The Lost World of Coney Island

Roar! Today I went down to Coney Island to visit the Coney Island Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and  do my very last Key to the City location! This summer has been so exciting! I can't wait to see what the Coney Island Library has in store for me!

Here I am outside of the Coney Island Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library! This location may not seem like it's too far off the beaten path but I don't think anyone who comes to visit Coney Island does it to visit the Library!

Here I am in front of the mystery box located in the reference section of the library. Time to use my key one last time and see what's inside!

Woah! It's all sorts of sweet stuff that tells the lost history of Coney Island!

There was this cool book called "Coney Island Lost and Found" and a bunch of photocopies of reference material about the how the area has changed over the past century! While Coney Island is once again on the rise, it is definitely recovering from a low point. New York's most notorious city planner had most of the original attractions and amusements parks torn down to make way for parking lots and highways! I guess Robert Moses's paradise was pavement! Roar!

The Coney Island Library was a really nice way to finish off my Key to the City adventure! I had a lot of fun visiting all the different places and it was fascinating to see how each site played its own unique part in what makes New York City the city it is! I hope all of the people who participated had as much fun as I did getting out there to see all the great things this city has to offer! Roar!

My Key to the City Adventure might have come to a close but that didn't mean I was done with visiting Coney Island for the evening! Giraffe came over from Gerritsen Beach and the two of us went over to the Coney Island Museum to see one of my favorite movies that they were showing as part of the Summer Science Fiction Film Festival!

Here Giraffe and I are in front of the museum. I think we'll go in and get seated!

Roar! They were giving out free popcorn to go with the movie! Talk about super sweet! They also showed a whole bunch of commercials before the movie started. These included a strange commecial with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez selling cigarettes, guides to the new MPAA ratings sytem, multiple ads for refreshments, and even an elaborate countdown to the start of the film. Though my favorite commerical was probably the one for Rheingold Beer! Rheingold Beer was one the old breweries that was located in my neighborhood of Bushwick. The Brewery eventually went out of business as the shipping industry changed in the second half of the 20th century. It was fun to see part of Bushwick's past up there on the big screen, even if only for a few minutes.

The movie Giraffe and I had come to see was the classic 1925 adaptation of Sir Author Conan Doyle's The Lost World. It is one of my favorite movies and the first film to bring dinosaurs to the silver screen in their true glory! This fine gentleman gave a brief talk about the history of the film and told me that the Lost World was so popular it was screened on airplanes crossing the Atlantic in the 1930's making it the first in-flight movie! I never knew that!

Here is a sweet still from the movie of an Alusaurus! The effects in the movie are still really amazing and the story is essentially the standard for most giant monster movies, especially King Kong! Giraffe had a great time seeing the movie and it was really nice to share something with her that I love so much. Afterwards we headed back to her place in Gerritsen Beach so we could get an early start on the big plans I have for tomorrow...

Crazy Clouds over NYC!

Roar! Today there were some crazy clouds over New York City. A bunch of cirrus clouds rolled in this afternoon and with them came some cool meteorological occurrences that aren't often seen in the city.

Here you can see all of the cirrus clouds overhead. They sure are pretty!

I was out at the park enjoying the day when the clouds rolled in. I'd been taking it easy this past week after my adventures in space and then with the awful weather we had the past few days, (I don't want to catch the dino-sniffles) but I just had to get out and enjoy what might be one of the last really nice days of the year.

I'm glad I went out because I got to see this sweet rain-less rainbow caused by the refraction of the sunlight through the ice crystals in the cirrus clouds. Isn't science cool!? Roar!

Here I am checking out the pretty rainbow!

Another event that occurred was a sun dog. This is when the light refracting through the ice crystals in the cirrus clouds causes bright spots of lights to appear in the sky next to the sun. Here you can see a minor sun dog in the clouds to the left of the sun.

Here is a cooler picture of the sun dog. You can see it in the sky next to the sun. You can even see a bit of the halo that forms around the sun do to the refraction of light. The technical term for a sun dog is "parhelion." My friends all tell me I should study to be a professor since I like science so much. Wouldn't that be a crazy sight?! A dinosaur professor! Still all the science behind it doesn't change how pretty the sky was today! Roar!