Museum Provides Glimpse Of Coney Island's Past

Memorial Day weekend kicked off the summer season at Coney Island, and while there is a lot of excitement over the area's new rides and attractions, the Coney Island Museum allows visitors to explore the amusement area's past. NY1's Arts reporter Stephanie Simon filed the following report.

It's always been quite a ride at Coney Island. Once known as "The Playground to the World," Coney Island was home to world's first amusement park and a turn-of-the-20th-century retreat of sun, sand and spectacle.

In the 1940s, millions flocked to the beach on Coney Island in a single day.
In the 1940s, millions flocked to the beach on Coney Island in a single day.
A walk through the Coney Island Museum on Surf Avenue offers a glimpse into Coney Island's thrilling past.

"It's the first amusement park, hands down. It was the first time anybody had put a gate around a place and said, 'Here's a whole bunch of attractions inside, pay your ticket, come in and do it,'" says Aaron Beebe, Coney Island Museum's curator. "So at the turn of the [20th] century, there were three big parts in Coney Island and each one of them had their own ticket price and their own set of attractions."

Beebe says at a time when people could not leave New York City by car or by plane, Coney Island was the original "staycation."

"From New Jersey to the end of Long Island, everybody came here," he says. "In the '40s, mid-'40s, there were days in the summer where there were [millions of] people on the beach in Coney Island."

Coney Island was once called the "City of Fire."
Coney Island was once called the "City of Fire."
In its heyday, Coney Island had no rivals when it came to recreation. It was called the "City of Fire," because it was a blaze of light, and its skyline was higher than the skyline in Manhattan. It was also the first part of New York City that immigrants saw when they came to Manhattan by boat.

Of course, like all great rides, Coney Island had its ups and downs.

"Right at the turn of the century there were three big amusement parks and that lasted about 10 years. Then the trains came in and that became known as the 'Nickel Empire.' You got to Coney Island for a nickel and everything you did in Coney Island cost you a nickel," says Beebe. "And then, really in the '60s it started to fall apart, because you lost a lot of the big parks."

The roller chair in its heyday and on display at the Coney Island Museum.
The roller chair in its heyday and on display at the Coney Island Museum.
One artifact on display, a roughly 100-year-old rolling chair, is an idea Beebe thinks could come back in fashion.

"So when the boardwalk was long enough to merit, people would pay, you could pay people to take you from one end to the other in one of these," says Beebe. "So I'm longing for the day when there's enough going here on the boardwalk that it stretches from the parachute jump, all the way past the [New York] Aquarium, and these things are going to come back like that!"