Hello Mr. Coney
When I was small there was a storefront that had a placard in the window of an article about LIDA MEDINA, the world’s youngest Mom and a lifesize display of Monkey’s playing poker. Was this the wax museum? where was this located and what happened to the Monkey’s?
thanks
Meryl V
Hello Meryl,
You are correct. The poker-playing monkeys were located in a window display at the Bowery entrance to Lillie Santangelo’s World in Wax which operated in Coney Island from the 1920s until 1984. The museum also had an entire exhibit featuring Lina Medina, the world’s youngest mother, a Peruvian girl who gave birth at the age of five.
The display of animated monkeys (they were actually chimpanzees) was called “Cheating Cheaters,”because all the simian players had extra cards hidden up their sleeves and under the table and were obviously cheating! After the waxworks closed, the displays were auctioned off and now reside in private collections.
February 20th, 2013 at 11:20 pm
Hi Mr. Coney,- HA HA A memory of the animated chimpanzees; “Cheating Cheaters,I as about 9 yrs old with my sister and 2 other cousins standing in front watching the chimps. My father was standing behind us a little away. All of a sudden the Chimps began taking to us- we had on the Coney Island colored Hats with the big yellow plum feathers- The chimps were talking to each one of us-(ie) if we took off our hats -one would say something- or the one in front right had cards hidden under the table holding it with his feet-made comments to us like “don;t say anything about my extra cards’ and sayings like that-It was so surreal to us kids at the time- I remember we looked around and under the display for a speaker or something and the Chimps saying -Hey what are you looking for-it’s us really talking- It really scared us. How did they know what we were doing/ They were just a mechanical display! I remember staring and staring trying to see where those voices were coming from Well, There was a short Man wearing a dark Fedora hat standing to our left of the display against the wall with a small smile on his face. We didn’t know it until we got home that night and my father told us, The man was a Ventriloquist with the illusion throwing his voice for us gullible kids. We never saw him again ,even after several times to Coney Island we looked for him. i wonder who he was? It was like yesterday this all happened and clear s a bell. I’m 60 yrs old now and always tell this story. i always wondered what happened to that display and i see it was auctioned to private collectors. It would be a thrill to see it again . HAPPY MEMORIES!