Tag Archives: coney island

Now I Can Say I’ve Done It

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hot dog contest

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, at left, and his closest competitors

It was long before high noon, but the sun was blisteringly hot, the smell of cheap beer and vomit was already in the air, and I was watching Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis as he dove into a fifteen-foot-wide apple pie. I was back at Coney Island, awaiting my very first Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. The original competition at Nathan’s was supposedly held in 1916, but the annual spectacle as we know it today didn’t really take shape until the 1970s.

Spectacle is really the only way to describe it. Long ago, ESPN decided that hotdog eating alone does not a televised special make, so it is now embellished with trampoline artists, Brooklyn Cyclones cheerleaders, men in hot dog costumes, and pie-diving events while college-aged boys in sequined Uncle Sam hats and Captain America suits look on and yell obscenities at anyone Canadian. And Greg Louganis? Even if he was doing it to raise money for the ASPCA, I really didn’t want to see a sports star from my childhood reduced to wiping globs of caramel and nuts from his eyes. We live in a very strange nation, one in which eating food is not enough; rather it must be gorged upon…or dived into.

“Why are you here?” I asked a middle-aged man standing next to me. (The younger gentleman on the other side of me was too busy opening a can of Coors with his teeth to be bothered with my existential crisis.)

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Dead Man Gnawing: The Hotdog, from Maximilian II to Jimmy Durante (1200s & 1916)

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Two days from now, many New Yorkers and perhaps a greater number of tourists will celebrate the 236th anniversary of These United States by watching a group of Americans stuff as many hotdogs down their gullets as they can.  I refer, obviously, to the famous hotdog eating contest Nathan’s Famous hosts each year.

The hotdog seems to me a most American food.  You can eat it with one hand.  It’s  inexpensive on the Wallet of Now but maybe not so much on the Self of Tomorrow.  Its immigrant origins are hotly debated by those jockeying for brand superiority in a never ending race in which only one can be the victor.

So I poked around.  Here’s what I found: Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Roller Coasters and Rotary Clubs

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painter

Touching up the boardwalk signs for the mermaids

Nathan’s was already selling many a hot dog when I stepped off the F train at Coney Island at 11:30 a.m. They did not, however, sell coffee, so I got some at the clam shack next door and asked the man at the cash register whether he was looking forward to the Mermaid Parade the following afternoon (the official kickoff of the summer season) or if he was dreading it. He smiled at me kindly. “Dread,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation.

Coney Island is one of those over-the-top places that seems as if it has been dressed like a movie set specifically for your benefit. It has the frenzied carnival feel of amusement parks everywhere, mixed with the anything-(and-anyone)-goes mentality of New York. I doubt if there are many places on Earth where can you see Buddhist monks strolling on the beach and Orthodox Jews waiting in line for the Wonder Wheel. But with all the tattoos and swimsuits, it’s easy to forget that this is a real neighborhood where real people live and eat. I wandered down off the boardwalk to look for some of them. Continue reading →