‘The Deuce’s’ Coney Island episode brings grit back to the boardwalk

September 19, 2018 By Stephanie Kotsikonas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Eagle photo by Paul Frangipane

Share this:

After flipping through old photographs of the boardwalk at Coney Island, “The Deuce’s” film crew found the secret to bring present-day Coney back into the past: garbage. According to amNewYork, the crew arrived at 4 a.m. with bins of dirt, garbage, clippings of old newspapers, hand-painted vintage signs and detachable graffiti covers to recreate the grittiness of the now-well-kept area. “The big thing for us was that Coney Island was much dirtier back in 1978,” production designer Scott Dougan told amNewYork. The transformation, however, wasn’t too difficult, he said, thanks to that fact that many of the original structures, like the Wonder Wheel and Nathan’s Famous, have remained unchanged. “…Coney Island is still magical,” Dougan said. “It’s the beach in New York. We wanted to capture that.” “The Deuce,” which stars James Franco and Margarita Levieva, airs on HBO every Sunday at 9 p.m.