Coney Island: The People's Playground

by Michael Immerso

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Coney Island was the uncontested epicenter of America’s emerging mass culture. It was the quintessential American the birthplace of the amusement park, the hot dog, and the roller coaster. Its history is one of breathtaking transformation and re-invention. Celebrated for its glittering amusement parks and its enormous crowds, it was in times past a mecca of grand hotels, race tracks, beer gardens, gambling dens, concert saloons, and dance halls. A new mass culture began to take shape there. Its harshest critics decried it as Bedlam by the Sea, but others deemed it as a necessary outlet for the masses where the democratic spirit was granted free rein. Despite its precipitous decline, Coney Island remains a metaphor for the American amusement industry and the hundreds of honky-tonk resorts and amusement parks it has spawned.

Coney The People’s Playground is the first new history of Coney Island in almost half a century, tracing its evolution and cultural impact as an amusement center from its earliest development as a seaside resort to the present day Mermaid Parade. Presented in a photo-documentary format featuring more than one hundred vintage photos, archival material, personal accounts, and contemporary sources, the book evokes the atmosphere of the resort as experienced by those who visited it during its heyday. Through the reminiscences of nineteenth and twentieth century writers, literary figures, and amusement historians, Michael Immerso traces Coney Island’s remarkable evolution and subsequent decline, while at the same time examining the remarkable individuals and complex social forces that contributed to its rise and fall.

Coney Island is not merely a documentary of the amusement industry or the story of a fabled amusement park, but rather a narrative of the way Americans, and particularly immigrants and urban Americans, came to regard the pursuit of leisure as part of their national birthright.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

Reviews

[KL · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first history of Coney Island I have read, so my rating probably reflects that.

I first became attracted to its history while reading The Museum of Extraordinary Things, because it was partially set there. When this book was referenced in the bibliography, I immediately searched it out.

My biggest problem with the book was the images. Some captions for images did not contain dates. Also, they did not appear with the subject being discussed, but rather a page or two later. This may be a publisher issue, but it bothered me.

Over all, it was a fun and insightful read!

[Julia Simpson-Urrutia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book greatly, but I realized after reading it and then moving onto The Lost Tribe of Coney Island by Claire Prentice (five stars~!) that Immerso does not bother to verify showman headlines conceived to bring in the public. At least one bit of information was totally wrong, I realized later, but this book is meant to be more of a coffee table book and that is why it has such great pictures and is the size that it is.

[Lcharlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been to Coney Island, the history is outstanding.

[Lesley]

i read this last year in the blistering august heat, before i visited coney island for the first time.
i learned lots of neat things, like that the word coney is a bastardization of the dutch word for "rabbit" and the area used to be overrun with tons of rabbits. it also used to be an actual island... but i don't really remember how or why it isn't anymore...

[Victoria Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have liked this book more had it not been the 3rd book in a row that I read about Coney Island (all three of my holds came into the library at the same time). This book concentrates more on the actual amusement parks than the other two books. The photos and reproductions are phenomenal; those alone make the book worth picking up.

[Elizabeth Bradley]

More research.

[Glenn Herdling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The photos and text really put me in the setting of Old Coney.