The air, despite the good zestful salt sea breeze, reeks with the acrid smoke of potato knishes, garlic and frying frankfurters.
Time was when Coney's transgressions were crimson and its sinners wore silks and sables.
On the beach front, and at the adjoining Manhattan and Sheepshead beaches, were fine hotels, race tracks and fabled clubs and residences.
Mustached sports and their high-rolling ladies drank and diced, waded and swam and disappeared in pairs.
Those great levelers, the subway and the auto, which brought Coney within a dime of any part of New York, soon leveled Coney. The dime became its symbol. Luna Park is gone, destroyed by fire and never rebuilt.
Steeplechase, owned by the Tilyous, related by marriage to Brooklyn's once ruling family, the McCooeys, has the roller coaster and nut house field practically to itself, though independent operators on Surf Avenue and the Midway, who pay no park rental fee, offer some competition.
Incidentally, the first roller coaster in the world is still in operation at Coney.
The zenith of the Coney season is the annual Mardi Gras, shortly after Labor Day, modeled after New Orleans' gala event, with local variations and no improvements.
The residents of the other boroughs, like the inhabitants of Brooklyn, are chiefly concerned with sleeping and breeding. If you find these a contradiction in terms, you don't know what they can do in the Bronx and Queens.