 Coney Island History Project in 2022 during the Mermaid Parade | |
| Formation | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Carol Hill Albert, Jerome Albert |
| Type | Non-profit corporation |
| Headquarters | Coney Island, Brooklyn |
Director | Charles Denson |
| Website | coneyislandhistory.org |
The Coney Island History Project, or CIHP, founded in 2004, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization [1] that works to record and increase awareness of Coney Island's history. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
The Coney Island History Project was founded in 2004 by Carol Hill Albert and Jerome Albert in honor of Dewey Albert, creator of Astroland. Since its inception, Carol Hill and Jerome Albert tapped local historian Charles Denson as director of the Coney Island History Project. [8] The project began as an oral history project, collecting stories of Coney Island from longtime local residents. [7] The Coney Island History Project records, archives, and shares oral history interviews about Coney Island. [7] [9] The CIHP conducts interviews in English, Russian, Chinese, and Spanish. [6] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CIHP continued to record interviews via phone or Skype. [10]
Over 370 interviews are available online via The Coney Island History Project Oral History Archive. [11] [12]
The History Project's exhibition center is located next to Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. The center occupies a former arcade booth, presenting educational exhibitions, events, and performances; displaying historic artifacts and documentary material from Coney Island's history. [5] The collection holds many artifacts of Coney Island, including an authentic Steeplechase horse, part of Steeplechase Park. [5]
In 2014, the history project presented an exhibition on the history of the Steeplechase Face. [13]
In 2018, the Coney Island History Project presented an exhibition examining the history of Coney Island Creek. After the exhibit, the History Project has presented mobile exhibitions on the Coney Island Creek including one at City of Water Day on the Coney Island Creek in Kaiser Park, co-hosted with the Coney Island Beautification Project and the Waterfront Alliance. [14]
The Coney Island History Project offers guided tours of Coney Island. [2] In 2019, the CIHP offered an immigrant Heritage Tour of Coney Island in English and Mandarin. [2] The special walking tour was offered free of charge as part of Immigrant Heritage Week 2019. [2]
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 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, 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.
Coney Island Creek is a 1.8-mile-long (2.9 km) tidal inlet in Brooklyn, New York City. It was created from a series of streams and inlets by land filling and digging activities starting in the mid-18th century which, by the 19th century, became a 3-mile-long (4.8 km) continual strait and a partial mudflat connecting Gravesend Bay and Sheepshead Bay, separating Coney Island from the mainland. The strait was closed off in the early 20th century due to further land development and later construction projects. Today only the western half of Coney Island Creek exists.
Gravesend is a neighborhood in the south-central section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the southwestern edge of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. It is bounded by the Belt Parkway to the south, Bay Parkway to the west, Avenue P to the north, and Ocean Parkway to the east.
Maimonides Park is a minor league baseball stadium on the Riegelmann Boardwalk in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. The home team and primary tenant is the New York Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones of the South Atlantic League. The stadium has also hosted other teams as well. The NYU Violets Baseball team began playing at Maimonides Park in 2015, and the New York Cosmos soccer team of the NASL played the 2017 NASL season there. Rugby United New York of Major League Rugby began play in 2019 with MCU Park as its home field.
Sheepshead Bay is a neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, New York City. It is bounded by Ocean Parkway to the west; Avenue T and Kings Highway to the north; Nostrand Avenue and Gerritsen Avenue to the east; and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Sheepshead Bay is abutted by the neighborhoods of Brighton Beach and Homecrest to the west; Midwood to the north; and Gerritsen Beach to the east.
Steeplechase Park was a 15-acre (6.1 ha) amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. Steeplechase Park was created by entrepreneur George C. Tilyou in 1897 and operated until 1964. It was the first of the three large amusement parks built on Coney Island, the other two being Luna Park (1903) and Dreamland (1904). Of the three, Steeplechase was the longest-lasting, running for 67 years.
The Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue station is a New York City Subway terminal in Coney Island, Brooklyn. It is the railroad-south terminus for the D, F, N, and Q trains at all times and for the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction.
The Cyclone, also called the Coney Island Cyclone, is a wooden roller coaster at Luna Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. Designed by Vernon Keenan, it opened to the public on June 26, 1927. The roller coaster is on a plot of land at the intersection of Surf Avenue and West 10th Street. The Cyclone reaches a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) and has a total track length of 2,640 feet (800 m), with a maximum height of 85 feet (26 m).
The Parachute Jump is a defunct amusement ride and a landmark in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, along the Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island. Situated in Steeplechase Plaza near the B&B Carousell, the structure consists of a 250-foot-tall (76 m), 170-short-ton (150 t) open-frame, steel parachute tower. Twelve cantilever steel arms radiate from the top of the tower; when the ride was in operation, each arm supported a parachute attached to a lift rope and a set of guide cables. Riders were belted into a two-person canvas seat, lifted to the top, and dropped. The parachute and shock absorbers at the bottom would slow their descent.
The Center for Brooklyn History is a museum, library, and educational center founded in 1863 that preserves and encourages the study of Brooklyn's 400-year history. The center's Romanesque Revival building, located at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights, was designed by George B. Post and built in 1878–1881 by David H. King Jr., is a National Historic Landmark and part of New York City's Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The CBH houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people, and hosts exhibitions which draw over 9,000 members a year. In addition to general programming, the CBH serves over 70,000 public school students and teachers annually by providing exhibit tours, educational programs and curricula, and making its professional staff available for instruction and consultation.
The Sheepshead Bay Race Track was an American Thoroughbred horse racing facility built on the site of the Coney Island Jockey Club at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York.
The Riegelmann Boardwalk is a 2.7-mile-long (4.3 km) boardwalk along the southern shore of the Coney Island peninsula in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Opened in 1923, the boardwalk runs between West 37th Street at the edge of the Sea Gate neighborhood to the west and Brighton 15th Street in Brighton Beach to the east. It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Luna Park is an amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. It opened on May 29, 2010, at the site of Astroland, an amusement park that had been in operation from 1962 to 2008, and Dreamland, which operated at the same site for the 2009 season. It was named after the original 1903 Luna Park which operated until 1944 on a site just north of the current park's 1000 Surf Avenue location.
Paul J. Smith was an arts administrator, curator, and artist based in New York. Smith was professionally involved with the art, craft, and design fields since the early 1950s and was closely associated with the twentieth-century studio craft movement in the United States. He joined the staff of the American Craftsmen's Council in 1957, and in 1963 was appointed Director of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, a position he held for the next 25 years. In September 1987, he assumed the title of director emeritus and continued to work as an independent curator and consultant for museums, arts organizations, and collectors.
Philomena Marano is an American artist specializing in papier collé.
Kaiser Park is a public park on the northwestern coast of Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City. It abuts Coney Island Creek, Gravesend Bay, and Coney Island Creek Park and is across Coney Island Creek from Calvert Vaux Park and Six Diamonds Park.
George Cornelius Tilyou (1862–1914) was an American entrepreneur and showman who founded New York City's Steeplechase Park. Born in New York City, his parents had operated businesses in Coney Island from his early childhood. He founded Steeplechase in 1897, and rebuilt it entirely after a 1907 fire. Tilyou died in 1914, leaving the park to his children, who continued to operate it until 1964.
The Steeplechase Face was the mascot of the historic Steeplechase Park, the first of three amusement parks in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. It remains a nostalgic symbol of Coney Island and of amusement areas influenced by it. It features a man with a wide, exaggerated smile which sometimes bears as many as 44 visible teeth. The image conveys simple fun, but was also observed by cultural critics to have an undercurrent of Victorian-era repressed sexuality.
Coney Island Creek Park is a public park on the northwestern coast of Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City. It abuts Coney Island Creek, Gravesend Bay, and Kaiser Park and is across Coney Island Creek from Calvert Vaux Park and Six Diamonds Park.
Jerome Krase (born March 2, 1943, Brooklyn, New York City is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Murray Koppelman School of Business. Professor at School of Humanities and Social sciences. President of European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
| Parks |
|   | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roller coasters |
| ||||||
| Other rides | |||||||
| Other attractions | |||||||
| Defunct |
| ||||||
| Community | |||||||
| Organizations | |||||||
| Neighborhoods | |||||||
| Subway stations | |||||||
| Cultural impact | |||||||
See also: Brooklyn Community Board 13 | |||||||