Download or read book Lost Amusement Parks of New York City written by Barbara Gottlock and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical tour of fun and frolic in the five boroughs—including photos from the good old days. Coney Island is an iconic symbol of turn-of-the-century New York—but many other amusement parks have thrilled the residents of the five boroughs. Strategically placed at the end of trolley lines, railways, public beaches, and waterways, these playgrounds for the rich and poor alike first appeared in 1767. From humble beginnings, they developed into huge sites like Fort George, Manhattan’s massive amusement complex. Each park was influenced by the culture and eclectic tastes of its owners and patrons—from the wooden coasters at Staten Island’s Midland Beach to beer gardens on Queens’ North Beach and fireworks blasting from the Bronx’s Starlight Park. As real estate became more valuable, these parks disappeared. With this historical tour, you can rediscover the thrills of the past from the lost amusement parks of New York City.
Download or read book Brooklyn Gang written by Bruce Davidson and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1959, Bruce Davidson read about the teenage gangs of New York City. Connecting with a social worker to make initial contact with a gang in Brooklyn called The Jokers, Davidson became a daily observer and photographer of this alienated youth culture. The Fifties are often considered passive and pale by our standards of urban reality, but Davidson's photographs prove otherwise. Nearly 70 sheet-fed gravure plates show images of tough people, tough lives, tough lovers, all trying to be cool. They are followed by a short recollection by the photographer and a lengthier interview with Bengie, a surviving gang member, who is now a drug counselor."--Magnum Photo.
Download or read book Coney Island s Wonder Wheel Park written by Charles Denson and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The venerable Wonder Wheel, Coney Island's oldest and greatest attraction, has dominated the Coney Island skyline for more than a century. Towering over an ephemeral amusement zone long plagued by fires, floods, and ill-conceived urban renewal schemes, the magnificent steel machine has proved to be the ultimate survivor. The ride boasts impressive statistics. A combination of roller coaster and Ferris wheel, the 150-foot-tall structure weighs 200 tons, has 16 swinging cars and 8 stationary cars, and can carry 144 riders. More than 40 million passengers have taken a ride on the wheel since it was built in 1920, and during that time, it has maintained a perfect safety record. The ride is also a monument to immigrant initiative. Charles Hermann, the ride's designer, was Romanian; the original owner, Herman Garms, was German; and Denos Vourderis, who purchased and lovingly restored the aging landmark in 1983, was Greek. An official New York City landmark, the Wonder Wheel is now owned and operated by three generations of the Vourderis family as the centerpiece of their Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. The enduring saga of this iconic ride, and the family that saved it, provide a captivating chapter of Coney Island's history.
Download or read book Coney Island Baby written by Larry Racioppo and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Coney Island and Astroland written by Charles Denson and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coney Island is a unique New York City neighborhood and a place of exciting innovation, where the roller coaster and the hot dog were introduced to the world, the glow of a million bare lightbulbs at Luna Park dazzled early visitors, and rocket rides at Astroland fueled intergalactic fantasies. Coney Island served as the pressure valve for New York, drawing millions to its famous beach on sweltering weekends. Astroland Park, created at the dawn of the space age, was the vision of Dewey and Jerome Albert. They transformed the 3-acre Feltman's Restaurant property, one of Coney Island's oldest attractions, into a futuristic amusement park that would anchor the amusement zone for the next half century. The park's ambitious opening in 1962 mirrored the wide-eyed optimism of the early 1960s and helped Coney Island survive the closure of the venerable Steeplechase Park.
Download or read book Coney Island written by John S. Berman and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than simply an escape from New York's sweltering summer streets, the strip of Brooklyn's south shore known as Coney Island embodied a new American attitude toward entertainment. Here, you'll experience the decadent delights of this magical land of ritzy hotels and penny arcades, where dance pavilions and freak shows shared space with sizzling burlesque and cooling ocean breezes. You'll meet George Tilyou, whose Steeplechase Park featured the Blowhole Theater, the Insanitarium and the Human Pool Table, and Nathan Handwerker, whose Nathan's Famous hot dogs became synonymous with summertime food. You'll ride the legendary Cyclone roller coaster and stroll through Dreamland and Luna Park, where generations of New Yorkers met and mingled in a place that came to define American fun.
Download or read book The Kid of Coney Island written by Woody Register and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-10-18 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A generation before Walt Disney, Fred Thompson was the "boy-wonder" of American popular amusements. At the turn of the 20th century, Thompson's entrepreneurial drive made him into an entertainment mogul who helped to define the popular culture of his day. In this lively biography, Woody Register tells Thompson's remarkable story and examines the transformation of commerce and entertainment as American society moved into an era of mass marketing and large-scale corporate enterprise. Getting his start as a promoter of carnival shows at world's fairs, Thompson was one of the principal developers of Coney Island, where he created the majestic Luna Park. Register traces Thompson's career as he built the mammoth Hippodrome Theater in Manhattan, where he mounted many productions noted for their spectacular--and spectacularly costly--staging effects. Register shows how Thompson's fantasies appealed to the growing legions of Americans who found themselves in a world that seemed increasingly "businesslike" and profit oriented. He illustrates how Thompson aggressively marketed to adult consumers a world of make-believe and childlike play, carefully crafting his own public image as "the boy who never grew up." Colorful, well-written, and insightful, The Kid of Coney Island brings to life a kaleidoscopic era in New York history as well as one of its most striking characters.
Download or read book Amusing the Million written by John F. Kasson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coney Island: the name still resonates with a sense of racy Brooklyn excitement, the echo of beach-front popular entertainment before World War I. Amusing the Million examines the historical context in which Coney Island made its reputation as an amusement park and shows how America's changing social and economic conditions formed the basis of a new mass culture. Exploring it afresh in this way, John Kasson shows Coney Island no longer as the object of nostalgia but as a harbinger of modernity--and the many photographs, lithographs, engravings, and other reproductions with which he amplifies his text support this lively thesis.
Download or read book Good Old Coney Island written by Edo McCullough and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third period was that of the nickel empire when the subways reached the island, the great hordes arrived, and Coney grew cheap and garish. In its fourth period, Coney Island became a beautiful seaside park."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Coney Island Coney Island written by Coney Island Chamber of Commerce (New York, N.Y.) and published by . This book was released on 1930 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Coney Island written by Charles Denson and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Denson gives us an insider's look at one of New York's best-known neighborhoods, weaving together memories of his childhood adventures with colorful stories of the area's past and interviews with local personalities, all brought to life by hundreds of photographs, detailed maps, and authentic memorabilia.
Download or read book Amusement Parks of New York written by Jim Futrell and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive guide profiles 16 major amusement parks in the Empire State and offers information on smaller parks as well. Offers complete information on rides and attractions, a history of each park, and best times to go. Features vintage photographs and postcards scenes.
Download or read book Coney Island written by William J. Phalen and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-07-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the Civil War, Coney Island boasted a beach, a dozen small hotels with ramshackle bathhouses, some chowder stands and a few saloons. After the war, it was taken over by powerful individuals who made its 0.7 square miles a domain of the wealthy. By 1905, with the population of New York City at four million, the city's amusement park builders designed an entertainment wonderland on the island that even the poor could enjoy, creating a "nickel empire," where visitors paid five cents for the subway, five cents for a Nathan's hot dog and five cents for a ride. In 1910, Coney Island saw 20 million visitors--more than Disneyland and Disney World combined could claim 70 years later, adjusted for population growth. Through the decades, the island has seen changes of fortune, floods and fires, cycles of decay and rehabilitation. Yet the ultimate power on the island was and is the government of the city of New York, which--for good or ill--has made Coney Island what it is today.
Download or read book Coney Island Christmas written by Donald Margulies, based on the story "The Loudest Voice" by Grace Paley and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies weaves together nostalgia, music and merriment in this new seasonal classic. A holiday show for people of all ages and all faiths, CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS introduces us to Shirley Abramowitz, a young Jewish girl who (much to her immigrant parents' exasperation) is cast as Jesus in the school's Christmas pageant. As Shirley, now much older, recounts the memorable story to her great-granddaughter, the play captures a timeless and universal tale of what it means to be an American during the holidays.
Download or read book Roosevelt Island written by Judith Berdy and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roosevelt Island captures the fascinating and sometimes curious history of an island located halfway between Manhattan and Queens in the East River. In 1824, the city of New York purchased Blackwell's Island, later Welfare Island, as a site for its lunatic asylum, penitentiary, workhouses, and almshouses. In the years that followed, the island was a temporary home for several of New York City's famous and infamous. William Marcy Tweed, better known as "Boss Tweed," was imprisoned at the penitentiary in the 1870s. Mae West was incarcerated in 1927 at the Workhouse for Women after her appearance in a play called Sex. After many institutions were closed or relocated, Welfare Island was virtually ignored until 1973, when it was reborn as Roosevelt Island, which is now a model planned community and thriving home to almost ten thousand people.
Download or read book The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle written by Aaron Beebe and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "On the afternoon of August 28th 1909 Sigmund Freud visited Coney Island's famous Dreamland amusement park. A hundred years later this lively and imaginative book examines his legacy in Coney Island. It begins with Norman Klein's reconstruction of his actual visit. However Freud's real impact appears to have come later with the founding of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society. Zoe Beloff conjures up the world of this unique Society, whose forward-thinking attitude flourished from1926 through the early 1970s. The Society's members, most of them working people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, wished to participate in one of the great intellectual movements of the 20th century. She explores their activities that included recreating their dreams on film and discusses the role of the society's visionary founder Albert Grass who attempted to rebuild Dreamland according to Freud's theory of dream formation."--From publisher's website, http://www.christineburgin.com
Download or read book Everywhere Always written by Jennifer Ann Shore and published by Jennifer Ann Shore. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Avery Miller wakes up in her hospital room, it's to a life she didn't expect, want, or ever imagine for herself. She's barely given time to mourn the death of her mother as she's introduced to her new family-a father she never knew existed, a stepmother she didn't want, and a brother who gave himself the job of being her enthusiastic best friend and overbearing protector before they even met. All it takes is one car accident to change the trajectory of seventeen-year-old Avery's life forever, ripping her from the brink of poverty in Pennsylvania and tossing her into a new life in a penthouse apartment in the middle of New York City. The visible marks on her skin are a tangible reminder of the pain she's gone through, but it's Ethan, the guy who lives one floor below and has a Shakespeare quote for every occasion, who helps her overcome loss, find herself again, and fall in love.
