About 15 minutes after I saw Gary coming out of the frigid Atlantic, I spotted another guy out for a swim! This is Felix, an immigrant from Moscow, and he says he's jumped in the ocean every day for the last 15 years.

As I was walking down the shore of Brighton Beach on a chilly, sub-40-degree January afternoon, I saw this gentleman emerge from a plunge in the Atlantic. His name is Gary, he lives nearby, and he says jumping in the ocean is a daily ritual for him.

(Gary is standing less than 100 yards from here.)

Much to the dismay of some locals, this section of the Coney Island Boardwalk between Brighton 15th Street and Coney Island Avenue is being replaced with a surface of recycled plastic boards and concrete.

A mermaid and the sea god Neptune (along with several pigeons) can be found sunbathing on the side of the subway viaduct at the Ocean Parkway Q train station. These panels are part of Deborah Masters's Coney Island Reliefs, an art installation almost 20 years in the making.

Nearly invisible from the adjacent street, a ramshackle structure can be seen across Coney Island Creek standing on a small, fenced-off parcel of Parks Department land. If you look closely, you can see a pair of chairs and what appear to be a couple of bird cages; a 2011 Street View image shows some birds (presumably pigeons) roosting on the roof.

Stepping back a few feet from where I took the previous shot

Looking at Coney Island Creek

Using Street View, you can see that this log appeared here on the fence surrounding Lincoln High School sometime between June 2012 and September 2013. In that same interval, a sidewalk tree near the fence came down. Perhaps Hurricane Sandy brought the tree down onto the fence, and perhaps a little section of the tree was left on display as a reminder of the devastation wreaked by the storm. Sandy not only damaged the basement and the football field here at Lincoln; it also forced several students out of their homes and took the life of one of the school's teachers.

of a Special Patrolman

A 1947 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith and a 2011 Chrysler Pepto-Stretch

The modern-day incarnation (map) of a Coney Island classic