The Scientific Romances of Coney Island

When it comes to the amusement park... the classic fairyland of boardwalks, sideshows and rickety old wooden rides... there is no greater an icon than New York's immortal Coney Island.

For the residents of New York living in the Gay Nineties, Brooklyn's spit of beachfront property along the Hudson River was shangri-la. It first drew attention in the wake of the American Civil War, with beaches, clam beds, and horse racing. The first carousel was installed in Vandeveer's bath-house in 1876, with meticulously hand-carved horses. Nathan's Famous invented the hot dog there in 1916. A bustling avenue called The Bowery led to the beach and later amusement parks, but also tempted the visitor with sights, sounds and lights, rides and sideshows, gambling, fortune tellers and dance halls.

This was followed by the island's three historic amusement parks: Luna Park, Steeplechase Park and Dreamland.

Steeplechase Park was built in 1897 and was renowned for its Ferris Wheel and the steeplechase mechanical horse racetrack ride that surrounded the glass and steel Palace of Fun indoor park. In 1940, the Steeplechase acquired the Parachute Jump from the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, where it has remained despite the 1964 closure and demolition of the park. The inoperable Jump is affectionately nicknamed "Brooklyn's Eiffel Tower".

One of the great headline attractions at Steeplechase had been A Trip to the Moon. The ride had been the creation of partners Frederick Thompson and Skip Dundy, was based more or less on the film of the same name by Georges Méliès, and had originally debuted at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York. Visitors entered the "station" to see a huge craft with bat-like wings, dubbed "Luna." Once 30 passengers had been strapped in, the wings began to beat and Luna lifted off. First the exposition, then the city, then the earth sped away behind the celestial craft. Eventually they descended through the clouds to the surface of the moon, where they were greeted by dwarven Selenites. These Selenites conducted visitors through the moon's underground passages to an audience with the Man in the Moon and an musical fountain show. Finally they were given pieces of lunar cheese and disgorged back into the park.

A postcard promoting A Trip to the Moon.

How was this possible? A cyclorama, or panorama, was a popular merging of public entertainment and the arts in the late 19th century. These were cylindrical paintings that were meant to imitate a full panoramic field of vision. Sometimes, in order to heighten the effect, foreground items were added that turned the cyclorama into a full diorama in the round. Each successive leg of the flight - the exposition, the city, and the earth - were painted canvas scrolls. 

Steeplechase Park's owner was very impressed by this attraction and leased it from Thompson and Dundy in 1902. At the park, A Trip to the Moon drew over 850,000 guests during one of the rainiest summers on record. Steeplechase ended up being the only existing park at Coney Island to turn a profit that year. But when it came time to renegotiate the lease, the owner decided to lower the cut to Thompson and Dundy, prompting them to take their ride and go home.

Luna Park was perhaps the most magnificent of the three parks. Originally Captain Paul Boyton's Sea Lion Park, it was purchased by Thompson and Dundy as competition against Steeplechase Park. They rechristened it Luna Park in 1903, after the airship. A motto on the gate described Luna as "The Heart of Coney Island", and that it was.

Entering the park, the visitor was swept down a surreal promenade with a replica of Venice complete gondoliers. To the right, the first attraction visitors came upon was A Trip to the Moon.  next came eir new cyclorama show and the very first attraction ostensibly based on Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

The thoroughfare of Luna Park, with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the right.

Walking down the main thoroughfare, revelers were herded into 20,000 Leagues by a barker clad in Eskimo furs. Like later attractions, visitors descended into the bowels of the submersible craft where, outside the portholes, a bizarre array of wonders revealed themselves. Amongst the scenes cycling by in this trip from the Indian to the Arctic Ocean were fish, coral reefs, sunken ships, wisps of seaweed, tentacled octopus, and even a mermaid.

After this cyclorama of ocean life, the submarine surfaced in the frigid wastes of the Arctic... That is, into a refrigerated warehouse where real icebergs floated about the expansive pool, providing rest to a menagerie of living polar bears and seals. It was also home to a tribe of Inuit (or actors in Inuit garb), complete with igloos and dogsleds. An Aurora Borealis effect was projected on the sky-like ceiling.

A postcard promoting Luna Park's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The cost this magnificent attraction in 1903 was $180,000 (or about $4.1 million in today's dollar). Rides were 25 cents apiece. Unfortunately, it was replaced a mere two years later by the Dragon's Gorge scenic roller coaster, which sent visitors on a trip through the Grand Canyon, North Pole, Africa and Hades.

Fir trees and flags lined this avenue to fairyland, welcoming the harried masses to a timeless escape. The main attraction was the Shoot the Chutes, but visitors also enjoyed the Helter Skelter slide, the circus, and the War of the Worlds miniature naval show (not based on the Wells novel). At the centre of Luna was the Electric Tower and a crystal lagoon, which lit up at night with 250,000 electric lights. Maxim Gorky wrote, in 1907:

With the advent of night a fantastic city all of fire suddenly rises from the ocean into the sky. Thousands of ruddy sparks glimmer in the darkness, limning in fine sensitive outline on the black background of the sky, shapely towers of miraculous castles, palaces and temples. Golden gossamer threads tremble in the air. They intertwine in transparent, flaming patterns, which flutter and melt away in love with their own beauty mirrored in the waters. Fabulous beyond conceiving, ineffably beautiful, is this fiery scintillation.

A postcard illustrating Luna Park's evening electric light display.

Eventually the park fell on harder times. The park suffered a fire in 1944 and closed forever in 1945.

Of these past amusement palaces, the story of Dreamland is perhaps the most tragic. This was a Coney Island epic... Built in 1904 as direct competition to Luna Park, Dreamland possessed an almost World's Fair-like atmosphere. Stunning Art Deco buildings overlooked a lagoon and housed miniature Swiss railways and Venetian canals, a Japanese tearoom, an airship exhibit, dance hall, copycat submarine attraction, and a shoot-the-chutes. There was also the Bostock Circus, featuring liontamer Captain Bonavita. At night, the complex, central tower and lagoon - like Luna Park's - were lit up in a million electric lights.

Sadly, an accidental fire in May of 1911 grew unchecked until it engulfed all of Dreamland. The entire facility was reduced to charred cinders, and never rebuilt. Today, the New York aquarium occupies the same plot of land.

Vestiges of Coney Island's playful past still exist. The Cyclone roller coaster was built in 1927, replacing the earlier Giant Coaster. One of the largest remaining wooden roller coasters, its incredible intensity still thrills riders today. The massive Wonder Wheel ferris wheel, completed in 1920, features both stationary and moving cars along its circumference, and is both a designated historic resource and centrepiece of the family-owned, family-oriented Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. In the tradition of Coney Island's long history of sideshows, there is also the Sideshows by the Seashore arts collective and a museum chronicling the past of this remarkable place of enchantment.