Dozens of artists of all skill levels dug into the sand at Coney Island Beach at West 12th Street on Saturday, turning a stretch of shoreline into an open-air gallery for the 34th Annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Competition. Sculptures ranged from a turtle and a giraffe to a heart and even Homer Simpson, delighting beachgoers who wandered by between noon and 4 p.m. to watch the works take shape.
The contest, presented by the Coney Island BID, the Alliance for Coney Island, NYC Health+Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, the New York Aquarium, Raising Cane’s and Brooklyn Community Services, has become a late-summer fixture on the beach. As reported by the Brooklyn Eagle, Kalvis Milkenstein, executive director of the Coney Island BID, said the event has brought New Yorkers and visitors from abroad to South Brooklyn for over 30 years. Event organizer Cindy Vourderis said the competition brings together families, artists and visitors to the beach, according to the same account.
A Florida Family’s First Try
Among the walk-up entrants was Ariel Penzer Milgroom, who traveled from Florida with her six-year-old son, Joey, to give sculpting a shot after years of watching from the sidelines. Milgroom said her son decided they had to participate after attending previous competitions as spectators, the Eagle’s report noted. The pair, who dubbed themselves Team Florida, sculpted an alligator, with Joey designing badges for the team.
Their entry captured the spirit organizers say defines the contest: a mix of first-timers and seasoned artisans working side by side on the same stretch of sand. Spectator Lorenzo de los Angeles said the competition featured imaginative artistic approaches that went well beyond familiar castle designs, per the outlet’s coverage.
Repeat Champion Builds a Sleeping Giraffe
Tony Cusicanyu took first place in the adult solo category with a sleeping giraffe sculpture, continuing a run of success at the competition. Cusicanyu also won the solo artist division at the 33rd annual event in August 2025 with an elephant sculpture, according to The Brooklyn Home Reporter.
Other category winners included Rosie Rudavsky, who took the adult group category with a heart sculpture, and Alma Johnson, who won the family group category with a turtle. Fernanda Perez won the people’s choice award with her Homer Simpson sculpture. The top winner in each category received a $250 cash prize along with tickets to several local area attractions.
How the Contest Fits Into Coney Island’s Comeback
The event traces its modern significance back to Hurricane Sandy. Proceeds and sponsorships from the annual sand sculpting contest were repurposed after the October 2012 storm to support local residents rebuilding damaged property in South Brooklyn, according to the Accord Real Estate Group. The Alliance for Coney Island itself was launched in November 2012 in Sandy’s aftermath to drive economic recovery, and now represents more than 350 local businesses while coordinating major public community programs across the neighborhood, per Bklyner.
The Coney Island BID, meanwhile, grew out of partnerships between the Alliance, NYC Small Business Services and local property owners to provide year-round sanitation, landscaping and sidewalk maintenance across the district’s commercial corridors, according to Perch Advisors. That infrastructure helps explain how an event drawing dozens of competitors and a beach full of spectators can come together on one of the city’s busiest public shorelines. Coney Island Beach itself stretches nearly 3 miles along the Atlantic, backed by the 80-foot-wide, 2.7-mile Riegelmann Boardwalk that NYC Parks notes was originally built in the 1920s using 1.7 million cubic yards of deposited sand.
NYC Parks manages 14 miles of public beaches citywide, where crews clear an estimated 1,300 cubic yards of litter daily during peak summer months, underscoring the scale of upkeep behind a single afternoon of sculpting on Coney Island’s sand.
