Mike Olshan

The Coney Island Creek

November 24, 2009

Mike Olshan found out that I had been to the sunken submarine in the Coney Island Creek and he asked if I could take him out to photograph it.

He remembered seeing it out there years ago and has always wanted to get a better look.

Duke Riley came along as well.

I was a little disappointed to see that the sub was so far underwater. I had forced us all up early so that we could catch the slack tide at daybreak, not even thinking about how much of the sub we would be able to see.

We were missing all the best parts, I told them.

But MIke was excited to get up close to ‘The Yellow Submarine’. It is something he had always wondered about.

He said he heard the sub was an experiment of some kind, made by amateurs, and that it sank right off the dock.

Or it might have been built by scientists,

to explore other sunken ships.

After exploring the sub, we wanted to check out the rest of the Coney Island Creek.

The Creek seemed to keep going and going.

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And while we paddled, Mike told us stories about growing up in the Bath Beach section of Bensonhurst.

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He can remember when there was a band of real Roma Gypsies camped down by the River near Stillwell Avenue.

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They had two truck campers and a varda.

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“That’s a horse drawn cart.” Mike said.

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We passed right by where the gypsies used to live,

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although it doesn’t look like much today.

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There are lots of people living along the Coney Island Creek today.

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Many birds live here too.

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We came up to where the creek ended and turned around.

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On the way back we passed back by the “Ghost Ships of Coney Island”.

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We talked about how the article about these boats in the paper a few weeks ago was really what brought us all together down here.

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And I’m happy that it did.

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