A phone call from the borough president the other day brought some pleasant news.

Vito Fossella and I have something in common. He grew up a stone’s throw from the beginning of the boardwalk in South Beach. I grew up a stone’s throw from the end of the boardwalk in Ocean Breeze.

Before the boardwalk-walkers take me to task and say it ends at Miller Field in Midland Beach, it does not. The boardwalk ends at Seaview Avenue. A stone promenade anchored by Freedom Circle, built 30 years later, extends to Miller Field.

Vito is a bit younger than me. Quite a bit. So he didn’t see the boardwalk in its heyday and into the early ‘60s.

But we both watched it deteriorate during New York City’s fiscal collapse in the 1970s.

It saw a renovation in the 1990s. More than 25 years ago. We’ll get into t

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