The peeling Coney Island boardwalk mural on one of the New York Aquarium‘s block-long walls is no more. Over the weekend, painters were hard at work creating a new mural, the outlines of which had gone up the week before. The new mural–which is bright, but about whose overall merit we will hold off until completion–depicts Coney Island icons, like the Wonder Wheel and Parachute Jump.

Brooklyn photographers looking for cool juxapositions of people sitting on benches in Coney Island with a decrepit mural (with lines of poetry) in the background must be heartbroken.

Now, we await the day, a decade or so from now when the Aquarium opens up to face the sea and no longer confronts visitors with walls on the boardwalk. In the meantime, we remain in dumbfounded awe of the unique planning and architectural genius that went into the decision to hide an aquarium behind tall walls on a boardwalk. “Gee, Mr. Moses, whaddayu tink we oughtta to do about the new aquarium? You tink people lookin’ at the fish oughtta be able to see the ocean?” one imagines He was asked. “Put the damned fish behind a blasted wall,” one hears Him saying. “I can’t tell you how sick I am of them. Are all the amusements demolished yet?”