CONEY ISLAND WEB SITE TEXT

EDITOR’S NOTE
	Coney Island at the turn of the century is fascinating because it was a place where people were consciously having more fun than ever before.  Situated within an easy train ride of New York City, Coney Island proved to be a godsend of release and recreation for the packed urban center.  Many high quality websites exist that detail the history and development of the park from it’s glory days in the early years at the turn of the century, through devastating fires, two World Wars and a long slow decline, to its final collapse in the 1960s into housing projects and a deserted wasteland.  I have chosen to focus not on the technical history, but on the cultural effects of Coney Island as a phenomenon of fun and consumption.  Why was Coney such an attractive destination?  Why was Coney a different world and what were the new rules for that world? What did Coney reveal about the nature of cities at the time?  Coney was a place where the more staid 18th century met the vibrant consumer-oriented 19th century.  I have looked at PBS documentaries, texts about the development of amusement parks, works on the history of Brooklyn, and books about Coney Island itself.  First hand accounts and interviews with people who visited Coney in their youth have been helpful in getting a sense of the excitement and newness of the experience of going to a park designed exclusively for amusement of all types.  I have tried to develop a way to display the cultural effects of the park and to take a look at what was going on more fundamentally beneath all of the rides, the hotdogs, the arcades, and the excitement.


INTRODUCTION
Coney Island was the biggest, brightest, and most American amusement park in existence at the turn of the century.  The sprawling park proved to be fundamental in the development of the rollercoaster, the hotdog, and the new American ethos of fun.   Coney Island was the summer safety valve for New York and provided for a release of heat and human energy from the city.  New York City was one of the world’s most spectacularly populated metropolises at that time, and on summer weekends thousands of New Yorkers fled out to the beach at Coney to enjoy the sun and sand and seek relief from factory jobs and the dirty air of the city.  A trolley ride from Brooklyn out to Coney Island cost only 5 cents and was a quick 32 minute trip.   People rode bicycles to Coney, or took trains, automobiles, and carriages.  Another option was combining transportation with ferries and elevated trains to reach New York’s favorite summer Sunday retreat.  The extension of the subway out to Coney in 1920 meant it became an even more accessible destination.  
Upon entering the permanent carnival atmosphere of Coney, a rollercoaster ride, a soda, or a Nathan’s hotdog could each be had for only 5 cents apiece, lending Coney the nickname “The Nickel Empire.”  At Coney, it was always a holiday-no one was celebrating anything in particular, just worshipping fun in what could be called a “managed celebration for commercial ends.”  Coney Island created its own special world that operated under a different set of social rules and codes.  Here strangers were thrown together, the world was tossed upside down, and people from all races, classes, and ethnicities splashed together in the ocean.  The people who delighted in Coney’s newness, grandness, and electric lightbulbs were not merely emptily enjoying themselves.  They were being trained to be consumers and were gently becoming more comfortable with technology.  They also got to become part of the show at Coney by being on display themselves, parading about and watching others.  While visiting Coney, they were also developing definitions of social normality by comparing themselves to others and to the freaks that were part of the Coney community. Abandoning the 18th century cultural values of hard work, thrift, and sobriety in favor of the consumption of fun, the multitudes at Coney provided a dynamic laboratory for America’s emerging pop culture.  





BIBLIOGRAPHY

CONCLUSION

CONSUMPTION OF EXPERIENCE

EXPERIENCE


WHITE CITY
One of the influences on the development of Coney Island was the success of the World’s Fair in Chicago of 1893.  One of the main attractions there was a full-scale urban space called the “White City,” representing “a model of the true, ideal shape of reality.” The White City’s Court of Honor was a place of towering white columns and pristine promenades where visitors could celebrate the beauty of the arts and the achievements of the human mind.  Designed to elevate the taste and morals of its audience, the White City showed the common people the potential that lay within America to create a perfectly ordered world.  The grandeur of the uniformly white buildings and the architecture and sculpture intended to dazzle viewers with the awesome transcendent power of art, order, and authority.  The city was perfectly symmetrical, and housed many exhibitions focused on American progress and revolutionary technological developments.
Coney Island adopted none of the White City’s goals of cultural elevation or intellectual stimulation.  Coney was much more reminiscent of the Midway Plaisance at the Fair, which lay outside the borders of the White City.  A grudging concession to public taste, the Midway’s carnival atmosphere was completely different from the highly regulated and formal City.  Out on the Midway, people laughed and sang, ate food from vendors, watched shows and relished the opportunity to gratify their senses.  This contrast proved to be an effective way of highlighting the stateliness of the White City while demonstrating the raucous, unruly nature of the Midway.  The crowds loved the Midway, and when they grew tired of being led around in appreciative awe, they retreated to the Midway to let loose.  Luna Park at Coney Island also exhibited an ideal city, but it was much more fanciful than the White City.  People’s desire for unadulterated, unedifying fun was not lost on the developers of Coney Island, and they sought to create their own permanent World’s Fair, which would be all Midway fun and with less of a forthright cultural agenda.


TRAVEL
Just as the different social codes at Coney Island made one feel as if they had entered another world, so too did many of the rides encourage that sense of being transported.  Coney pioneered the amusement park concept of creating a sense of being transported to faraway lands.  While staying within the safe confines of the park, people who had never left New York could experience the sights and smells of foreign lands.  Scenic railways were popular at the Park, and employed some simplistic techniques to enhance the ride.  For example, riders on the Alpine Railway would get a blast of wintry cold Swiss air on the ride to create the impression they were truly experiencing travel.  Rides that transported visitors through different lands and cultures were precursors to wildly popular rides like “It’s a Small World” in Walt Disney World.  For people who might never be able to afford a trip abroad, these rides could bring the rest of the world to them and lay it out in neat cultural packages.
Up close, visitors could also examine exotic members of native tribes like Eskimos or the Wild Men of Borneo.  Park attractions scouts would scour the globe to find whole tribes that would agree to come live at Coney Island in return for food, lodging, and payment.  The strange looking families with scanty clothing proved fascinating for visitors in an age before television and National Geographic familiarized these images and brought them directly into people’s homes.  

BENEVOLENCE OF TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY

FACTORY

ELECTRIC

PERFORMED SELF ON DISPLAY

SELF
At Coney Island, part of the experience was the interactive and transcendent nature of the roles of performer and spectator.  Not only did visitors go to Coney to watch shows, they went to be part of the show themselves.  Coney Island was in some sense a huge window display of a human parade open to the public view.  People came to see and be seen and people-watching from benches and the pier could be just as intriguing as any of the available rides.  Working girls came dressed up and played games to see who could get their date to spend more money on them throughout the course of the day.  Finding a man who would indulge in a $5 splurge would usually win the competition.  
Although many people dressed up in Sunday clothes to come to the Park, there was one democratizing feature of fashion: the bathing suit.  Men, women, and children, old and young alike all wore the uniform dark-colored tank outfit to splash around in the water.  Not many people actually swam at the beach; it was too crowded, and not many people knew how to, anyway.  But the bathing suit was essential for playing in the water and cooling off.  The suits were quite modest by modern standards, but they made everyone look the same and showed much more skin than you would see on a city street.  They also encouraged much freer movement than restrictive city clothes, and the combination of these factors freed up inhibitions.

BLOWHOLE
The Blowhole Theater was one of the most striking examples of the blending of the roles of spectator and performer.  The Blowhole was constructed in such a way that people were actually trapped into performing.  At the end of a long, dark hallway leading off of a ride, hidden jets of compressed air would shoot from vents and blow up the skirts of female riders as they exited.  A midget and a clown would run around with cattle prongs electrically shocking the male riders.  Other people actually paid to sit in the bleachers surrounding the exit and watch the skirts fly up and listen to the embarrassed female screams and giggles.  The women were never asked whether or not they wanted to be on public display- they were thrust onstage with the understanding that they would screech and react dramatically to show the viewers a good time.  The women, through their very actions and reactions, were providing free entertainment for Coney Island.  The Blowhole Theater was tremendously popular and actually ran for decades, becoming known as New York’s longest running show.

SPECTATOR
Visitors to Coney would arrive separately by car, subway, or train, but over the course of the day they would “become actors in a collective drama” and be bound together by their experience as simultaneous spectators and performers.  Tellingly, many of the rides actually had their own viewing stands, where the audience thrilled to hear the screams of the rollercoaster riders and watch them go flying by.  Part of the implied agreement with riding a rollercoaster was accepting the rules of expected behavior.  One was not to sit quietly and enjoy the dizzying loops, but rather it was expected that one demonstrate what a good time one was having by hollering, screaming, and throwing their arms around their seat companion’s neck.  In this way the rider could enjoy the ride but also participate in the spectacle.

DEFINITIONS OF NORMALITY

BABIES

NORMALITY
Visitors could view these real live human beings in a non-threatening and controlled environment, like a human zoo.


FREAKWORLD