Boardwalk Bones

The boardwalk is a defining feature of the Beaches.  Ruggedly built for those strolling or jogging along the waterfront, the boardwalk covers a wide strip of the beach .. and with all that sand below and with the sturdy planks being rarely replaced, its a perfect place to bury a body!  And so thought the last contractor in charge of replacing the worn sections.

The City's contract tendering process used to be focused on getting the best price for any repair work, sometimes at the expense of quality (my how times change!).  So the firm of S.L.Acker and Sons won the last boardwalk replacement contract with such a low bid that it could only mean one thing - cutting corners on materials, worker training and safety.  Unfortunately this time it caught up with Mr. Acker as one of their new workers, Jimmy, was lobotomized with a stray spike from an industrial nailing gun - remember kids, always carry those contraptions with the "kill switch" set to "off".

Rather than pay the hefty fines and compensation to Jimmy's family, S.L.Acker quickly buried Jimmy under the planks he was about to nail.  But that wasn't the end of it.  A tenacious pug named Frank managed to dig under the side of the boardwalk, proudly retrieving Jimmy's juicy femur bone.  The City's swift investigation later the next year found that Jimmy was just the first of many bodies ditched under the beach under similar circumstances.  Rather than engage in the lengthy Environmental Assessment clean-up process to sort out whose bones were whose, the City just fenced off the bone riddled area.  Soon after, due to departmental miscommunication they say, Parks and Rec turned it into a dog park the next spring.

So when you stroll by the dog park (its just south of Kew Gardens) and hear Rover howling over what he has dug up, you can bet that its more buried bones of some restless soul like Jimmy, ditched there long ago.