ON THE BOARDWALK
Summer’s here! Before you head to the beach, take a look at photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Archives to learn about Coney Island’s storied history.
→ Curatorial Assistant Imani Williford considers the allure and darkness of Coney Island on film
Embedded along the southwestern tip of Brooklyn’s shoreline is Coney Island. This jewel of enchantment has nourished generations of New Yorkers’ appetite for escapism and wonderment with dizzying rides, entertaining games, and a shimmering beach. Also brewing within this coastal fairyland are elements that prey on its visitors’ fears and anxieties: taunting fortune tellers, unnerving haunted houses, and looming tides of unknown waters.
The Brooklyn Museum’s Photography collection includes more than 200 photographs of Coney Island, which document one of the borough’s most iconic landmarks as it has balanced states of bleakness and bliss. The photographs reflect the ways that Coney Island is a microcosm of the national mood as well as a community unto itself, maintaining its essence through bonds of affection and camaraderie.
From the late 1800s to the mid-1960s, Coney Island’s iconic boardwalk was made up of a cluster of small amusement parks competing for visitors along Surf Avenue. These parks included Dreamland (1904–11), Luna Park (1903–46), and Steeplechase (1897–1907, 1908–64). Early photographs show the parks as hives of activity, drawing in crowds with dueling fantasies of delight.
This sentiment of delight continues in the postwar photograph Modern Venus of 1947, Coney Island, in which a young beauty-contest winner rides Coney Island’s famous Parachute Jump. Wearing a two-piece bathing suit accessorized with a tiara and sash, she mirrors the glamorous image of swimmer and screen siren Esther Willams, known for her films Bathing Beauty and Thrill of a Romance. The woman’s sleek veneer radiates as she grips the ride’s rope in order to gracefully wave at the sea of people below.
Placing this symbol of beauty and modernity on the Parachute Jump provides insight into America’s postwar spirit.
Taken two decades later, photographs by Stephen Salmieri (American, born 1945) spotlight more conventional elements of life in Coney Island.
There are empty ticket booths, locked-up rides, and fortune tellers waiting in piecemeal, dilapidated booths surrounded by trash. Salmieri’s photography upends the promise of Coney Island’s “dreamland,” instead framing it as a ghost town haunted by those who feed off the morsels of its glory days.
Yet a spirit of solidarity runs through Coney Island amid the booms and busts.
Founded in 1903, the Coney Island Polar Bear Club claims to be the “oldest winter bathing club in the United States.” Salmieri’s 1981 photograph of the club shows a group of bathers and onlookers gleefully posing on the snowy beach—an intergenerational declaration of continuity in a place that fluctuates between myth and the material world.
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
From the top: Eugene Wemlinger. Entrance to Dreamland, Coney Island, 1908. Cellulose nitrate negative. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection, 1996.164.10-26. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Irving Underhill. Luna Park and Surf Avenue, Coney Island, 1912. Gelatin dry glass plate negative. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection, 1996.164.8-B19045. © Irving Underhill. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Eugene Wemlinger. Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, 1910. Cellulose nitrate negative. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection, 1996.164.10-1. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Unknown artist. Modern Venus of 1947, Coney Island, 1947. Gelatin silver print. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, X894.18. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Stephen Salmieri. Coney Island, 1970. Gelatin silver print. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edward Klein, 82.201.14. © Stephen Salmieri. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Stephen Salmieri. Coney Island, 1969. Gelatin silver print. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edward Klein, 82.201.32. © Stephen Salmieri. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Stephen Salmieri. Coney Island, 1981. Gelatin silver print. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edward Klein, 82.201.45. © Stephen Salmieri. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
