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The siren smell of Coney Island
Published: 3/30/2012 2:00 PM
Last Modified: 3/31/2012 10:30 AM


Back where it belongs -- the original Coney.

The downtown Coney Island is back where it belongs.

It’s not the absolute original location. That was 311 S. Boulder Ave., a space now occupied by a portion of the Tulsa World’s headquarters.

By what I’m certain is sheer coincidence, that address – which is now home to a lot of very official-looking cubicles – used to be where the World’s employee break room was located, if memory serves me right. And this room, for a brief period, housed one of the first – and now that I think about it, probably one of the last – vending machines that dispensed freshly cooked French fries.

But I digress.

It may not have started at 108 W. Fourth St., but for me, that was always the proper Coney Island. It was where I first discovered the unique culinary joy of a small grilled frank in a steamed bun, topped with mustard, chili, cheese and onions. It was a special treat on those times when my father and I would travel downtown to spend an hour or so searching the shelves of the Central Library – we’d get out literary business out of the way, then reward ourselves with a few coneys.

Because of that connection – that it was a special place my father and I would go to – I don’t recall ever patronizing any of the other Coney I-Landers around town. Even when our joint visits to the library ended and I went to the downtown library on my own, I still never returned to what to me was “the original Coney Island.”

Until, that is, a winter’s evening in 1987. I was working for a now-defunct magazine company, and had met with a prospective contributor at the old Tulsa Press Club at Fourth Street and Cheyenne Avenue. It was about 6 p.m. when I had finished my conversation and was walking back to where I had parked my car – a path that took me past the front door of the Coney Island and, more importantly, the exhaust fan that roaring wafted the aroma – to quote a jingle of long-ago – of “coneys sizzlin’ on an open grill.”

Maybe I had missed lunch that day; it’s possible. But I distinctly remember thinking, “My wife is home waiting, and she has dinner ready. I need to keep walking, because …”

I didn’t finish the thought. I turned around, went inside and requested that the man behind the counter make me, in the Buddhist tradition, one with everything. To go.

And as I walked outside into the rapidly cooling winter’s night, opening that yellow Styrofoam package, taking a deep bite as the urban breeze caught the few unmelted morsels of cheese on top and flicked them into my face – I thought nothing in the world could taste so good.





Reader Comments 1 Total
James Young (11 months ago)
Whenever I return to Tulsa, one of my first stops is the Coney Islander. I rank the experience of 3 with everything at an old school desk right up there with The Palms and Chaya.

Now, with them returning to the location where I first went there back in the 1950s, it will be like old home week.
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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