Be heard on the issues that matter most to you!
So I'm recovering from yesterday's Coney Island Mermaid Parade and just posted some of Will's photos in our galleries. In the red menu at the top, click Galleries > Elizabeth's Photos, then select the Mermaid Parade album.
(NOTE: You need to log in to see photo galleries on this site.)
We got there a little late because we were having such a good time getting ready, and so didn't have a great position for taking pictures, but we had a blast all the same. (Sometimes when you're having lots of fun you're just too busy to take pictures!)
The parade always has a bit of activism blended in with everything else and this year's parade had a bit more than I've seen in the past because of the intense disagreements about how and if Coney Island ought to be developed. For those of you who've never been, Coney Island has an old-time working class beach + "carnival side show" + free expression zone kind of feel. It's a pretty unique place. The development schemes of Joe Sitt and Thor Equities are likely to turn it into a much more generically mall/condo kind of place. You can see the Gowanus Loung post on the anti-Thor/Sitt element of the parade here.
It's an important debate -- and a complicated one -- because at its core are questions like what do we want our public spaces to look like, what kinds of activities should go on in them, and who do we want to control them? The campaign to develop Coney Island is often framed as a campaign to make it more family friendly, but the Mermaid Parade always demonstrates, Coney Island and its freaky free expression feel is family friendly.
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
Wonderful photos! I'm very jealous now that I had to work and couldn't make it. It looks like it was a blast.
Thanks AmandaLC. Maybe next year we can get a Sex in the Public Square contingent together! It'll fall at about the time of the site's first birthday, too!
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
It's remarkable that Coney Island has survived as long as it has. One of the stories they tell about Walt Disney was that visiting a carnival like Coney Island inspired him to build Disneyland, so the "sanitation" strategy has a quite a pedigree.
Is this parade part of the community resistence to development, or did it start as an art happening, ala the solstice parades in Santa Barbara , Seattle , etc.
RC McCloud also writes at The Safe Word
I think that the Mermaid Parade started as a "beginning of summer" + art parade. Here's a link to the official Mermaid Parade site. In addition to the parade there is a ritual "appeasing of the sea gods" and opening the beach for the summer. It involves King Neptun and the parade participants tossing fruit into the sea (and sometimes at each other).
In any case, I think the development resistance angle is very new. I don't remember that from the past two years.
I'd love to hear from folks about similar events around the country. Thanks for the links to the Santa Barbara and Seattle events. Others?
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
