Provisionary

Philip’s Candy exists in a time warp. With its inventory virtually unaltered since the store first opened on Coney Island in 1931, Philip’s gives the impression of being frozen in the past. When a jug-eared kid who looks like Alfalfa asks for two chocolate egg creams on a recent Sunday afternoon, it may as well be 1935.

For a store that has seen few changes, an exceptionally large one recently took place. Philip’s was evicted in 2001 by its former landlord, the MTA, which is refurbishing the terminal that the store called home for seven decades. Having lived out the Coney Island years from popularity through decline, Philip’s contributed some of the definitive iconography of the American boardwalk–saltwater taffy, hot peanuts, giant swirling lollipops–and was considered one of the last bastions of Coney Island authenticity.

Nearly two years after the eviction, owner John Dorman reopened his business on Staten Island, which, he jokes "is an old-age home for candy makers." The 73-year-old started working at Philip’s in 1947 as a kid of 17 hawking popcorn and candy (he demonstrates: "A dime! Only a dime!"), and bought the store in 1956. According to Dorman, even though the location has changed, it’s business as usual. Every day, on the premises, he and co-owner Margaret Cohn still make the candy that they’re known for. On a recent visit, a copper pot in the back held frothing pink syrup that would soon become their well-loved jelly bars–translucent raspberry gels dipped in chocolate.

Although the goods remain the same, Philip’s no longer has the phantoms of legendary New York summers or the rickety Cyclone as its neighbors. Instead, the store makes a triangle with an enormous Pathmark on one side of the street and the Big Apple outlet on the other, and is within shooting distance of countless other characterless commercial plazas.

In this context, seeing Depression-era candy in 2003 is somewhat depressing. One wonders what the place is for things like jelly-dipped marshmallows, popcorn balls and bright green sticks of marzipan in the homogeneous setting of middling suburban sprawl. Like the bearded lady or the lizard boy, after all this time, Philip’s Candy has become something of a novelty act.

But Philip’s items, like peanut brittle, fudge, turtles, coconut creams and frozen bananas, keep old-timers following the shop from borough to borough. The candies are so gooey, excessive and unnaturally sweet that it’s easy to understand why grown-up children of a certain era have developed an umbilical-cord attachment to them.

But if nostalgia means a longing for home, then the customers that remember Philip’s from an earlier era will inevitably become fewer and farther between. Although there are new Philip’s customers in the world outside of the Coney Island nostalgia factory, it remains to be seen whether this style of American confection is viable beyond its boardwalk roots.

Later in the day, a blue-haired girl in a Pathmark smock buys a jelly apple and leaves. Dorman shouts after her, waving, "Thank you! Have a nice day!"

Smiling, he tells me, "People come in here, and we’re nice. That’s why they want to come back." />