Coney Island is a unique New York City neighborhood and a place of exciting innovation, where the roller coaster and the hot dog were introduced to the world, the glow of a million bare lightbulbs at Luna Park dazzled early visitors, and rocket rides at Astroland fueled intergalactic fantasies. Coney Island served as the pressure valve for New York, drawing millions to its famous beach on sweltering weekends. Astroland Park, created at the dawn of the space age, was the vision of Dewey and Jerome Albert. They transformed the 3-acre Feltman's Restaurant property, one of Coney Island's oldest attractions, into a futuristic amusement park that would anchor the amusement zone for the next half century. The park's ambitious opening in 1962 mirrored the wide-eyed optimism of the early 1960s and helped Coney Island survive the closure of the venerable Steeplechase Park.

Denson gives us an insider's look at one of New York's best-known neighborhoods, weaving together memories of his childhood adventures with colorful stories of the area's past and interviews with local personalities, all brought to life by hundreds of photographs, detailed maps, and authentic memorabilia.

The venerable Wonder Wheel, Coney Island's oldest and greatest attraction, has dominated the Coney Island skyline for more than a century. Towering over an ephemeral amusement zone long plagued by fires, floods, and ill-conceived urban renewal schemes, the magnificent steel machine has proved to be the ultimate survivor. The ride boasts impressive statistics. A combination of roller coaster and Ferris wheel, the 150-foot-tall structure weighs 200 tons, has 16 swinging cars and 8 stationary cars, and can carry 144 riders. More than 40 million passengers have taken a ride on the wheel since it was built in 1920, and during that time, it has maintained a perfect safety record. The ride is also a monument to immigrant initiative. Charles Hermann, the ride's designer, was Romanian; the original owner, Herman Garms, was German; and Denos Vourderis, who purchased and lovingly restored the aging landmark in 1983, was Greek. An official New York City landmark, the Wonder Wheel is now owned and operated by three generations of the Vourderis family as the centerpiece of their Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. The enduring saga of this iconic ride, and the family that saved it, provide a captivating chapter of Coney Island's history.

Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, and held there January 31-May 31, 2015; at the San Diego Museum of Art, Calif., July 11-October 13, 2015; at the Brooklyn Museum, N.Y., November 20, 2015-March 13, 2016; and at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Tex., May 11-September 11, 2016.

This comprehensive guide profiles 16 major amusement parks in the Empire State and offers information on smaller parks as well. Offers complete information on rides and attractions, a history of each park, and best times to go. Features vintage photographs and postcards scenes.

A shy little mermaid comes out of her shell to march with all the other sea creatures at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

The gang hits Coney Island! They quickly discover the true evil behind the Tunnel of Horror! AstroLand will never be the same.

Coney Island: the name still resonates with a sense of racy Brooklyn excitement, the echo of beach-front popular entertainment before World War I. Amusing the Million examines the historical context in which Coney Island made its reputation as an amusement park and shows how America's changing social and economic conditions formed the basis of a new mass culture. Exploring it afresh in this way, John Kasson shows Coney Island no longer as the object of nostalgia but as a harbinger of modernity--and the many photographs, lithographs, engravings, and other reproductions with which he amplifies his text support this lively thesis.

Describes the story of a group of people from the Philippines who were transported to Coney Island in 1905 to be portrayed as “headhunting, dog-eating savages” in a Luna Park freak show.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was the largest international exhibition ever built in the United States. More than one hundred fifty pavilions and exhibits spread over six hundred forty-six acres helped the fair live up to its reputation as "the Billion-Dollar Fair." With the cold war in full swing, the fair offered visitors a refreshingly positive view of the future, mirroring the official theme: Peace through Understanding. Guests could travel back in time through a display of full-sized dinosaurs, or look into a future where underwater hotels and flying cars were commonplace. They could enjoy Walt Disney's popular shows, or study actual spacecraft flown in orbit. More than fifty-one million guests visited the fair before it closed forever in 1965. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair captures the history of this event through vintage photographs, published here for the first time.