History of Coney Island - When New York Learned to Have Fun #1006266

Before New York became the city that never sleeps, it had to learn how to have fun.

Coney Island began as a seaside destination on the southern edge of Brooklyn and eventually became one of America's most famous playgrounds. Beaches, bathhouses, hotels, restaurants, theaters, boardwalks, amusement parks, spectacular rides, bizarre attractions, and enormous crowds transformed the area into something far stranger and more exciting than an ordinary resort.

History of Coney Island: When New York Learned to Have Fun explores how this remarkable place evolved alongside New York itself. From the early resort years to the golden age of amusement parks and the unforgettable spectacles that made Coney Island famous, the story reveals how transportation, urban expansion, immigration, technology, business, and popular entertainment reshaped the American idea of leisure.

Inside, readers will discover the rise of Coney Island's legendary amusement parks, the people who built its attractions, the evolution of the boardwalk and beach culture, the strange spectacles that drew curious crowds, and the roller-coaster revolution that helped make the island synonymous with thrills.
But Coney Island's story is not simply one of rides and summer crowds. It is also a story about New York's working people, changing neighborhoods, mass entertainment, ambition, commercialization, decline, reinvention, and the enduring human desire to escape ordinary life for a few hours.

Part history, part cultural portrait, and part journey through a vanished world, this book takes readers back to the Coney Island where amusement was big, strange, noisy, crowded—and gloriously unpredictable.