Coney Island History Project to Celebrate Opening Day with Photo Ops, Oral Histories, Tributes and More

You're invited to visit the Coney Island History Project's exhibition center on Coney's traditional Opening Day, Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017. View historic artifacts, photographs, maps, ephemera and films of Coney Island's colorful past. We'll be open 1:00PM-6:00PM. Admission is free of charge.

2017 marks the 13th anniversary of the Coney Island History Project! Since the History Project's inception in 2004 with a portable recording booth on the Boardwalk, followed by the opening of the Coney Island Hall of Fame in 2005, and the inaugural season of our exhibition center under the Cyclone at Astroland Park in 2007 and moving to Deno's Wonder Wheel Park in 2011, we have proudly offered "Free Admission for One and All!" at our exhibits and special events.

The Opening Day festivities start at 11:00AM on the Boardwalk with the 32nd Annual Blessing of the Rides at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. The late Pastor Debbe Santiago of Coney Island's Salt and Sea Mission originated the event with Denos D. Vourderis in 1985, who invited children from the Mission to enjoy free rides and Easter baskets, a tradition that continues today.

A ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by park owners Dennis and Steve Vourderis will be followed by free rides on the Wonder Wheel for the first 97 guests in celebration of the Wheel's 97th anniversary. At Luna Park, the first 100 on line at the Cyclone will ride the roller coaster for free and egg cream samples will be given out. Coney Island's 1920 Wonder Wheel and 1927 Cyclone are official New York City landmarks.

At the Coney Island History Project, visitors may take free souvenir photos with an original Steeplechase horse from the legendary ride that gave Steeplechase Park its name and "Skully," a figure from Coney's classic Spookhouse and Spook-A-Rama dark rides. Among the treasures on display at the Coney Island History Project's exhibit center is Coney's oldest surviving artifact. The 1823 wooden Toll House sign dates back to the days when the toll for a horse and rider to "the Island" was 5 cents!

Located on West 12th Street at the entrance to Deno's Wonder Wheel, just a few steps off the Boardwalk, the Coney Island History Project is open free of charge on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day from 1:00-7:00PM. We will also be open on Easter Sunday, April 16, from 1:00-6:00PM. The Coney Island History Project is open year round for private group visits and our weekend walking tours as well as by appointment to record interviews with people who have memories of Coney Island for our Oral History Archive.

Coney Island History Project Oral Histories Tour U.S. in NEH on the Road Exhibit

We're proud to announce that selections from the Coney Island History Project's Oral History Archive will be part of the NEH on the Road exhibit "Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland" touring the U.S. from April 2017 through March 2022.

The NEH-funded exhibit, which first opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and traveled to the Brooklyn Museum and San Diego Museum of Art, was adapted from its original format to make it available to smaller venues in communities large and small across the country. This new traveling exhibition from NEH on the Road will explore America's playground as a place and as an idea, examining its persistent presence in the American imagination.

Among the Coney Island History Project interviews featured in the exhibit are Beth Allen, who was an incubator baby in DR. Martin Couney's sideshow in Luna Park; Joseph Albanese, who recalls a time when police didn't allow bathing suits on the boardwalk even though bathing suits were very modest; and Ron Rossi and Ronald Ruiz, who talk about their experiences riding the Parachute Jump, the Cyclone and Steeplechase Horse Race at Steeplechase Park. Clips from these interviews and several others will be running on a loop at one of the listening stations in the exhibition.

Upcoming venues include the Brazos Valley Museum, Brazos, TX (April 6-May 25, 2017); Ypsilanti Public Library, Ypsilanti, MI (June 16-August 11, 2017) and the Sioux City Public Museum, Sioux City, IA (November 10, 2017-January 7, 2018). Pending destinations include Hagerstown, MD; Green Bay, WI; Reading, PA; Temple, TX; Park City, UT; Hastings, NE; Buford, GA; West Branch, IA; Baton Rouge, LA; Greenville, SC; and Shawnee, KS.

NEH on the Road is a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities designed to create wider national access to the ideas, themes, and stories explored in major grant-funded NEH exhibitions. The program is funded by the NEH and run by Mid-America Arts Alliance, a non-profit regional arts organization located in Kansas City. If you would like to bring the Coney Island exhibit to a venue near you, check the NEH on the Road website for details at ConeyIslandHistory.org: "Coney Island High-Rising" and New Oral Histories.

Visit the Coney Island History Project website to read a new blog post by Charles Denson, "Coney Island High-Rising: Politics in the Flood Zone," which addresses high-rise development underway in Coney Island and its echoes in the past. John Catsimatidis' Ocean Dreams complex in the West End, Ruby Schron's 40-story tower at Trump Shopping Center, Vets Place on Surf Avenue, and public storage facilities along Coney Island Creek are just a few of the developments mentioned in the essay.

Among the additions to the Coney Island History Project's online Oral History Archive in 2017 are the following interviews recorded by Amanda Deutch, Charles Denson, Kaara Baptiste, LesLee Dean, Mark Markov, and Samira Tazari. Please listen, share, and if you or someone you know would like to record a story, sign up here.

Steve Larkin has vivid anecdotes about working for Bob Myers, "The Chairman of the Boardwalk," at a Coney Island beach chair and umbrella rental company in the 1970s. Getting working papers when he turned 14 and working his way up from "schlepping chairs" to being a cashier was a rite of passage.

Charles Robert Feltman, great-grandson of Feltmans Restaurant founder and hot dog inventor Charles Feltman, tells the family history, describes what Coney Island was like in the 1940s, and reveals why the family is no longer in the hot dog business.

Grace Lo has been a homeowner and community activist in Coney Island's West End since 1989. "At that time we were immigrants who took a chance to live in what people said was not a good neighborhood," Lo explains. "We wanted to make the community better."

Harold J. Kramer and Linda Kramer Evans share their family history and childhood memories of visiting their Great-Aunt Molly and Great-Uncle George. The couple owned and operated Coney Island's Thunderbolt and lived in the house under the roller coaster which was later immortalized in Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall.

Brooklyn resident Ronald Wimberly is a storyteller, cartoonist and designer whose graphic novel Prince of Cats is partly set in Coney Island. His retelling of Romeo and Juliet mixes comics, hip-hop and Shakespearian poetry, which he describes as "a take on '80s New York as if it were five years after The Warriors."

Gravesend native Donna Bianco became a police officer at age 22 and was assigned to Coney Island in the 1980s and '90s, when the neighborhood was crime-ridden and scarred with abandoned buildings. Bianco, whose mother enjoyed Coney Island in its heyday, says she learned to love her beat and its sense of history.

Barry Yanowitz grew up in Trump Village in Coney Island where he could see the Cyclone and hear the screams of riders from his window. In the early 2000's, an interest in history drew him to photography as a way to document the changes he saw in Coney Island and the rest of New York City. He talks about being a street photographer and his favorite photographs of Coney Island.

Dionne Brown grew up in Surfside Houses, has lived in Coney Island all her life, and works here as Assemblymember Pamela Harris's Deputy Chief of Staff. Writing as D.L. Jordan, she is the author of Living Life Like It's Golden, which describes the epiphany she reached when she turned 40. The book's subtitle is "The Latter Years of My Life Shall Be the BEST Years of My Life!"

Eliot Wofse, who grew up in Luna Park Houses, shares memories of the amusement area as his boyhood playground. He reflects on his philosophy of running amusement games, which he did for a living from the 1960s through the early '80s and again in the late 2000s, and the unsustainable cost of private proprietors like himself doing business in the new, corporatized Coney Island.

Susan Hochtman Creatura recalls living in Coney Island Houses when it was new and her Jewish immigrant grandparents, who lived nearby. Her parents marveled that this New York City housing complex for working class people was located right on the beach. "They talked about how Coney Island was a paradise," she says. "They had so much fun here, they didn't feel poor."

Yoga and meditation teacher Chia-Ti Chiu has been teaching Yoga on the Beach in Coney Island since 2014.The idea for the donation-based classes on the beach off West 19th Street originated with Coney Island's Lola Star. "Having our view be the ocean, I often refer to it," says Chia-Ti. "How can you live a life as expansive as the horizon?"

Al Burgo, who grew up in Gravesend Houses in Coney Island's West End in the 1960s, tells stories of street games and streetwise hijinks. Burgo's first job as a boy was shining shoes on the Boardwalk, an experience that he made into the 2013 film Shoe Shine Chicken. As a teen he had a thriving business selling knishes on the beach.

In Memoriam: John Bonsignore, Steve Arniotes, Cesar Rafael, Gregory Bitetzaki

In the first months of 2017 we mourn the loss of four men who together had over 180 years of family history in Coney Island's amusement district.

Coney Island is known for bright lights and one of the brightest was John Bonsignore, who passed away on March 20 at the age of 92. John Bonsignore represented Coney's "old breed": a talented engineer and inventor who could build or fix anything. He was best known for rebuilding and operating the Bobsled ride after his father brought it to Coney Island from the 1939-40 World's Fair. John's family also owned the L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway, Coney Island's biggest roller coaster, as well as Stauch's Baths, the largest bathhouse on the Boardwalk.

In 2006, Coney Island History Project director Charles Denson wrote a book about the Bonsignore family called Wild Ride! A Coney Island Roller Coaster Family. Read the full blog post "John Bonsignore: A Farewell to the Wild Ride" here.

Coney Island lost an old friend with the passing of Steve Arniotes. His family ran the Lido Bar & Grill on the Boardwalk from 1927 till 1960. Arniotes and his brother were lawyers and both became judges. When Charles Denson interviewed him for the Coney Island History Project Oral History Archive last year, he recalled the skills that he learned working on the Boardwalk and the spiel that he used to sell hot dogs. A native of Sparta Laconia in Greece, Arniotes passed away on March 25 at the age of 87. Listen to the interview here.

Earlier in March, we were saddened to learn that our friend Cesar Rafael, who has been an amusement operator in Coney Island for the past 37 years, passed away. In this oral history interview conducted in 2005 by Charles Denson, Cesar talked about how he began working for various amusement operators in 1979, running their games and rides and managing their operations. Eventually he struck out on his own and continued operating his games on the Bowery through the 2016 season.

On January 17, our friend Gregory Bitetzakis passed away unexpectedly at the age of 81, as noted in this post on our blog. Until his retirement in 2009, Gregory co-owned and operated Gregory & Paul's restaurant in Coney Island with his partner Paul Georgoulakos for more than 50 years. In this conversation with Charles Denson recorded for the Coney Island History Project's Oral History Archive, Gregory says that he first came to Coney Island in 1948 and operated food concessions on the Bowery, the Boardwalk and other locations including the former Napoli Seven Seas Restaurant. Gregory & Paul's most popular location on the Boardwalk at West 10th Street remains open as Paul's Daughter with Paul and his daughter Tina in charge.

Coney Island History Project Walking Tours & Group Visits Offered Year-Round

Meet us at the Coney Island History Project on West 12th Street under the Wonder Wheel for year-round walking tours and group visits. Our unique tours are based on History Project Director Charles Denson's award-winning book Coney Island: Lost and Found, the interviews from our Oral History Archive, and other primary sources. Through the spring, Coney Island History Project Walking Tours are offered on Saturdays and Sundays at 12:30PM by advance reservation only. From Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend (May 27 - September 4, 2017), tours are at 1:30PM. Tickets are $20. The 1-1/2 hour tour is wheelchair accessible. Group tours may be booked any day of the week.

All Coney Island History Project Walking Tours are weather permitting. If a tour is cancelled due to the weather forecast, ticket orders will be refunded. Advance purchase of tickets via our online reservation site is required for walking tours. If you have a question or you would like to schedule a private tour or group visit, email events@coneyislandhistory.org.

Founded in 2004 by Carol Hill Albert and Jerome Albert in honor of Dewey Albert, creator of Astroland Park, the Coney Island Project is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York City Councilman Mark Treyger, and our members and contributors. Printed materials made possible with funds from the Destination: Brooklyn Program, funded by the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams and NYC & Company Foundation, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.

Follow the Coney Island History Project on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr! Support us by becoming a member at www.coneyislandhistory.org.

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