Coney Island (1991)

[bunniefuu]

[ Foghorn]

[ cheering, yelling]

man: in this concrete jungle

there ain't many places where there's sand.

And there certainly ain't a lot of places where there's water.

And you combine water with sand and lo and behold--

you got a beach!

The guy who invented that, that was marvelous.

[ Bell clangs]

[ pipe organ playing "the sidewalks of new york"]

man: albert einstein created the general theory of relativity

and talked about this thing called gravity

and coney island dismissed it entirely.

Man: I saw this wonderful machine

where people riding on it were taking all kinds of curves.

I saw this as a work of art

like it was something modern, someone invented this thing.

To me it was a mobile.

I felt thrilled by it.

Man: that's it, that's it.

[ Bell rings], yahoo!

Willensky: it was the nature of going to coney island

that you would encounter strangeness.

You would encounter the unencounterable.

Lewis: I don't know if you remember the symbol of steeplechase.

It was a clown with a big smile like that there

laughing-- george c. Tilyou's steeplechase.

The leering grin-- steeplechase-- "come have fun.

And other things."

[ Maniacal laughter]

man: "it is blatant, it is cheap.

"It is the apotheosis of the ridiculous

"but it is something more.

"It is like niagara falls

"or the grand canyon or yellowstone park.

"It is a national playground

"and not to have seen it

is not to have seen your own country."

"Play is not a luxury"

one reformer wrote at the turn of the century

"but an absolute necessity for the working world of today."

By , a spit of land at the foot of brooklyn had become

the most extravagant playground in the country

and the summer safety valve

for the most explosively packed metropolis on earth.

But coney island was more than a playground.

The three great amusement parks that flourished there

turned the machines of industry into instruments of play

and let loose the bright forces and dark possibilities

of a vast democratic culture.

Coney island astonished, delighted

and appalled the nation

and took america from the victorian age

into the modern world.

Man: in , the entire western world knew what coney was.

They knew that if you wanted to be really excited

to have a really good time, to have something

that your people back home would want to hear about

you went to coney island.

This place, in its time, both fascinated people

and scared them to death.

Coney island offered the future in little ways

but in the first tangible ways these people were able to touch.

In tiny ways, in toys

the th century was coming in at coney island.

Narrator: on september , , one day before he discovered manhattan

henry hudson discovered coney island

a five-mile-long waste

of sand dunes, scrub grass and conies--

the wild rabbits that gave the place its name.

Coney was still a wasteland two centuries later

when in , a side-wheeler from manhattan began tying up

at a makeshift pier on the island's western end.

Out on the beach, men served clams and beer

under a crude pavilion

amidst raucous bouts of three-card monte

and a dice game called chuck-a-luck.

"It is a well-known fact," one visitor complained

"that picnics are often arranged for the sole benefit

of pickpockets, prostit*tes and swindlers."

Dead bodies were sometimes found rolling in the surf.

At the eastern end of the island

as far as possible from the disorder of the west

three vast frame hotels went up.

By the s, the brighton beach, the manhattan beach

and the oriental hotels

were drawing respectable families and their servants

for the whole summer.

The proprietors piped in fresh water from the mainland

offered band concerts every evening

and paid detectives to patrol the beaches

where the guests were mastering

the difficult art of sea-bathing.

People too poor for the east end of the island

and too cautious for the west

spilled out along a mongrel stretch of beach

called west brighton

that was not yet built up by the big developers.

Woman: "what crowds of people!

"Lighthearted, laughing people

"rich, poor, citified, country-clad-- all sorts

"all thrilled by the tonic of the atmosphere

and all active, yet wondering at their activity."

Narrator: by , an irish-born builder named john y. Mckane

had wrested control of coney's political machinery

so completely

that no building from a chowder stand to an iron pier

went up without his approval.

During mckane's reign, the island became a showcase

for the wonders of the machine age.

In , the centerpiece of the philadelphia exposition

was moved to coney-- an observation tower

whose steam-powered elevators

lifted people feet above the sea.

It was the tallest structure in the united states.

After descending from the tower

sightseers could refresh themselves

from the mechanical udders of an inexhaustible cow.

Daring bathers could go for nighttime swims

pulling themselves along ropes

under the hissing blaze of primitive arc lamps.

People called it "electric bathing."

Afterward, they could eat a novel kind of hot fast food.

Its inventor, charles feltman

called them "coney island red hots."

Others, uncertain of their ingredients

called them hot dogs.

In , lamarcus thompson invented a gravity-powered ride

he called a switchback railway.

The roller coaster was born.

Before long, there were refinements:

the loop-the-loop and the flip-flap railway.

The flip-flap could take only four passengers at a time

frequently damaged them, and soon went out of business.

A new structure now dominated the coney island skyline--

a hotel in the shape of an elephant.

Tin-skinned and feet high.

A cigar store in one leg, a diorama in another.

And rooms available in the hip, shoulder, cheek,

trunk, and thigh.

Man: "coney island, our popular summer resort

"has been a suburb of sodom.

"Indeed, sodom bore no comparison to this place

"for violence.

"One cannot speak in public

"of the scenes which are daily enacted there

and by which young people of both sexes are polluted."

Narrator: reverend a.c. Dixon, the new york times.

Man: "houses of prostitution are a necessity on coney island

"and I don't propose to interfere

"with the gambling at brighton beach and sheepshead bay.

After all, this ain't no sunday school."

Narrator: john y. Mckane.

By , mckane had become an impediment

to the island's growth.

The new york timesdeclared

that coney island had become sodom-by-the-sea

and worried that its reputation would keep people away.

That year, to keep a reform candidate out of office

boss mckane registered , voters--

, more than coney's entire eligible voting population

and on election day, had his police beat and jail

the state officials sent to keep him from rigging the polls.

It was the boss's last victory.

Two months later, mckane was on trial

for election fraud, contempt of court, misuse of public funds

and nine other charges.

[ Prison door slams]

woman: "with mr. Mckane now in sing-sing

"it remains to be seen how far the keepers of the resorts

"can make their places attractive without vice.

The experiment will be interesting."

Man: "every nation needs escape from respectability

"from the world of what we have to do

"into the world of what we would like to do

"from the world of duty that endureth forever

"into the world of joy that is permitted for a moment.

"Perhaps coney island is the most human thing

that god ever made..."

Or permitted the devil to make.

Narrator: by the last decade of the th century

there were more than three million new yorkers.

A million and a half of them lived in slums

more closely herded

than the people of calcutta or bombay.

Coney island exploded.

A quarter of a million people could be found there

on summer sundays.

Thomas edison's incandescent light began burning

across the island.

Soon the aurora of three great amusement parks would be visible

miles out to sea.

In , the motion picture camera was perfected.

Among the first titles

the edison company offered its exhibitors that summer

were "sea waves at coney island" and "cakewalk on the beach."

Man: "youth is extravagant to prodigality with itself.

"It is drunk

"with its own passionate, intoxicating perfume.

"And we surround that young, passionate, bursting blossom

"with every temptation to break down its resistant power

"lure it into sentiment, pulsating desire and eroticism

"by lurid literature, moving pictures, tango dances

"suggestive songs, cabaret-- noise!--

"Until the senses are throbbing

with leashed-in physical passion."

Snow: people are always scared by change.

And coney represented change

of a particularly powerful and picturesque kind.

If you go to a place that's only a streetcar ride away

where the rules of behavior are entirely changed

even the people who are enjoying it are going to realize

that something strong and transforming

is happening to them.

They're going to be made nervous

by the very things that give them pleasure.

Man: "if paris is france

coney island, between june and september, is the world!"

George c. Tilyou.

Narrator: the man who succeeded mckane as coney's ruler

was not a politician.

He was a showman, but different from any showman

who had come before him.

His name was george c. Tilyou

and he was the first impresario of controlled chaos.

In , the -year-old coney islander visited

the chicago world's fair

and tried to buy george ferris's -foot-tall wheel on the spot.

He failed, went home to coney

and ordered a wheel half the size

then put up a sign that said, "on this site will be erected

the world's largest ferris wheel."

By the time the machine arrived

tilyou had rented out enough concession space

to pay for it.

Tilyou's main competitor was captain paul boyton

who had spent most of his life on the rivers of the world

paddling himself to international fame

in an inflatable rubber suit.

At coney, he opened "sea lion park"

a ramshackle cluster of attractions

featuring a boat ride down a chute-the-chutes.

As soon as he saw it, tilyou wanted a park of his own.

But he needed an attraction to rival boyton's chutes.

He found it in england, a mechanical horse race

and began laying out the sinuous iron track

of his steeplechase ride.

In , steeplechase park opened its doors

for the first time.

Man: "young men like it

"because it gives them a chance to hug the girls.

"The girls like it

"because it gives them a chance to get hugged.

"Everybody likes it

"because it is cheap fun, real fun, lively fun.

"It realizes its motto--

'half a mile in half a minute and fun all the time.'"

Narrator: the horses were only part of the fun.

Dismounting from the steeplechase ride

customers had to cross a small, bright stage

ruled by a clown and a dwarf.

It was called "the blowhole theater."

It played for almost years--

new york's longest running show.

As a couple stepped onto the stage

a jet of air blew the woman's skirt up around her waist

while the dwarf gleefully shocked her date

with an electric cattle prod.

The audience shrieked with laughter

and waited for the next victims

while the latest ones took their seats in the crowd.

[ Laughter]

sometimes the manager had to darken the stage

and empty the theater so a new audience could push in.

Tilyou discovered that customers would pay

for the privilege of entertaining other customers--

that people liked seeing shows

but they liked seeing people more.

He had also discovered that men and women liked almost anything

that allowed them to grab hold of each other.

The attractions inside steeplechase

soon included the earthquake float

the skating floor, the falling statue

the human cage, the revolving seat

the funny stairway, the eccentric fountain

the dancing floor, the electric seat

the human roulette wheel.

Woman: "time was when the place was shunned

"by ultra-respectable new yorkers

"who went instead to manhattan beach.

But nowadays coney is visited by all classes."

Woman: "when you bathe in coney, you bathe in the american jordan.

"It is holy water.

"Nowhere else in the united states

"will you see so many races mingle in a common purpose

"for a common good.

"Democracy meets here and has its first interview,

"skin to skin.

"Here you find the real interpretation

"of the declaration of independence--

"the most good for the greatest number:

tolerance... Freedom."

Narrator: on july , , fire broke out at steeplechase

in the cave of the winds.

The big wooden park burned for hours.

The next day, tilyou had a sign up

where the entrance had been.

"For inquiring friends.

"I have troubles today that I did not have yesterday.

"I had troubles yesterday that I have not today.

"On this site will be erected shortly

"a better, bigger, greater steeplechase park.

Admission to the burning ruins, cents."

Narrator: nine months later, the park was open again.

This time tilyou covered everything

with a glass-and-steel shed

and called it "the pavilion of fun."

It made steeplechase impervious to the weather.

Tilyou's rivals claimed he went to church to pray for rain.

And there were some rivals now.

Frederick thompson was a failed architect, an alcoholic

who had dropped out from the ecole de beaux arts in paris.

Elmer "skip" dundy was a court clerk from omaha

who had once managed to sell

the bankrupt union pacific railroad

for more than $ million.

Across surf avenue from steeplechase

the two men were building

the most extraordinary amusement park on earth.

Their partnership began at the buffalo exposition,

with an elaborate attraction called "a trip to the moon."

Man: we got into a big winged thing

that looked like a modern airplane.

And you felt like you were traveling up to the sky.

But when you got out, you met a lot of midgets

dressed up like the people in the moon.

The whole thing was mysterious and spooky

and made your gal hold on to you.

Narrator: thompson and dundy's moon ride

was the sensation of the fair.

So successful that george tilyou asked them

to bring it to steeplechase park.

When tilyou demanded a larger share of the profits,

thompson and dundy refused

and set out to build their own park.

Declaring that straight lines are necessarily severe and dead

thompson banished them from his drafting table.

"In building for a festive occasion

"there should be an absolute departure

"from all set forms of architecture.

"One must dare to decorate a minaret

"with renaissance detail...

"Or to jumble romanesque with art nouveau

"always with the idea of keeping his line constantly varied

"broken and moving.

"The first step

is to get emotional excitement into the very air."

Narrator: they named their park "luna"

not for the moon, as some thought

but for skip's sister luna, over in bayonne, new jersey.

By opening night

thompson and dundy had only $ left between them

and had to comb the island

to come up with change for the ticket takers.

At : on the evening of may ,

the gates opened.

Woman: "about , men, women and children

"strolling along surf avenue

"stopped and rubbed their eyes

"and stood in wonder and pinched themselves

to see if there was not something wrong somewhere."

Narrator: nobody had ever seen anything like it.

Thompson and dundy had decorated

their forest of towers and minarets

with , incandescent lights.

It was, one man said, "an electric eden."

Woman: "here is alchemy.

"Here, in full view of thousands

"in tiers of boxes and promenades

"the spotted horses, the clowns, the acrobats

"jugglers, hoop artists, intellectual elephants

"arabian pyramidists, tumblers, contortionists

disport under the crackling lashes of the ringmaster."

Fried: you felt you were in the orient, in different parts of the world

and the buildings themselves

made you feel that you were a great chieftain

and these were your temples

and you could go in there just for a nickel.

You'd become a chieftain yourself.

You could be almost anything you wanted.

All the fairy tales that you read as a little boy

were coming true right here in luna park.

Man: it was heaven!

You went down this thing at this unbelievable speed

and you hit the water

and you got covered with the spray

and everyone was shouting

and then you would go across this wonderful lagoon

with little lights around the edge.

It was just fantastic!

Narrator: "ah, god!" Said one visitor.

"What might the prophet have written in revelation

if only he had first beheld a spectacle like this."

Thompson and dundy made a formidable team.

In just six weeks they had paid back every cent

of the $, it had cost to build luna park.

By season's end, they were rich men.

Luna's success fascinated william h. Reynolds

a new york politician

with a reputation for brokering shady real estate deals.

Reynolds talked the city of new york

into selling him acres between surf avenue and the sea

then got them to throw in west th street for free.

Reynolds planned to build a park to end all parks.

It would hold , people at a time.

Its one million electric lights

would dazzle luna into obscurity.

It would be another world-- a dreamworld.

He called it "dreamland."

All through the first winter of luna's success

tall white towers rose across the street.

Fried: the most dramatic thing that happened at coney island

was dreamland itself.

You felt that you were being elevated into another class

into a higher position in life.

It was a more cultural thing.

It was a more graceful thing.

Narrator: reynolds built his park on a colossal scale.

It was to be a catalogue of the future

an inventory of the strange

and a compendium of the century to come.

The newest technology, the latest science

the odd, the bizarre, the far-flung

would be at home in dreamland.

The park was spread beneath a -foot beacon tower.

At night, its imperial searchlight

beamed miles out over the atlantic

disorienting ships on their way into new york harbor.

Beneath it, gondolas drifted through the canals of venice.

Trains carried patrons through the swiss alps

where they were cooled by blasts of refrigerated mountain air.

There was a train of the future.

The wreck-proof leapfrog railway

allowed two trains to pass each other without mishap...

On the same track.

Human beings from every part of the globe

were brought to dreamland and put on display.

The park manager, sam gumpertz

acquired a dozen somali warriors from french equatorial africa

and an entire village of eskimos.

In , he hustled igorotte tribesmen from the philippines

past startled immigration officials.

Gumpertz himself recruited all the citizens of "lilliputia"

a half-scale european village

which served as year-round home to midgets.

At "creation," visitors journeyed backward

through centuries of biblical history

to the divine origin of all things.

Next door, vast panoramic exhibits

foreshadowed the end of the world-- and hell.

Man: here is a young girl who has bought herself a new hat

and is contentedly admiring herself in the mirror.

A couple of small and apparently very hungry devils

steal up to her from behind and seize her by the arms.

[ Girl's terrified scream]

she cries out, but too late.

The devils lay her in a long, smooth chute

tongues of red paper flame rise up

and down the chute into the pit

slides the girl, the mirror and the hat.

Narrator: for a public fascinated with horrors closer to home

there was "fire and flames," a gigantic staged disaster

where scores of firemen battled the flames engulfing a block

of asbestos-covered tenement buildings...

Twice a day.

[ Enthusiastic applause]

man: "the infant incubator" forms one of the most interesting

and thoroughly scientific features of dreamland.

Think of a family of incubated children--

each baby in its own castle and each receiving royal care.

These delicate, frail, tiny cherubs

are not ready to begin the struggle for existence.

Narrator: the most popular exhibit at dreamland

was the infant incubator.

Dr. Martin couney knew more about premature babies

than anyone else in the world

but he was unable to persuade hospitals

to adopt his techniques

and in , set up shop at dreamland.

Of , infants brought to dr. Couney over the years

, survived.

Beyond dreamland's white ramparts

coney island seethed with re-created disasters

and historical spectacles.

Veterans of the boer w*r, fresh from johannesburg

refought their battles in a ,-seat stadium.

[ w*r cries]

galveston disappeared beneath the flood.

Mount pelee erupted hourly

while across the street

mount vesuvius showered death on the people of pompeii.

Crowds surged through the dance halls and restaurants

and saloons along the bowery.

Motion pictures ran simultaneously, night and day.

Many of the shows featured the spectacles of coney itself.

On a single day in september

, postcards were mailed from coney island.

Willensky: coney island was a kind of magazine of life

except that instead of reading about it

and seeing color pictures

you could experience it, you could participate in it.

Girlie shows, premature babies on display

trips on these crazy rides.

This was a great acculturating experience

acculturating you to the nature of life.

Life was not a simple, pure, dainty, demure thing.

Life was unpredictable, life was confusing, life wasn't fair.

And it all happened to you, and there was no morality

that said you had to be this way, you had to be that way.

It was a perpetual circus.

It had everything that barnum could dream of and more.

[ expl*si*n]

snow: if you want to get a sense of the temper of the nation

at the time coney was at its peak

you could not do better

than go to thompson and dundy's naval spectatorium in luna park

where, for cents

you could see a show that had in its entirety

the navies of the world-- japan, portugal, germany--

coming in and shelling manhattan

and admiral dewey's fleet steaming out

and sinking every one of them.

When it was at its most popular

it most perfectly reflected its culture.

Part of that was it showed people what they wanted to see

or wanted to think their country was going to become.

I think part of that was just the excitement of electricity.

Narrator: dreamland never became as popular as luna or steeplechase

but its cascade of lights completed a skyline

unlike anything else in the world.

Coney was more than three big amusement parks...

It was a city.

The newspapers called it "the city of fire."

Man: "with the advent of night

"the phantom city of fire

"rears itself skyward from the ocean.

"Thousands of glowing sparks glimmer in the darkness.

"Threads of golden gossamer tremble in the air

"weave translucent patterns of fire

"hang motionless, in love with the beauty

"of their own reflection in the water.

"Fabulous beyond conceiving, ineffably beautiful

is this fiery scintillation."

Maxim gorky.

Narrator: while sigmund freud was formulating

the pleasure principle in theory across the atlantic

tilyou, thompson, dundy and reynolds

were perfecting it in facton coney island

which for a brief moment

became the realized unconscious of its age.

Much of what people found there scared them.

But they came.

Everybody came to coney, sooner or later.

On a warm september night in

sigmund freud himself could be found at coney island...

Contemplating dreamland.

Woman: "the brazen voice of the island

"begins to beat upon the eardrums

"like the pulse of fever.

"The leaping horses and the flying cars

"are metamorphosed into the agile demons of delirium.

"And through the doorways of endless concert halls

"and drinking places

"one glimpses faces that follow and haunt

like the unspeakable phantoms of a dream."

Narrator: thompson and dundy's private herd of elephants

roamed through luna park.

One of their favorites, topsy, had even helped build luna.

But she had a bad temper.

She k*lled three men in three years

one of whom had fed her a lighted cigarette.

It was clear that topsy had to go.

When she shrugged off the effects of two carrots

fortified with grains of potassium cyanide

thompson and dundy saw a chance for publicity

and announced she would be hanged.

When the a.s.p.c.a. Protested

the partners came up with a new plan.

Coney's powerful electrical plant

could do more than light a park.

Thomas edison's men came over to coney from new jersey

and set up two huge electrodes.

Dundy and some handlers led topsy to the platform.

When she balked, they offered her keeper $ to help

but he refused to take part

in the m*rder of his six-ton charge.

Finally, they got the elephant hooked up.

Electrodes on the right forefoot and the left rear

and threw the switch.

It took ten seconds.

There was no noise.

Man: "the sun has set and the world is become suddenly afire.

"The view of luna park from sheepshead bay

"suggests a cemetery of fire--

"the tombs, turrets and towers illuminated

"and mortuary shafts of flame.

"Fire is the god of coney island after sundown

"and fire was its god this night...

The hottest of the summer."

Narrator: may , , was opening day of the season.

At : in the morning

workmen were still busy at hell gate in dreamland

when the circuitry started acting up.

Light bulbs burst.

Someone knocked over a bucket of hot tar, and it caught fire.

In minutes, hell gate was ablaze.

Nearby fire companies got there right away

but everything was lath and plaster

wood and tar and paint.

Half an hour after the first alarm

the dreamland tower was a column of fire

so tall and bright it could be seen in manhattan.

Animals from bostock's circus

ran panicked and burning out onto surf avenue.

[ Huge crash]

at :, the dreamland tower collapsed.

L.a. Thompson's old scenic railway disappeared

and the great whirlwind coaster.

And finally, the old centennial observation tower itself

shuddered and fell.

Fire companies had gotten to the scene

but it was a change in the wind

that saved what was left of coney.

At dawn, the firemen packed up and went home.

It would have been a perfect opening day:

warm, still and cloudless.

Fred thompson found dreamland's manager, sam gumpertz

staring at acres of smoking rubble

and wordlessly shook his hand.

All that was left of dreamland was the pretty waltz

that had been written to celebrate its opening

just seven seasons earlier.

There was talk of rebuilding dreamland

but it never happened.

Two years later, george c. Tilyou died.

Fred thompson went bankrupt and lost luna park.

World w*r I came.

The public fascination

with re-created disasters declined.

Man: "down here at coney island, toward the end of the season,

"I'm made to feel very sad.

"The mammoth, empty buildings

"planned by extraordinarily optimistic architects

"remind me in an unpleasant manner

"of my youthful dreams.

"There's a mighty pathos

"in these gaunt and hollow buildings,

"impassively and stolidly suffering

from an enormous hunger for the public."

Stephen crane.

Man: ready!

[ Cannon boom]

[ loud cheering]

snow: the burning of dreamland

came very close on the burning of the world.

It took people a while to realize

that they hadn't just lost a park

that something had changed--

that coney wasn't going to go forward

always getting grander.

The country had changed, the world had changed.

We'd been in an international w*r

we were an international power, we were

an entirely industrialized society.

The wonderful magnet that coney had been

simply wasn't needed any longer.

Now, coney did not get smaller--

coney got bigger and more populated.

The subway lines got there.

You'd get , people on a great day in .

You'd get a million on a great day in

but it was a different place.

It was no longer coney island

in the way that coney island

fell on the ear of the whole world

and represented something unique

and entirely new.

Narrator: the island's pioneer days were over.

But to the millions who worked and lived and came there,

coney would always be what it had been to george tilyou--

the world.

Victoria, do you have to be crazy

to be shot out of a cannon?

Sometimes.

It helps, huh?yeah.

♪ I don't care for regions

♪ where they wear a fez...

Man: everyone went to coney island.

It was a nickel.

Everything was a nickel-- the subway was a nickel,

frankfurter was a nickel,

the rides were in nickel increments.

♪ Coney island in the summer when I want to swim ♪

♪ walking with my brooklyn baby ♪

♪ when the lifeguard's in, in brooklyn ♪

♪ in brooklyn

♪ usa! ♪

[ Applause ]

lewis: I worked all through coney island,

and I worked the games, I worked the rides,

I was a barker, I worked the birdcage,

you know what I mean?

Here you are, step right up, step right up!

For the young lady.

Wouldn't you like that plush teddy bear?

Oh, look at the eyes on that young lady.

She's practically weeping.

It's very easy for you.

Look at the strong arm that kid has got.

That guy's liable to knock 'em all down with one ball!

I'll be a loser!

Step right up. Go right ahead, son.

I mean, you'd ad-lib whatever, you know.

Woman: freddie's father ran the thunderbolt roller coaster.

And when freddie's father died, freddie took over.

He had a record player, he used to play the records.

And we'd drink brandy.

Remy-martin's brandy.

And hot dogs from nathan's.

That went on for years,

under the roller coaster.

We used to find teeth in the yard.

We used to find wigs.

Glasses, g*ns.

Everything we found in the yard.

Nobody ever came back for them, though.

Man: hurry, hurry, step this way!

The strangest sights on the island.

Freaks from the four corners of the world.

Zohari-hari -- look them over, the lady without a head.

There are thin ones,

there are fat ones, they're all inside!

Lewis: oh, there was jojo, the dog-faced boy,

with the hair on his face, you know, genetic mutation.

We had the georgia peach, the people with the heads

that come to a point.

Then we had annie the alligator.

Those people who have ichthyosis,

you know, scaly skin all over their body.

Of course, the bearded lady. I worked with a lot of those.

And george was one of those guys who could

throw his eyes out of his head

about that distance, like that.

He could throw either both of them,

or one or the other out.

And I had a great reunion with him.

I hadn't seen him in maybe years.

He was close to , then, george,

still doing the same thing.

Narrator: the depression rolled over coney.

The prizes in the game booths changed

from kewpie dolls and bamboo canes

to sugar, coffee, and crackers.

At luna park,

the scale of the shows dwindled.

Pigs replaced elephants on the water slides.

And by the end of the 's,

there were c*ck races at coney.

[ Drum beating ]

man on radio: it would seem that a community

which calls itself civilized

might do a little more by way of recreation for its citizens

between the tight spaces of the cradle and the grave.

Certainly, there is no reason to perpetuate out of doors

the overcrowding of our tenements.

Narrator: new york city parks commissioner robert moses

hated coney's noise and squalor...

And yearned to transform the island into serene parkland.

Just before the second world w*r,

he launched a series of assaults on the sideshows

to clean the place up.

The concessionaires fought it.

He did shut down the ballyhoo in front of the sideshows,

but he could not k*ll the shows themselves.

Lewis: those people who criticized it

could afford to go to the riviera.

And they hated the fact

that millions of poor people were having a good time.

And in all the years that I was associated with,

either working or as a visitor,

I never saw any depravity, any more than, uh...

I would see in the lobby of the waldorf astoria.

Announcer: coast to coast,

the thermometer blows its top.

And one out of every americans

beats the heat at coney island,

the poor man's riviera, a national institution.

From new york's tenements

and from every state in the union they come,

and keep coming!

How many people?

Ask munroe hermann,

crowd counter extraordinary.

It's his business.

For years, he's counted noses, toeses, and people

with very few clotheses.

, , , , ... Monotonous?

Never! For in this herd of humanity,

there's a privacy all its own.

Love like this will never admit "de-feet."

Narrator: coney island's biggest day

came shortly after the w*r.

On friday, july , ,

,, new yorkers,

/ of the city's population,

went to the beach.

♪ Oh, under the boardwalk

♪ down by the sea, yeah

♪ on a blanket with my baby ♪

♪ is where I'll be

♪ under the boardwalk

♪ out of the sun

♪ under the boardwalk

♪ we'll be having some fun

♪ under the boardwalk

♪ people walking above

♪ under the boardwalk

♪ we'll be falling in love

♪ under the boardwalk, boardwalk ♪♪

man: coney island didn't care.

They didn't care where you were from,

what degrees you had, what your background was.

You all went into the same water.

That's what's important about a city.

It's the art that comes out of the city,

it's the fervor, it's the people,

it's what they compose, what they paint,

what they create-- that's what lasts.

That's what's important.

And coney island represented that.

Each group of people came and expressed themselves

in the water of coney island, and on the sands.

Man: our area was all italian.

And the families brought their instruments also,

the guitars, the mandolin, so there'd be groups

playing the old italian songs, the new american songs,

the children danced.

We used to sing the song about the sailor

and he's just happy being at the sea.

With his net, getting the fish

and his girlfriend is next to him

and life was simple and beautiful, the boat, the sea

and his girl and the fish.

[ Singing italian song ]

man: "suddenly I am at the seashore

"and no recollection of the train stopping.

"Everything is sordid, shoddy, thin as pasteboard--

"a coney island of the mind.

"The amusement shacks are running full blast.

"The shelves full of chinaware and dolls stuffed with straw

"and alarm clocks and spittoons.

"Over it all, in a muffled roar

"comes the steady hiss and boom of the breakers.

"Behind the pasteboard street front

"the breakers are ploughing up the night

"with luminous, argent teeth.

"In the oceanic night

"steeplechase looks like a wintry beard.

"Everything is sliding and crumbling.

"Everything glitters, totters, teeters, titters.

"Everything is a lie, a fake... Pasteboard.

"Everything is made of nuts and bolts.

"The monarch of the mind is a monkey wrench--

sovereign pasteboard power."

Henry miller.

Narrator: in the end, the world that coney island ushered in overtook it.

The towers of luna park were just as tall and just as bright

but manhattan's grew taller

and eventually outshone them.

Coney's mechanical diversions were being superseded

by the automobile.

Immigrant parents who had saved up all year

to spend one day at coney grew old.

Many of their children prospered and moved to the suburbs.

In , fire struck the island again

ripping through luna park and gutting all but a few rides.

The park limped on for a couple of seasons

then closed forever in .

Of the great parks, only steeplechase kept going.

On through the 's, on through the 's

and into the 's.

Then, on the night of september ,

while "auld lang syne"

and "there's no business like show business"

played out over the public address system

a bell chimed once for each of the years

steeplechase park had been in business.

The lights went off tier by tier

blazed out one last time.

Then steeplechase went dark.

Lewis: when steeplechase closed,

yeah, that was terrible.

It was also sad.

'Cause we kind of knew that

it was the demise

and it wasn't going to be rebuilt.

That era was gone.

When a certain part of your life disappears,

and is no more,

and you know deep down it's gone,

it's sad.

Because what is no more is not just coney island,

but a part of me is no more.

Willensky: when land and water meet, wonderful things always happen.

That means to me

that coney island will forever be an opportunity.

And I don't think that what coney island

should be in people's minds

is "let's bring back what was," but rather

"let's consider it a frontier to do the thing of the future."

Because that intersection of sand and waves

the kind of light that you have, all evoke very powerful

primitive, creative urges in people, in all people

not just artists, not just developers

but somehow, all people coming together.

And they continue to come together

even though the cyclone is starting to show some age

and the wonder wheel is creaking a little bit more slowly.

But tomorrow will be different.

And I hope, I deeply believe

that coney island will provide the opportunity

to do a special thing there, as it was a special thing

for a number of generations already.

Me?

Ooh, I'd like to have saturday and sunday,

working again in coney island.

Barking the roller coaster

or the rides.

Or the games.

To me that was a challenge.

It was a challenge.

I had to say to myself,

"I got to get a crowd."

A challenge.

I'm going to get of you

to play this game with me.

You think you're not

but just stay a little while,

I got the hook

just for that fish, kiddo.

I got the hook.

Let me tell you something.

I hear friends of mine in show business

and they tell me about,

"gee, I worked in akron, ohio,"

or, "I worked in st. Louis and what a tough audience!"

They don't know what a tough audience is.

How can it be a tough audience when you are in a theater?

I've never heard of a single human being

who buys a ticket, he and his wife,

to go to the theater and they say to themselves

before they walk into the theater,

"I'm going to hate this here."

Nobody says that.

But I've got to get , , , people

who don't know what I'm about,

and I have to extract cents from them.

That'sa tough audience.

That's a tough audience.

You go and try to sell those people,

"what are you, a con man or something?" They're thinking.

"What's the gimmick here, man? What's the scam?

"I don't like the way this guy looks.

"Look at those beady eyes on him.

What kind of a slimy game is he running?"

Well, in spite of what they say,

I'm going to get their quarter.

I'm going to get their quarter!