Luna Park,
Coney Island
New York,USA
Opened
1903-46;
reopened 29 May 2010
Size
1.28 hectares
Scariest ride
Boardwalk Flight
propels you 60m over
the Atlantic Ocean at
97kph to recreate the
sensation of skydiving.
One for kids
Happy
Swing is a good chance
to swing around.
Landmark attraction
Wooden roller coaster
Coney Island Cyclone
opened in June 1927
and has been declared
a New York City
landmark; it’s 810m long
and reaches 97kph.
lunaparknyc
.
com
Norwegian flies to
New York from Oslo
and Stockholm
Previous page
⁄
The
Cyclone, then and now
Clockwise from
left
⁄
The iconic
Wonder Wheel, built in
1920; the Elephantine
Colossus hotel;
Nathan’s Famous hot
dog stand
The now-deceased amusement parks – Dreamland,
Astroland, Steeplechase and the old Luna Park – are
central to Coney Island’s history, but you can still sense
that magic at today’s parks. There’s an updated Luna
Park, where the Cyclone wooden rollercoaster runs
on the same site as in 1927, and Deno’s Wonder Wheel
Amusement Park, which is still family-owned like the
old parks. I’mnot a ride buff or a sideshow obsessive,
though – to me, rides like the Cyclone and the Wonder
Wheel are simply exquisite structures.
They’re also part of a wider history that’s endlessly
fascinating. When there were only a few hotels here in
the early to mid 1800s, the poet Walt Whitman would
come here for solitude, walking up the dunes and
shouting Shakespeare and Homer into the surf. But it
gradually developed, and the hotels and amusement
parks tried to outdo each other.
One example was the Elephantine Colossus hotel,
built in 1885, a 46m-tall elephant that was said to be the
first man-made structure immigrants saw until it burned
down in 1896. The rooms were in the elephant’s thighs
and its eyes would light up – it was like something from
a child’s imagination.
You can still feel that history today just by walking
along the wooden boardwalk, smelling the sea breeze
and taking in the sights – the handpainted signs at
Paul’s Daughter clam bar, which has been there for
60 years and is classic Coney Island, or listening to
musicians along the boardwalk playing everything from
salsa to jazz and blues.
You can see a traditional freak show or win prizes at
skeeball, a bowling-meets-amusement park game that
rose to popularity in Coney Island. Another must is
Nathan’s Famous, the legendary hot dog stand which
opened in 1916, especially since the hot dog was invented
in Coney Island. Around 1870, German immigrant
Charles Feltman ran the splendid Feltman’s, which was
then the largest restaurant in the world. He didn’t want
to buy napkins, so wrapped his sausages in bread – and
the rest is history.
Feltman’s is gone, like the bathhouses where Houdini
practised his escape acts, but the sense of things
happening is still here. It has always been somewhere
where all walks of life can come – black, white, rich, poor
– and just enjoy taking it all in.
coneyislandhistory.org
“Walt
Whitman
would
shout
Homer
into the
surf”
0 5 8 \
n
