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.
Murder, Inc. was an organized crime group, active from 1929 to 1941, that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate – a closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia. Murder, Inc. was believed to be responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings, until the group was exposed in 1941 by former group member Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. In the trials that followed, many members were convicted and executed, and Abe Reles himself died after suspiciously falling from a window. Thomas E. Dewey first came to prominence as a prosecutor of Murder, Inc. and other organized crime cases.
Frank Abbandando, nicknamed "The Dasher", was a New York City contract killer who committed many murders as part of the infamous Murder, Inc. gang. His preferred killing method was to stab his victims through the heart with an ice pick. After a trial and conviction for murdering a Brooklyn loan shark, he was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing on February 19, 1942.
Louis Capone was a New York organized crime figure who became a supervisor for Murder, Inc. Louis Capone was not related to Al Capone, the boss of the Chicago Outfit. Capone was convicted of murder in 1941, and sentenced to death. He was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison on March 4, 1944.
Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles was a New York Jewish mobster who was a hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for Meyer Lansky's National Crime Syndicate.
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.
Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway to the west, Manhattan Beach at Corbin Place to the east, Sheepshead Bay at the Belt Parkway to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south along the beach and boardwalk.
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.
Manhattan Beach is a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, by Sheepshead Bay on the north, and Brighton Beach to the west. Traditionally known as an Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish neighborhood, it is also home to a sizable community of Sephardi Jews and a large Russian Jewish immigrant presence.
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.
Murder, Inc. is a 1960 American gangster film starring Stuart Whitman, May Britt, Henry Morgan, Peter Falk, and Simon Oakland. The Cinemascope film was directed by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg. The screenplay was based on the true story of Murder, Inc., a Brooklyn gang that operated in the 1930s.
Sea Gate is a private gated community at the far western end of Coney Island at the southwestern tip of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Located on the portion of the Coney Island peninsula west of West 37th Street, it contains mostly single-family homes, some directly on Gravesend Bay.
Max Zweifach born Maximillian Zweifach known as "Kid Twist" and occasionally referred to as Zwerbach was an American gangster active in the early 1900s.
The Coney Island Velodrome was a mid-sized sports arena in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. Designed as a bicycle racing venue, the drome featured a 1⁄8-mile (0.20 km) wooden oval track with 45° banked corners and seating for 10,000. It also hosted outboard midgets into 1939. Located next to the Culver Depot, the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation's rail terminal at Neptune Avenue & West 12th Street, the venue played host to sports ranging from motorcycle races to boxing and football.
Coney Island Hospital is a public teaching hospital located in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. It is owned by NYC Health + Hospitals, a public benefit corporation of the city. The hospital is home to FDNY-EMS Station 43, formerly NYC-EMS Station 31, and is a major clinical affiliate for clinical clerkship with the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The Brooklyn–Queens Greenway is a bicycling and pedestrian path connecting parks and roads in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Coney Island in the south to Fort Totten in the north, on Long Island Sound. The route connects major sites in the two boroughs, such as the New York Aquarium, Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the New York Hall of Science and Citi Field.
The Elephantine Colossus was a tourist attraction located on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City. It was built in the shape of an elephant, an example of novelty architecture. The seven story structure designed by James V. Lafferty stood above Surf Avenue and West 12th Street from 1885 until 1896, when it burnt down in a fire. During its lifespan, the thirty-one room building acted as a concert hall and amusement bazaar. It was the second of three elephant buildings built by Lafferty, preceded by the extant Lucy the Elephant near Atlantic City and followed by The Light of Asia in Cape May.
Umberto "Albert" Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, Anastasia eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, including the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family.
Fort George Amusement Park was a trolley park and amusement park that operated in the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan, New York City, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It occupied an area between 190th and 192nd Streets east of Amsterdam Avenue, within present-day Highbridge Park.
