Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to the north and includes the subsection of Sea Gate on its west. More broadly, Coney Island or sometimes for clarity the Coney Island peninsula consists of Coney Island proper, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach. This was formerly the westernmost of the Outer Barrier islands on the southern shore of Long Island, but in the early 20th century it became a peninsula, connected to the rest of Long Island by land fill.

The origin of Coney Island's name is disputed, but the area was originally part of the colonial town of Gravesend. By the mid-19th century it had become a seaside resort, and by the late 19th century, amusement parks had also been built at the location. The attractions reached a historical peak during the first half of the 20th century. However, they declined in popularity after World War II and, following years of neglect, several structures were torn down. Various redevelopment projects were proposed for Coney Island in the 1970s through the 2000s, though most of these were not carried out. The area was revitalized with the opening of MCU Park in 2001 and several amusement rides starting in the 2010s.

Coney Island had around 32,000 residents as of the 2010 United States Census. The neighborhood is ethnically diverse, and the neighborhood's poverty rate of 27% is slightly higher than that of the city as a whole.

Coney Island is part of Brooklyn Community District 13, and its primary ZIP Code is 11224. It is patrolled by the 60th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Fire services are provided by the New York City Fire Department's Engine 245/Ladder 161/Battalion 43 and Engine 318/Ladder 166. Politically, Coney Island is represented by the New York City Council's 47th District. The area is well served by the New York City Subway and local bus routes, and contains several public elementary and middle schools.

Geography and climate

The '' Encyclopedia of New York City'' considers the area west of Ocean Parkway (including Sea Gate and Nortons Point Light) to be part of the Coney Island neighborhood. The neighborhood is situated on the western portion of the Coney Island peninsula, located on the western end of Long Island lying to the west of the Outer Barrier islands along Long Island's southern shore. The peninsula is about long and wide. It extends into Lower New York Bay with Sheepshead Bay to its northeast, Gravesend Bay and Coney Island Creek to its northwest, and the main part of Brooklyn to its north. At its highest it is above sea level. Coney Island was formerly an actual island, separated from greater Brooklyn by Coney Island Creek, and was the westernmost of the Outer Barrier islands. A large section of the creek was filled in the 1920s and 1930s, turning the island into a peninsula.

The perimeter of Coney Island features manmade structures designed to maintain its current shape. The beaches are currently not a natural feature; the sand that is naturally supposed to replenish Coney Island is cut off by the jetty at Breezy Point, Queens. Sand has been redeposited on the beaches via beach nourishment since the construction of Riegelmann Boardwalk in 1922–1923, and is held in place by around two dozen groynes. A large sand-replenishing project along Coney Island and Brighton Beach took place in the 1990s. Sheepshead Bay at the peninsula's northeast corner is, for the most part, enclosed in bulkheads. Two major parks, Kaiser Park and Coney Island Creek Park, are located on the northwest side of the peninsula along Coney Island Creek.

Coney Island has a humid subtropical climate (''Cfa'') and the hardiness zone is 7b.

Name

The original Native American inhabitants of the region, the Lenape, called this area ''Narrioch'', possibly meaning "''land without shadows'' or "''always in light'' in reference to its sunlit south-facing beaches. A second possible meaning is "''point'' or "''corner of land''. The "island" was originally several smaller historical islands, each being given a name by Dutch settlers, with the westernmost sand spit or point being given named ''Conyne Eylandt'' in early-17th-century Dutch maps, starting with the 1639 Manatus Map.

There is no clear historical consensus on how the island got the name "Coney Island", in regular use in the first half of the 19th century with the advent of regular ferry service to the island, but several theories have been put forward. One possible etymology is from a Native American tribe, the Konoh or Konoi (the "Bear Band"), who once inhabited the island. A second theory suggests that it was distortion of the name of Henry Hudson's second mate on the Halve Maen, John Colman, who was slain by natives on the 1609 expedition. A third posits that late 18th century Irish captain Peter O'Connor named it after Coney Island in County Sligo, Ireland. Yet other theories suggest a Dutch etymology: one theory holds that the name had come from Conyn, the surname of a family of Dutch settlers who lived there, and another suggests that it came from the Dutch word for rabbit, "konijn", derived from a purported large population of wild rabbits on the island".

There is little evidence for each origin theory, and there are conflicts between the pieces of evidence that do exist. The most popular idea is the translation of the Dutch word for "rabbit" into the English word '' coney'', but that has its detractors and counter explanations. In 1816 politician and U.S. Founding Father Egbert Benson presented a treatise on New York place names and said it was "''Conyn's Island''", after the Dutch surname, and noted "''there are already symptoms of the beginning of a tradition that it once abounded in Rabbits''". Other historians claim that rabbits were introduced to the island only after it was settled. The 19th century also saw the heavily Irish New York Tammany Hall political machine controlling development of the island, and they may have gotten the name from the island in County Sligo rather than any tale of a rabbit population.

History

Early settlement

Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European explorer to sight the island of Narrioch during his expeditions to the area in 1527 and 1529. He was subsequently followed by Henry Hudson. Anthony Janszoon van Salee was the first New Netherlands settler to acquire land adjacent to Coney Island, in 1639. The Native American population in the area dwindled as the Dutch settlement grew and the entire southern tier of present-day Brooklyn, from Gowanus Creek to Coney Island to Gerritsen Creek, was "purchased" in 1645 from the Native Americans in exchange for goods. The goods were not recorded in the deed, but later accounts mention a gun, a blanket, and a kettle.

In 1644, a colonist named Guysbert Op Dyck was given a land patent for 88 acres of land in the town of Gravesend, on the southwestern shore of Brooklyn. The land patent included Conyne Island, an island just off the southwestern shore of the town of Gravesend, as well as Conyne Hook, a peninsula just east of the island. Both became part of Gravesend when its first town charter was granted a year later, in 1645. East of Conyne Hook was the largest section of island called Gysbert's, Guysbert's, or Guisbert's Island (also called Johnson Island), containing most of the arable land and extending east through today's Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach. This was officially the first official real estate transaction for the island.
Op Dyck never occupied his land, and in 1661 he sold it off to Dick De Wolf. The land's new owner banned Gravesend residents from using Guisbert's Island and built a salt-works on the land, provoking outrage among Gravesend livestock herders. New Amsterdam was transferred to the English in 1664, and four years later, the English Governor created a new charter for Gravesend that excluded Coney Island. Subsequently, Guisbert's Island was divided into plots meted out to several dozen settlers. However, in 1685, the island became part of Gravesend again as a result of a new charter with the Native Americans.

At the time of European settlement, the land that makes up the present-day Coney Island was divided across several separate islands. All of these islands were part of the outer barrier on the southern shore of Long Island, and their land areas and boundaries changed frequently. Only the westernmost island was called Coney Island; it currently makes up part of Sea Gate. At the time, it was a 1.25-mile shifting sandspit with a detached island at its western end extending into Lower New York Bay. In a 1679–1680 journal, Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter noted that "Conijnen Eylandt" was fully separated from the rest of Brooklyn. The explorers observed that "Nobody lives upon it, but it is used in winter for keeping cattle, horses, oxen, hogs and others."

By the early 18th century, the town of Gravesend was periodically granting seven-year-long leases to freeholders, who would then have the exclusive use of Coney Hook and Coney Island. In 1734, a road to Coney Hook was laid out. Thomas Stillwell, a prominent Gravesend resident who was the freeholder for Coney Island and Coney Hook at the time, proposed to build a ditch through Coney Hook so it would be easier for his cattle to graze. He convinced several friends in the nearby town of Jamaica to help him in this effort, telling them that the creation of such a ditch would allow them to ship goods from Jamaica Bay to New York Harbor without having to venture out into the ocean. In 1750, the "Jamaica Ditch" was dug through Coney Hook from Brown's Creek in the west to Hubbard's Creek in the east. The creation of the canal turned Coney Hook into a detached island called Pine Island, so named due to the woods on it.

Each island was separated by an inlet that could only be crossed at low tide. By the end of the 18th century, the ongoing shifting of sand along the barrier islands had closed up the inlets to the point that residents began filling them in and joining them as one island. Development of Coney Island was slow until the 19th century due to land disputes, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Coney Island was so remote that Herman Melville wrote ''Moby-Dick'' on the island in 1849, and Henry Clay and Daniel Webster discussed the Missouri Compromise at the island the next year.

Resort development

In 1824, the Gravesend and Coney Island Road and Bridge Company built the first bridge across Jamaica Ditch (by now known as Coney Island Creek), connecting the island with the mainland. The company also built a shell road across the island to the beaches. In 1829, the company also built the first hotel on the island: the Coney Island House, near present-day Sea Gate.

Due to Coney Island's proximity to Manhattan and other boroughs, and its simultaneous relative distance from the city of Brooklyn to provide the illusion of a proper vacation, it began attracting vacationers in the 1830s and 1840s, assisted by carriage roads and steamship service that reduced travel time from a formerly half-day journey to two hours. Most of the vacationers were wealthy and went by carriage. Inventor Samuel Colt built an observation tower on the peninsula in 1845, but he abandoned the project soon after. In 1847, the middle class started going to Coney Island upon the introduction of a ferry line to Norton's Point—named during the mid-1870s after hotel owner Michael Norton—at the western portion of the peninsula. Gang activity started as well, with one 1870s writer noting that going to Coney Island could result in losing money and even lives. The Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad became the first railroad to reach Coney Island when it opened in 1864, and it was completed in 1867. Over the next 13 years, four more railroads were built specifically to transport visitors to Coney Island; this was part of a larger national trend toward trolley park development.

In 1868, William A. Engeman built a resort in the area. The resort was given the name " Brighton Beach" in 1878 by Henry C. Murphy and a group of businessmen, who chose the name as an allusion to the English resort city of Brighton. With the help of Gravesend's surveyor William Stillwell, Engeman acquired all 39 lots for the relatively low cost of $20,000. This hotel, with rooms for up to 5,000 people nightly and meals for up to 20,000 people daily, was close to the then-rundown western Coney Island, so it was mostly the upper middle class that went to this hotel. The , double-decker Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion was also built nearby and opened in 1878, with the capacity for 1,200 bathers. Hotel Brighton, also known as the Brighton Beach Hotel, was situated on the beach at what is now the foot of Coney Island Avenue. The Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, the predecessor to the New York City Subway's present-day Brighton Line, opened on July 2, 1878, and provided access to the hotel.

Simultaneously, wealthy banker Austin Corbin was developing adjacent Manhattan Beach after being interested in the area during a trip to the beach to heal his sick son. Corbin, who worked on Wall Street and had many railroad investments, built the New York and Manhattan Beach Railway for his two luxury shoreline hotels. These hotels were used by the wealthy upper class, who would not go to Brighton Beach because of its proximity to Coney Island. The 150-room Manhattan Beach Hotel—which was designed by J. Pickering Putnam and contained restaurants, ballrooms, and shops—was opened for business in July 1877 at a ceremony presided over by President Ulysses S. Grant. The similarly prodigal Oriental Hotel, which hosted rooms for wealthy families staying for extended periods, was opened in August 1880.

Andrew R. Culver, president of the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad, had built the Culver Line steam railway to West Brighton in 1875, before Corbin and Engeman had even built their railroads. For 35 cents, one could ride the Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad to the Culver Depot terminal at Surf Avenue. Across the street from the terminal, the Iron Tower (also known as the Centennial Observatory), bought from the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition, provided patrons with a bird's-eye view of the coast. The nearby "Camera Obscura" similarly used mirrors and lens to provide a panoramic view of the area. Coney Island became a major resort destination after the Civil War as excursion railroads and the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad streetcar line reached the area in the 1860s and 1870s, followed by the Iron Steamboat Company ferry to Manhattan in 1881.

The 150-suite Cable Hotel was built nearby in 1875. Next to it, on a piece of land leased by James Voorhies, maitre d' Paul Bauer built the western peninsula's largest hotel, which opened in 1876. By the turn of the century, Victorian hotels, private bathhouses, and vaudeville theaters were a common sight on Coney island. The three resort areas—Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and West Brighton—competed with each other for clientele. By the early 1900s, West Brighton had gradually become the most popular destination, and as such, became associated with the lively amusement area of Coney Island.

In the 1890s, Norton's Point on the western side of Coney Island was developed into Sea Gate, a gated summer community that catered mainly to the wealthy. A private yacht carried visitors directly from the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Notable tenants within the community included the Atlantic Yacht Club, which built a colonial style house along the waterfront.

Amusement park era

Between about 1880 and World War II, Coney Island was the largest amusement area in the United States, attracting several million visitors per year. Its development as an amusement area was concurrent with the erection of urban amusement parks elsewhere in the United States, which changed amusement from a passive to an active concept. Of these amusement areas, Coney Island was the largest. At its height, it contained three competing major amusement parks— Luna Park, Dreamland, and Steeplechase Park—as well as many independent amusements. The area was also the center of new technological events and innovations including electric lights, roller coasters, and baby incubators. By the first decade of the 20th century, Coney Island was seen as a top getaway and "a symbol of Americans' increasing pride".

19th century

By the late 1870s, Coney Island's hotels had drawn people from many different social classes, and attractions were being built. When the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company electrified the steam railroads and connected Brooklyn to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge at the beginning of the 20th century, Coney Island turned rapidly from a resort to an accessible location for day-trippers seeking to escape the summer heat in New York City's tenements. Charles I. D. Looff, a Danish woodcarver, built the first carousel and amusement ride at Coney Island in 1876, at Lucy Vandeveer's bath-house complex at West 6th Street and Surf Avenue. Looff personally hand-carved the designs into the carousel. Looff subsequently commissioned another carousel at Feltman's Ocean Pavilion in 1880. Another early attraction was the Seaside Aquarium, which operated from 1877 to 1887 and included aquatic exhibits, aviaries, zoo attractions, and various sideshows. The earliest rides, including Looff's first carousel and the Seaside Aquarium, were located at the Centennial Observatory's site. The first sideshows and fireworks displays came to Coney Island in 1883, and combined with constant musical performances, brought increased excitement to the area.

The very first roller coaster at Coney Island was the Switchback Railway, a gravity coaster installed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson at West 10th Street in 1884. Nearby was the Elephantine Colossus, a seven-story building (including a brothel) in the shape of an elephant, which opened the following year. Until its demolition in 1896, the elephant was the first sight to greet immigrants arriving in New York, who would see it before they saw the Statue of Liberty. Next to be developed were horse-racing tracks, and by 1890, Coney Island had three tracks: Sheepshead Bay Race Track, Brighton Beach Race Course, and Gravesend Race Track. Julian Ralph described Coney Island in 1896 as "the first made-to-order resort in America", with many businesses having "leaped from nothing into full fledged perfection". However, crime and corruption in Coney Island were prevalent. The main leader of this corruption was John Y. McKane, who ran prizefighting rings behind the elephant until he was arrested and sentenced in 1894.

The development of amusement rides in Coney Island intensified in the 1890s with the opening of amusement parks. The first such park was Sea Lion Park, which operated from 1895 to 1902 and was the first amusement park to charge entry fees. Sea Lion Park's opening spurred the construction of George C. Tilyou's Steeplechase Park, which opened in 1897. The Coney Island "Funny Face" logo, which is still extant, dates to the early days of Steeplechase Park.

Early 20th century

The first decade of the 20th century saw two more large amusement parks. Luna Park opened in 1903 on the site of Sea Lion Park, which had closed the previous year. The park contained a variety of attractions and exotic landscaping, lit by electricity at night; its flagship ride was A Trip to the Moon, an attraction based on Jules Verne's novel ''From the Earth to the Moon''. The following year saw the opening of Dreamland, which reproduced many attractions at Luna Park, but at a grander scale, with a large central tower and lagoon, a sunken plaza, and one million electric lights. Additionally, the City of New York made efforts to condemn all buildings and piers built south of Surf Avenue in an effort to reclaim the beach and create a boardwalk, though the local amusement community opposed the move. Eventually, the city government and the community reached an agreement mandating that the beach did not begin until south of Surf Avenue and that the territory would be marked by a city-owned boardwalk. In return, the city would demolish any structures built upon public streets to reclaim beach access.

The original resorts lost patronage after horse racing in New York state was outlawed in 1909, but the amusement areas still saw significant patronage. In 1915, the Sea Beach Line was upgraded to a subway line, followed by the other former excursion roads, and the opening of the Stillwell Avenue station in 1919 ushered in Coney Island's busiest era. On the busiest summer days, over a million people would travel to Coney Island. This created tensions between longtime New York City residents and more recent immigrants who liked to patronize Coney Island. One of the entrepreneurs who took advantage of the increased visitor counts was Nathan Handwerker

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