For that impudence, Hurricane Sandy shoved five feet of seawater onto the century-old-resort's streets and into its buildings, scuttling small businesses and ousting ground-floor apartment dwellers. About a quarter of those businesses are still rebuilding seven-plus months later.

Sandy almost stopped the neighborhood's biggest one-day tourist draw—the Mermaid Parade—from happening this June, too.

But it didn't, thanks to an unlikely source: the Internet. A kickstarter campaign funded this year's parade, paying for necessary infrastructure and police presence. The parade's founder, Dick Zigun, came up with the idea when the organization he founded to support arcane Americana, Coney Island U.S.A., couldn't foot the bill.

"We're at a point where our non-for-profit arts group, which earns 60 percent of its budget, has been