John and Louise Bonsignore on the Bobsled, 1940s.

Louise Bonsignore passed away on October 10, 2025, at the age of 99, just shy of her 100th birthday. Louise, and her late husband John, were Coney Island royalty, and the subjects of my book Wild Ride! A Coney Island Coaster Family, which tells the story of the Bonsignore family’s dramatic history in Coney Island.

Louise was sweet, kind, caring, and incredibly generous. She had a smile that could light up the world. And what a voice! She was one of a kind, a talented opera singer and patron of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Luciano Pavarotti adored her.

The Bonsignore family once owned and operated the Bobsled coaster, the L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway, Stauch’s Baths, The Tornado Coaster, Silvers Baths, and many other properties in Coney Island and Brighton Beach. They were a major force in Coney Island, from the 1920s to the 1970s. 

John and Louise raised their family in a three-story brick building ensconced below the last turn of the L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway on West 8th Street, a structure that had once been the office and workshop of LaMarcus A. Thompson, inventor of the roller coaster. Their historic house and coaster were lost to urban renewal and demolished in 1954.

Everything about Louise was operatic. It was impossible to visit the Bonsignore home in Manhattan Beach without being asked to stay for a six-course dinner prepared by Louise: stylishly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and wearing her trademark stiletto heels. Louise made you feel at home and part of the family. The house was always filled with interesting people and pets, food and wine, and amazing Coney Island stories.

With Louise’s passing, a 100-year-history of Coney Island comes to an end, but will not be forgotten. The love she gave lives on.

Here is an excerpt from Wild Ride:

Louise Corona was a beautiful girl with old world manners, a serious girl with bright eyes and a beautiful smile. She wore the finest clothes in the latest fashions, all created by her mother and father. Her father was a custom tailor who made suits for Brooklyn’s wealthy and stylish “men of honor,” and her mother was a seamstress who did all the handwork for Henry Bendels in Manhattan. Her grandparents left Naples in 1901 and settled in Coney Island on West Third Street in a tight-knit neighborhood of small frame houses alongside Coney Island Creek. It was a melting pot of Italian, Irish and Jewish families. Small truck farms and chicken coops still lined the streets. 

Her family was cultured and Louise studied voice with her aunt and uncle who taught opera in Manhattan. “They had been brought to America by Toscanini,” she recalls. “I had a good voice and they gave me lessons, they coached me from childhood.”  Louise was known for her angelic voice. At the age of thirteen, accompanied by her aunt, she gave her first public performance at a USO concert at the Jewish temple on Ocean Parkway. The orchestra was amazed at her ability to hit the high notes. 

John and Louise moved into an apartment in the Thompson house, his childhood home under the roller coaster, and they began raising a family. Louise remembers the odd living conditions in the house below the coaster just before they finally moved out. The house was also a workshop. “In our basement were tracks where the Thompson ride could come in so that they could do repairs on the cars. It was a shop where they could do any kind of repair that they needed to do. We also had a carousel stored down there that my uncle, Pete Paluso, had bought and was looking to re-sell. 

Soon the couple had three children and grandpa Joe began what became a family tradition on the L.A. Thompson. Every morning, before the coaster opened to the public, Joe would take the first ride and wave to his grandchildren gathered at the window as he rode by. “He’d wave to us with a big grin on his face and the children would wave back.” Louise remembers. “ He was so happy with that first ride.”

- Charles Denson

Louise Bonsignore, 2006. Photo by Charles Denson

Louise on the Bowery in front of the Bobsled, 1940s

Charles Denson and Louise Bonsignore, looking lovely at 98 years old.

Wild Ride: A Coney Island Roller Coaster Family, by Charles Denson.

The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) announced the date of the second and final public hearing for 'The Coney' Casino Community Advisory Committee.

WHAT: The Coney Community Advisory Committee Public Hearing

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025, 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Members of the public may arrive no earlier than 4:30 pm.

WHERE: CONEY ISLAND YMCA, 2980 West 29th St, Brooklyn, NY 11224

Your presence and testimony at the second and final public hearing and your emailed testimony to 'The Coney' Community Advisory Committee (CAC) are essential. According to the NYSGC, the CAC's job is to “review the application, gauge local support, and ultimately issue a finding determining whether there is adequate support."

If you don't want Coney Island to be replaced by a casino, we urge you to attend the public hearing and sign up to speak. According to the NYSGC announcement for the hearing: "Individuals wishing to speak will be asked to sign up in person. Speakers will be allowed 2 minutes to present their statement on a first come first serve basis. If you spoke at the first public hearing, you will not be allowed to speak at this hearing."

If you are unable to attend the hearing, please email your testimony as soon as possible to TheConeyPublicComment@nystec.com.

The hearing will be webcast live via YouTube, where it may also be viewed afterwards.

For each proposed downstate casino - eight applications were submitted to the state on June 27 - a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) was formed, consisting of six reps appointed by elected officials. Each CAC will hold two public hearings and must vote on their projects by September 30, 2025. Only the bids that receive a two-thirds majority approval from their CAC will advance for further consideration by the state board that makes the final decision. Up to three gaming licenses are expected to be awarded by the NYSGC by the end of the year.

Recent press coverage of 'The Coney' casino proposal:

"Proposed Coney Island casino would create year-round ‘traffic hell,’ adviser says" (New York Post, Aug 11)

"Proposed Coney Island casino could bring heavy traffic, overwhelm parking, according to environmental impact study" (Brooklyn Paper, Aug 9)

Watch Charles Denson's video, The Coney Casino: Greed Kills, linked below. It highlights the serious public safety concerns being ignored by the Coney casino developers, city agencies, and elected officials.

More than 500 oral histories are available for listening in the Coney Island History Project’s multilingual online archive. Among the recent additions are the following interviews recorded by Charles Denson and Tricia Vita.

Fifty years ago this month, Mike Boodley set a world record for consecutive roller coaster rides by riding the Coney Island Cyclone 1,001 times over 45 hours. Now an award-winning roller coaster designer, Boodley shares memories of the ride, how it came about, and the people who cheered him on and rode with him. Other topics in the interview include the influence of Coney Island's Tornado on his coaster designs and memories of Astroland's flamboyant publicist Milton Berger.

Anthony D’Amico tells the secret inside story of how Coney Island’s $350 million dollar Stillwell Avenue Terminal came into being. D'Amico was the Chief Financial Officer in charge of funding billions of dollars in MTA mega-projects, including the the Second Avenue subway, Fulton Transit Center, and rebuilding the Cortland Street Station destroyed in 9/11. D'Amico also describes the highlights of his fascinating 37-year career in public transit.

Ninety-five-year-old Rita Kaminsky describes growing up in Coney Island during the 1930s and 1940s. Kaminsky was born at home in the family's apartment above her grandmother's store at 2717 Surf Avenue. In this interview she shares memories of life during the Great Depression and Coney Island during World War II.

Randy Profeta is the great grandson of Harry Wildman, who was Coney Island's premier sign painter from the 1890s until he died in 1930. Profeta shares family stories of his grandmother Beatrice, Harry's daughter, and her romance with his grandfather, Vito Onorato, who worked in Steeplechase Park. Researching his family history, Profeta learned that Harry Wildman did sign work for Feltmans, Nathan's, Steeplechase Park and Luna Park.

Please listen, share, and if you or someone you know would like to record a story remotely via phone or Zoom, sign up here. We record interviews in English, Russian, Chinese, and other languages with people who have lived or worked in Coney Island and adjacent neighborhoods or have a special connection to these places.

Charles Denson, director of the Coney Island History Project, has recently launched a Substack about Coney Island. You can read and subscribe for free at coneyologist.substack.com. His latest post is a remembrance of Harry James Faulkner, who died on July 28 at the age of 70.

"He loved to fish, and he loved the creek. For 50 years he lived across the street from the creek in Gravesend Houses and watched the creek’s water quality improve, turning the waterway into an asset instead of a liability. It was his front yard."

Charles Denson is the author of the prize-winning Coney Island: Lost and Found and three other books about Coney Island.