and the bed-of-nails man came to the party, and Victor sat at the bar and his wife rode the roller coaster around and around.
”She can just sit in the car because they know her,” Victor said.
When Lexi came back she was wearing a blue dress and glitter makeup and a watchband but no watch. The wine bottles on the table were empty, and Sammy was bringing in the chairs.
”We’re sitting in this beautiful limbo of the past catching up with us and the future encroaching,” Lexi said. Then somebody found a praying mantis on the Boardwalk and the party studied it and Sammy turned out the lights.
Summertime: The end was coming soon. Sammy would go home to Puerto Rico and Willy was talking about moving to Kansas. Frank Chmielowski, who watched the beach from the corner of the bar, would go back to Santa Rosa, Tex., and the regulars would find someplace else to drink.
The last Friday in August the bumper boats were closed and the wind was blowing off the beach. The sun was going down on the right. The skinny dude everybody calls Master, aka Genaro Rivera, was wearing floppy socks and a white sailor’s cap.
”For the young people saying Wepa, it went fast,” Master said, using an island word he employs to describe fireworks, Puerto Rico, beauty, Ruby’s, the ocean, Coney Island, metal detectors, youth, a punch in the gut, a phone call late at night, duty, honor, truth, time, deception, silence and Friday nights. Then he started inviting people to his 27th birthday party, which took place three decades ago.
Vicki Weathersby with the bright pink lipstick and the feathered purse traded her Nathan’s Famous cup for a beer. Somebody was blowing soap bubbles and the bubbles were coming into the bar. On the jukebox Ray Charles was singing ”I got a woman way over town she’s good to me.” The crowd was trying to guess Master’s age.
”Let’s cut him open and count the rings,” Vicki called. She squeezed his chest in her arms and a pack of Marlboros stuck up in his shirt pocket. Master smokes Viceroys, but he doesn’t turn down gifts. He was standing on the line where the wooden slats are painted red and the Boardwalk ends and Ruby’s starts. ”We-pa!” Master said, and he raised his voice like a tent show healer:
”I seen the babies born, I seen the babies grow. When I came to this world nobody was expecting me,” he said, and then he lifted his arms and he repeated, ”He visto a los beb?nacidos, he visto que los beb?crecen. Cu?o yo vine a este mundo que nadie me esperaba.”
The sun was gone and a man walked by carrying a boa constrictor and a kid did a break dance and a girl in a low-cut shirt pulled the zipper up her sweater.
”Another summer bites the dust,” Cindy Jacobs said. Master swallowed a double shot of whiskey and put his finger to his lips. Out in the blackness the rockets came without preamble in tracers of gold and green and carnival noise, squalling and fitful, bass and snare of a piece and voices ascending and no music and Vicki sitting there clapping without a sound.
Summer at Ruby’s
This article is the last in a series about life at Ruby’s Old Thyme Bar and Grill in Coney Island. The first two are online at nytimes.com/nyregion.
Drawings: Master was quick to the end with his all-purpose exclamation. (Drawing by Campbell Robertson/The New York Times)(pg 36); (Illustrations by Campbell Robertson/The New York Times)(pg. 33) (Not available)
Photo: d. howley
SUMMER AT RUBY’S: The Season Begins; Where Summer Glides Down Like a 9 A.M. Beer
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: July 3, 2005
Way behind the black-and-white roller coaster pictures and smiling beer girl posters, the snapshots of the regulars and the late lamented Ruby, a sign behind the bar said, ”Welcome Back to Coney Island Summer 2004.” The scrawny dude everybody calls Master was walking around in a too-big tank top looking for a good place to hang a new sign. Same message, different summer.
There was Willy behind the bar, same job for 24 years. Her daddy was William, who wanted a son; she’s Willy the lady bartender. She has 90 bottles of liquor, 75 bottles of wine and no visible end of beer. Anything that won’t get you drunk is somebody else’s job. Willy empties her pockets when she works. It bothers her, walking around with stuff in her pockets.
”But people give me stuff all day,” she said.
It was nothing a smoke break wouldn’t fix: Summer was coming on fast at Ruby’s down by the Boardwalk. In a city of close quarters, a bar is a mystery nobody wants to solve, a hiding place and a box social, where everybody knows that nobody knows your name. There are scads of them, but Ruby’s is the summer place, open 9 a.m. to whenever, April to Halloween, a Woody in a minivan world.
Like any good dive, Ruby’s has its regulars and its history, but those are other stories. This is the story of another long slide into summertime at Ruby’s Old Thyme Bar and Grill, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.A.
There are dark bars and bright bars, and Ruby’s is both. The vibe changes like the watercolor smear that is summertime. The room is an airy gap, three walls and a pair of garage doors facing the beach. The bar top is long and dark, wide enough to keep three feet between you and Willy.
Behind it are dolls, a toy panda, a bust of Harpo Marx, the kind of stuff they give away at arcades around the corner to make kids think their parents are winners. This is where the regulars sit, across from Willy on the sunny end by the Boardwalk. They hunch or lean, shoulder blades pointing to the kitchen, where college kids sell the Coney Island lunch wagon, clams and corn dogs and the rest.
Two days into summertime, the crew was getting ready for the biggest blowout of the year. The Mermaid Parade brings out the amateur weird by the thousands for a strut by the shore. ”It’s going to be nuts on Saturday, huh?” a customer asked Mike Sorrell, a son-in-law of Ruby’s and a manager of the bar.
”And it’s going to be 90 degrees,” Mr. Sorrell said.
A young woman was standing at the middle of the bar going through her purse, making a show of it. After a few minutes of nobody buying her a beer, she found her money. Down where the regulars sit, a breeze blew some bills down the bar. Willy caught them.
”Here, it’s back here now,” she said, stacking the cash by the register. That was where it was going anyway.
Saturday, June 25, came bright, and the tables looked like a group photo of Brooklyn, black kids slurping sodas across from a blond woman with a Corona next to Asian teenagers eating hot dogs. It was 90 degrees. Master, aka Genaro Rivera, 56, was in full Puerto Rican get-up, a flag-colored tank-top down to his knees and a floppy hat to match. ”Sometimes we get a little trouble,” Master said, grinning like a maniac, ”but I control it.”
Over by the jukebox, Howie Willis, 45, was dancing to Sinatra with a woman named Patty. His T-shirt said Sloppy Joe’s Fishing Team.
”Tomorrow it won’t be nearly as crowded, but the guys I know 20 years will be here,” said Mr. Willis, who comes to Ruby’s a few times a summer. He was saying he was proud to have his picture on the wall. Patty was saying he ought to shut up.
”I just met her,” Mr. Willis said, ”and now I’m cut off.”
Out on the Boardwalk, a guy painted blue and carrying a trident was putting away an onion dog, surrounded by girls in green sequined bras pressed up against girls with rainbow wigs and guys with Mardi Gras beads. They were supposed to be mermaids. They were putting away Buds.
A breeze was coming off the ocean. Patty made her way toward the Boardwalk. Within two feet of the door, she fainted in the heat. Some jerk in a Mets cap started counting her out, but better men helped her to a bench by a fan. She was fine.
The sun was on its slow way down, but people were still coming past the echoing clang of the batting cage and the wind and the waves.
Summertime: It was too late to stop now. The long hot slide had begun, but summer at Ruby’s is no picture postcard. Two days after the parade, the doors framed a sky the color of mock turtle soup.
A pattering rain fell on the beach. Some days a beer brings a taste of being 15 years old; some days it just tastes like another beer. The regulars had been gone since noon. Theresa Hoha, wearing her given name on her necklace, was taking a day off from the housekeeping service she runs on Long Island.
”I don’t want to take my life for granted,” Ms. Hoha said. ”I’m glad for what I’ve got. I’m glad when the sun comes out, and I’m glad to see the moon and stars.”
From behind the kitchen counter, Robin Mates, 25, called for somebody to put number 8001 on the jukebox for Willy. Kenny Rogers started singing about advice that had cost him a last swallow of whiskey: ”Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.”
Then the song was done and the Long Islanders went the way of the regular crowd. Willy said she was closing; there were going to be other summer days.
Drawings (Illustrations by Campbell Robertson/The New York Times) (Not Available)
Ruby outside his place on a chilly late winter day (about 15 years ago, or so)
Photo: d. howley
If Ruby’s can’t be saved, it will be a definite blow to the ambiance of Coney Island and will be missed.
DATE: July 4, 2010
Joey Chestnut takes the mustard yellow belt, eating 54 dogs and buns in ten minutes! In Nathan’s Famous July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest. Congrats Joey for a job well done!
In the blazing Brooklyn Heat, contestants shoved hot dogs down as the heat rose. Although Joey didn’t break his record, how many of us could eat more than 4 without getting a severe belly ache! In all my years of watching (in person and on ESPN), I’ve never seen such a crowd! A great summer for Coney Island — YAY!!!
