“Colonel Charles Lindbergh has been on the Cyclone a number of times and considers it a greater experience than flying an airplane at top speed.”
– Coney Island brochure, 1930s
In 1973, Peter Netley was in Coney Island. This is the New York resort a year after Stephen Salmieri was there, a decade after an unknown photographer spent a day with their family on the sands and the rides, just as these people did in 1948. For decades people have been flocking to the vibrant seaside neighbourhood.
Peter’s work is available as a book at Cafe Royal.
Anyone arriving in Coney Island by subway in 1973 could glimpse the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel in the spaces between high‐rise apartment blocks. The resort’s glory days were in the past, but it was still a fun place to be.
In the 1930s, writer and editor Jo Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) called Coney “America’s incredible carnival”. As one brochure boasted to turn‐of‐the‐century readers, Coney was a “Happy Island of Illusion”.
Coney was home to Luna Park and its 32 acres of rides, a three‐ring circus, soft-hued buildings around a tranquil lagoon, couples in wicker rolling chairs being propelled along the boardwalk for $1.50 an hour and all lit by 50,000 electric lights. As Soviet journalist Maxim Gorky (16 March 1868 – 18 June 1936) noted: “With the advent of night a fantastic city all of fire suddenly rises from the ocean into the sky.” In 1945, Luna Park burned to the ground.
Coney was where Jimmy Durante played the piano, Eddie Cantor was a singing waiter at Carey Walsh’s cabaret, Jack West, Mae West’s father, was the cop on the beat, Al Capone worked as a bouncer, Tom Sharkey fought Jim Jeffries to be heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and Cary Grant was a stiltwalker advertising Steeplechase Park.
In 1973, you could enjoy Coney’s six‐mile beach and Steeplechase Pier, ride The Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel (then the world’s largest ferris wheel),
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