Why I took a pilgrimage to New York’s most forgotten corner

When you’re a Coney you don’t see your name around very much.
Smiths, Joneses and Edwardses are two a penny, but the only other Coneys I heard of as a child were Jeremy, the New Zealand cricketer, and Dean, the even lesser-known Norwich City footballer. My mum told me that a coney was a type of hare, which, with no Google to verify the fact, I largely took on good faith. We were an endangered species.
But had I grown up on the other side of the Atlantic it would have been a different story: Coneys are everywhere. They are beef hot dogs, and there’s even a James Coney Island restaurant chain in Houston, Texas (we follow each other on X/Twitter).
Most significantly, just outside New York is our Graceland, a place ingrained in American folklore: Coney Island.
Time for me, my wife, Sarah, and our eldest son, Will, 14, to take a pilgrimage. The US is a long way to go for a comedy holiday photo, but a trip to New York killed two birds with one stone.
We don’t fly these days and barely travel, making one annual ferry trip to France, because our younger son, Charlie, 11, is disabled. Probably as a result the pull of New York had become strong for Will. Not just because he’s seen it in the movies, but because of TikTok and Instagram: #NYC does good social media.
So we decided to take Will as a pre-GCSE treat while Charlie had his own break from us, with his auntie Kate, doing what he loves most — going to Challengers play group and watching Britain’s Got Talent.
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We based ourselves at the Westin New York at Times Square — a 45-storey, 873-room hotel slap bang in the heart of everything, with views over the Hudson River. It’s smart, super-efficient, with good beds and, rising above the hubbub, surprisingly calm inside.
The plan was to see the sights of Manhattan first, with passes that give you entry to up to five big attractions — so we headed up the Empire State Building and then on a Circle Line sightseeing trip to Liberty Island (£120; citypass.com).
Travelling with a teenage social media tourist is a different experience for those of us in the guidebook generation. Will insisted on scouting out the pencil-thin 84-storey Steinway building overlooking Central Park where a £45m penthouse had recently gone viral on TikTok.
We popped to Zeppola bakery (zeppolabakery.com) to eat the filled cronuts and cubed croissants — as seen on Insta — and the two-cookies milkshake and burgers at Creamline in Chelsea market, which some chap had shouted about on a video (milkshakes £8.50, burgers from £9; creamlinenyc.com). Then we trekked over to Katz’s Deli, which at least is a traditional hotspot, but has embraced TikTokkers, who film their giant pastrami sandwiches being created (£22.50; katzsdelicatessen.com). Social media neglected to tell Will that this diner was also the setting for the famous Meg Ryan scene from When Harry Met Sally …, which I gleefully relayed and then instantly regretted when he asked why that bit of the movie was so significant.
When we went to the extraordinarily moving 9/11 memorial and museum (also included in the CityPass), it turned out Will was an expert on the numerous conspiracy theories: “That’s the building people think the CIA blew up,” he declared. That’s history, social media-style. Reports of New York’s post-Covid demise are exaggerated. The west side of Manhattan by the Hudson River has become a thriving car-free boulevard in recent years, with beaches, parks and restaurants that run about 30 blocks from those level with Central Park down to the financial district.
Walking home, we stopped for margaritas (£11), aguas frescas (£3) and tacos of crispy fish, beef birria and chopped steak (from £4) at the Mexican-run Tacombi in the West Village (tacombi.com).
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With a teenager in tow and prices in New York so high (you can’t find a main course for less than £25), along with our step count over 30,000 every day, you need a buffet breakfast, so we gorged daily at our hotel’s Foundry Kitchen restaurant on pancakes, bacon, waffles and a token blueberry, before heading out (adults £28; children £13).
A day trip to Coney Island is a good excuse to leave New York on any sweltering day: an hour on the subway from Times Square station, but also 70 years back in time, with its long, wooden boardwalk, diners and giant ferris wheel.
It’s not actually an island, but a seaside resort in Brooklyn with two funfairs — think Southend, but with better rollercoasters — which rose to fame in the post Civil War period of the 1870s, not least because of its seven-floor hotel in the shape of an elephant dubbed Coney’s Colossus, though disappointingly this no longer exists.
We popped into the local historical society. “We’re Coneys,” I declared. The woman behind the desk looked nonplussed.
“Nobody knows how this place got its name,” she explained. One theory is that Dutch settlers in the 17th century came here to find wild konijn. That’s rabbits. Again. No ancient tribe of Coneys, though.
As consolation we took turns on the rollercoasters with Will, who declared them “decent”: with some matching those at big theme parks for terror, though without the usually terrifying queues. Plus there was the charm of rickety old ones and the historic Wonder Wheel, worth it just for the views over Brooklyn back to Manhattan (rides from £6; denoswonderwheel.com).
Coney Island is also home to Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, where every July 4 honed athletes battle it out to eat as many as possible in ten minutes. The record is 76. We settled for one chilli dog each (from £4), fries (£2.30) and a cold local beer (from £5).
Then the Coneys ate our coneys, while swigging ale from Coney Island Brewery, sitting on the Coney Island boardwalk, before heading off to buy our Coney branded T-shirts — and one for Charlie too, of course.James Coney was a guest of New York Tourism (nyctourism.com) and the Westin New York at Times Square , which has room-only doubles from £198 (marriott.com). Fly to New York
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