Travel and Leisure magazine recently named the historic Coney Island Boardwalk one of America's best seaside sanctuaries--just in time for the debut of the new Luna Park, the first amusement park to open in Coney Island in more than half a century. The new park and ongoing historic preservation efforts promise to bring Coney Island back to its roots.
Spanning three miles along the Atlantic shoreline, limned by golden sand on one side and a collection of historic attractions on the other, the Coney Island Boardwalk is synonymous with public urban beaches. In the first half of the 20th century, carnival impresarios built amusement parks like the original Luna Park, unveiled in 1903. Elegant hotels and resorts rose up to accommodate the legions of city folk who escaped the heat of the asphalt jungle every summer weekend.
The neighborhood and the Coney Island Boardwalk declined during the 1960s and 1970s as the amusements closed down and the city faced a financial crisis. Fortunately, efforts toward historic preservation gave landmark status to some of Coney Island's most recognizable attractions.
They comprise the 1927 Cyclone rollercoaster, the heart-in-your-mouth star of the Coney Island Boardwalk; Deno's WonderWheel, the colossal 1920 Ferris wheel; the red-painted Parachute Jump built between 1939 and 1941, no longer in operation; and Child's Restaurant on the Coney Island Boardwalk, which opened for business in 1924. Both the Cyclone and the Parachute Jump are on the National Register of Historic Places.
With the new Luna Park unveiled this past Memorial Day, and its highly-anticipated log flume ride set to open on the July 4th weekend, Coney Island is poised for historic rebirth. At the same time, the nonprofit group Save Coney Island is lobbying the city for a proposed Coney Island Historic District. With its boundaries between Surf Ave. and Bowery, the historic preservation group hopes to gain landmark status for the Shore Theater, Nathan's Famous hot dog stand, Henderson's Music Hall, the Shore Hotel, the Herman Popper Building, Child's Restaurant/Coney Island USA, the Bank of Coney Island and the Grashom Building. To learn about the areas' historic preservation efforts, visit Save Coney Island or the informative Coney Island History Project.
The video below, an Edison Biograph film starring the comedy team of Rube and Mandy, shows the original Luna Park in 1903.
A Summer Day at Luna Park (1903)
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