Visiting Coney Island

My grandfather was a simple man who enjoyed simple pleasures:  a hard day’s work, a phone call from a loved one, and a good hotdog.  After retiring for the second time from a busy dental practice in the Bronx, he settled in North Miami Beach to endure (not necessarily ‘enjoy’) his retirement.  He and my grandmother, always home owners, reluctantly bought in to a condominium development, settling into a small one-bedroom rental apartment to await the promise of a vibrant high-rise senior community where 60 was to be the new 40.  Sadly, the developers misappropriated the funds and the towers were never built; nor was my grandfather’s deposit ever returned.

Taking this as an omen, my grandparents spent decades in their “temporary” abode, rooting themselves more and more firmly as my grandfather’s brother and then his sister moved into units in the same building.  An incurable pack rat, Papa never threw anything away.  He seemed to have infinite secret compartments folded into the closets and walls of that apartment.  You had only to wish for something and he would disappear around the corner and emerge with a worn cardboard box—repurposed from drug or dental supplies—filled with old wine bottle corks, or wooden nickels, or washers of any size, or scallop-edged photos from the 1940s.  As he idled away the days organizing and consolidating his “collections,” my grandmother would dutifully produce a sandwich on a plate at high noon, placing it down at the kitchen table just as the automatic alarm in Papa’s stomach went off.  It was a well-coordinated ballet years in the making.

The only interruption to this routine was an unexpected visit from family.  During the slow summer months, I loved to walk the seven blocks from our house, down 10^th Avenue, to their apartment.   I would build up a head of heat and thirst in the hot Miami sun that was instantly discharged upon entering their apartment.  There, I found the greatest love known to mankind—two people who loved each other completely and shared that love unconditionally with family.  To them, a grandchild was an event worth celebrating, and that could only mean a trip to Coney Island.

Most people think of Coney Island as an amusement park and boardwalk in New York.  In North Miami Beach, however, Coney Island was a basic and unassuming destination for a hot dog.  Situated on the west end of town on the “main drag,” the eating establishment was a simple concrete slab surrounded by glass on three sides.  Across the back wall were a variety of food stations, much like you would find on a boardwalk.  You had to wait in different lines for grill items, shakes and drinks, and sides.  The signage was loud, screaming out specials and features as if they possessed great importance.   I could not tell you what was on the exhaustive menu at Coney Island.  We went for hotdogs, and hotdogs we got.

I cannot recall ever standing on the many lines at Coney Island.  My job was always to grab a table.  There were times when the place first opened that every table in the restaurant was filled.  Long lines at the grill station were endless as each item was made one at a time.  Papa would simply ask “How many?”  The hot dog was implied; we never improvised with a burger or a cheese-steak.  My grandmother would fetch drinks from another station.  My favorite was an orange soda, but there was a huge selection of milk shakes, malts, and even lime-rickeys and egg-creams.  A large sign behind the counter even offered “2¢ plain.”

The hotdogs were delivered in individual thin cardboard troughs, custom-sized to hug the hotdog and to contain any amount of chili, cheese, or condiments.  The fun part of Coney Island started after the delivery of the dogs.  Finally, I could relinquish my spot at the table and head to the condiment bar.  There, infinitely long spoons with thin twisted handles peeked out of bottomless vats of onions, relish, mustard and ketchup.  My favorite, however, was the sauerkraut.   I was allowed to pile on as much of the pickled delight as my little dog could carry.  By the time I reached the table, the soft, fresh bun would be soaked with the pickled juices, making it a race to consume the hotdog while its holder still maintained some of its integrity.  To this day, I still prefer my hotdogs in the style of this Coney Island—steamed and bland in a thin casing as opposed to the spicy grilled, tough dogs at Nathan’s.

For me, the guilty pleasure of Coney Island was the Gabila’s potato knishes.  There are many styles and shapes of knish in the world.  I have seen examples where the shell is made of everything from phyllo dough to puff pastry while the fillings range from mashed potatoes to kasha (buckwheat groats) to broccoli to spinach.  A Gabila potato knish, for me, is a constant rather than a variation.  It is the Platonic Form of “knish”—the ideal to which others aspire but fall short.  There is perfection in the square shape, textured like a basketball and pinched at the corners.  Inside, the potato filling is darkened, betraying the time spent caramelizing the onions for optimal flavor before pulverizing it into a smooth, dense paste.  Served on a square molded paper plate, it was important to cut the knish in half to allow the steam to escape before eating it.  A good knish is served impossibly hot, adding to the anticipation as it cools ever so slowly to an edible temperature.

Papa never said what it was about Coney Island that spoke to him, drawing him back again and again.  For certain, he preferred eating there to any fancier establishment in town.  Perhaps it was the simple food at a fair price, affording him the opportunity to treat his family on a modest budget.  But I always suspected there was something deeper—a memory, perhaps, of another time and place from his youth.  There was something about the way he closed his eyes with the first bite of his hotdog, pausing to acknowledge the pop of each topping as it hit a receptor on his tongue.  Maybe this quirky little place made him feel young again.  Maybe it was all he had left of something he cherished from the past.  Or maybe this was just the best darn hotdog he ever had.

Today, the Coney Island of North Miami Beach past is my nostalgic sweet spot.  It does not evoke its namesake; rather, it is the place to which my heart goes when I conjure the simpler times of my youth.  I can still feel the sensation of a hot summer day, sitting beneath the ceiling fans and trying to catch a wave of breeze as the blades rotated.  I remember how the hotdogs popped as I bit into them, their steaming centers cooled against the chilled sauerkraut.   I am forever blind to the unsanitary conditions of the condiment bar and the dirty tables, forever deaf to the shouts of the service personnel yelling orders among themselves.  For me, this Coney Island is a place that will be remembered always in cotton candy colors and childhood wonder.  Though long gone, it’s where I still go in my memory when I need hug from my grandfather.