Coney Island Blog - News

In a joyful dedication on May 11, the walkway along Coney Island Creek in Kaiser Park was officially named Gene Ritter Way. The ceremony took place during Estuary Day, the annual event founded in 2015 by Gene as a way to celebrate, protect, and restore the neglected Coney Island Creek estuary. Coney Island native Gene, who passed away in 2018, was a commercial diver, environmentalist, and educator dedicated to teaching youth about local history and marine environments. He was also the diver who discovered and recovered the historic Dreamland Bell, which was displayed at the Coney Island History Project in 2009. You can listen to Gene's oral history, which he recorded in 2016, on the Coney Island History Project's website at:
https://www.coneyislandhistory.org/oral-history-archive/gene-ritter

Last year, Cynthia Nuara of Queens, New York, sent a query to the Coney Island History Project asking if we had photos or information about her great-grandfather John Polise’s bait and tackle store. John's Bait & Tackle operated from the 1940s through 1974. “I believe it was near the old Thunderbolt roller coaster, perhaps where the Cyclones Stadium is now. I would love to find some prints, if they exist somewhere, to give to my mom and aunts,” she wrote.

By an amazing coincidence, we recorded an oral history interview in 2011 in which the owners of John's Bait & Tackle play a prominent role. In his oral history, Morris Egert, a self-described “greenhorn” from Poland, talks about "Mary and John" of the bait and tackle next door to his brand-new food stand on West 16th Street in Coney Island in 1951. He vividly describes the kindness of Cynthia Nuara’s great-grandparents, who saved the Egert family’s business by teaching them how to make Italian food.

"When we opened up, my mother made a gefilte fish and chopped liver and knishes," Egert recalls. "And this wonderful lady, Mary, came in. She says, you know, this is not the right place here. You want that? You gotta go up 29th Street, 30th Street. You're in the wrong place for this. And this wonderful lady really saved us. She came in and she taught us how to make pizza and sausage and peppers.  And we ate up the chopped liver.“ Morris Egert went on to become a successful caterer.

“I knew my great-grandmother well, she died when I was 12,” wrote Nuara, after listening to Egert's oral history. “She was super opinionated so this interview is making me smile. I can just see her re-doing this guy’s whole business! And before the bait and tackle, they did own a restaurant.”

Nuara's great-aunt Gail Polise, whose late husband Vincent was John and Mary's son, shared the following information, family photos and business cards. They tell the history of the Polise family's businesses in Coney Island, starting with a restaurant with furnished rooms in 1929.

Coney Island business cards in chronological order from 1929 through the 1970s, clockwise from top left. Photo courtesy of the Polise family.

"John Polise was an Italian immigrant from Capri, Italy.  He was proprietor and chef of Santa Lucia, an Italian restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  There he met and married Mary Scotti, a Williamsburg native.  Their children, Rose and Vincent, were born in Williamsburg. Having grown up on the Isle of Capri, it was only fitting that John was drawn to Coney Island. In 1929 he and Mary moved their family and business to Coney Island.

"John's first venture in Coney Island was the Tre Stelle Restaurant and seasonal rentals on the Bowery.  The restaurant occupied a large ground level area and the rental rooms were above.  John and Mary seasonally accommodated and fed tourists and visitors to the Island.  It was very hard work and their livelihood for almost nine years, until John opted for a restaurant only.  Mary was then relieved of the responsibility of the rental rooms. In 1938 he opened John's Restaurant at West 16th Street and the Boardwalk.  Vinny remembered he and his sister helping to bus dishes and set tables.  The restaurant business, although successful, was labor intensive.  In the 1940s John began to transition to a bait and tackle only venue.  He operated John's Bait & Tackle from then until 1974.  He was located on West 16 Street near the Boardwalk entrance closest to the pier.  John, Mary, Vinny, and Rose worked long hours and happily catered to the needs of the Coney Island fisherman.

John Polise with the day's catch. Photo courtesy of the Polise family.

"According to Vinny, Coney Island was a wonderful place to grow up.  He loved the atmosphere and the people. During the season it was bustling with people, excitement and opportunities to earn a few extra pennies by selling soap slices outside the bathhouses or 'barking' at a concession or selling homemade bags of confetti for the end of season Mardi Gras. The winter was desolate for those who lived there year round.  However, the friendships were hard and fast. Both he and Rose had lifelong Coney Island friends. After their years on the Bowery, the family lived in various Coney Island apartments, until they settled into an apartment at 1526 Mermaid Avenue."

Vincent Polise was a public school teacher in New York City and lived in Coney Island until 1961. Rose raised her family (including Mary Celentano, Cynthia’s mom) on West 17th Street until they moved to Staten Island in 1965. If you have any snapshots of John's Bait & Tackle or John's Restaurant, please send to info@coneyislandhistory.org and we'll be happy to forward to the Polise family. --Tricia Vita

The Astroland Star was recently featured in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Quarterly! The star, which dates to the early 1960s, will be prominently displayed in the Living in the Space Age gallery scheduled to open at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 2025. "The aesthetic of the Astroland park at New York's Coney Island was the embodiment of the optimistic futurism in the early Space Age," an article previewing the new exhibit says. "When visitors first enter the gallery they will see the star from the park's actual sign." The photograph seen above, which History Project director Charles Denson took of the star lit up at night, will be on display with it.

The eight-foot-high lighted star from Astroland's entrance gate was donated to the Smithsonian by Carol and Jerry Albert, owners of Astroland Park and founders of the Coney Island History Project, in 2009. Margaret A. Weitekamp, curator in the Museum’s Division of Space History, said at the time: “The National Air and Space Museum is delighted to receive this important popular culture artifact into the national collection. Astroland embodied the widespread excitement about early human spaceflight in the early 1960s. Having a Star from the Astroland gateway, where thousands of people passed to enjoy this entertaining vision of the space age, is a wonderful example of that space craze.”

The Living in the Space Age gallery, depicted in the artist's rendering below, will occupy three levels in the Museum. You can see the Astroland Star at the lower right.

As we near the end of 2023, the Coney Island History Project pays tribute to five Brooklynites that we lost this year who recorded their stories for our oral history archive: Eliot Wofse, Michael Onorato, Ralph Perfetto, Santos Torres, and Sofya Lobova. Their stories captivated, inspired and informed us and they will never be forgotten.

Eliot Wofse (1956 - 2023)

“Well, in the early sixties, my brothers worked for different people in Coney Island and I would visit them. I was a little kid. And how I started was, my brothers worked in the balloon game and I would go into the back of the balloon game and blow up the balloons. There was no machines in those days to blow up the balloons. I spent the whole day blowing up the balloons and I got good money cause in those days, you're lucky if you got paid 50 cents an hour, I was getting paid almost $2.00 an hour. So they were paying me to blow up these balloons in the back of the house, because at my age, which was about eight years old at the time, you couldn't be in front of the house.” – Eliot Wofse

Eliot Wofse grew up in Luna Park Houses across the street from the amusement area and by the time he was a teenager he had learned how to run any game. He recalls the 1960s through the mid- '70s, when he made good money, and the "scary times,” the late 1970s and early '80s, when "the City forgot about Coney Island." After a long hiatus, Wofse returned to Coney and successfully operated the fishbowl game in 2010 and 2011. In his oral history, he reflects on his philosophy of running amusement games and interacting with customers, and the unsustainable cost of private proprietors like himself doing business in the new, corporatized Coney Island.

Michael Onorato (1934 - 2023)

“Once I got a little older that I could come down to Coney Island by myself on the subway, I sometimes would stand out on the Parachute Jump's platform. And if someone came along that didn't have anybody, the ride attendant would sort of gimme a 'Hey, Mike! Mike, would you like to ride? Go up with the guy.' Oh yeah, sure, sure. You know? Yeah. And then of course sometimes when I went up on a date they'd stop the ride going up, you know, thinking that that was fun for me. Well, my father spotted that once or twice and he told them, 'Don't you ever do that again. Because no one's gonna understand that he's the boss's son. You're giving him a time to kiss the girl. You know what I mean?' He said, 'That's not fun for me, the manager. Send him up. He goes up and he comes down like anyone else.'”—Michael Onorato

Michael Onorato was the son of James Onorato, who was the general manager of Steeplechase Park from 1928 to 1964, when it closed. He remembers the park in vivid detail and describes growing up there. In his oral history, he gives a start-to-finish account of going on the Parachute Jump and the Steeplechase ride including details long forgotten by most visitors about how the staff operated the rides.

Ralph Perfetto (1934 – 2023)

“I was born at 2711 West 16th Street. I was delivered by a midwife in a house owned by my maternal grandparents. In fact, it's the house that my mother was born in 22 years to the day before me. And the family story has it, that my mother was in labor. She had her oldest sister with her, who was a nurse in World War I so was familiar with how to take care of her. And my mother had an urge for a Nathan's hot dog. So she said to my father Frank, I feel like having a hot dog. My father said I'll go get it. But on the way to Nathan's, he got involved in a card game. He had a friend who was the father of Lou Salica, the three-time bantamweight champ. Got involved in a card game. And when my aunt finally ran up to him and said, the midwife just delivered you a nice son, he ran up and got the hot dog. At that point my mother wasn't really interested in the hot dog. Basically, so that was my start.” – Ralph Perfetto

In his oral history, Ralph Perfetto describes the diversity of West 16th Street in Coney Island, where he grew up. He talks about the various jobs he had as a young man --picking vegetables at local farms where the Coney Island train yards are located now and tending to the horses at the local stable. In the 1970s, Perfetto led the fight to save Coney Island’s Italian neighborhood from urban renewal, including the house where he was born. He went on to become the area’s Democratic District Leader. In recent years, he found a second career, as an actor named Raffaelo Perfetto, in the movie The Irishman and The Good Wife.

Santos Torres (1948 – 2023)

“I help everybody in the community, whenever they need any vegetable, I give it to them. I don't sell nothing. I give it to them. Eggs. I give them to the community. I give them everything I grow here, I give it, you know, I give it away. All the neighbors, everybody comes they have a pantry. Santos, can I get some red peppers? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Santo,s can I get some duck eggs? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Take your eggs. Yeah. Yeah. Santos, can I get some collard greens? Can I get the cabbage? Can I get the okra? I give it away. Yeah. I just share with the community. That's what I do here. I share with everybody.” – Santos Torres

Santos Torres lived in Coney Island since 1973, playing music on the Boardwalk and tending the Santos White Community Garden. Located on Mermaid Avenue, the garden was founded in 1995 and is part of the City's GreenThumb network of community gardens. In his oral history, Torres says that he named it Santos White because everything was painted white. He kept roosters, chickens and ducks, and grew a variety of vegetables, sharing the eggs and produce with his neighbors. Torres recalled learning to garden from watching his father as a young boy in Puerto Rico. Picturesque statues dot the garden, which was rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy and was the gardener's "home away from home."

Sofya Lobova (1935 – 2023)

“We went straight to Brooklyn. Then we got an apartment in Coney Island on Surf Avenue. My husband and I promptly went to Haber House Senior Center. Well, they said, “You need to help us." I, of course, loved being helpful with all my heart. That's how I grew up and that's how my parents raised me. There were many events held for the veterans. People wanted to talk, they wanted to talk about their fate. So, I held a series of these evenings when they talked about emigration, when they talked about the Holocaust, or where they had been. Those who were in the concentration camps brought the things that they saved. The mother of the head of the Haber House was in a German camp. And she brought a knitted shawl made of goat down, which she had preserved in the camp. Every person poured out their soul and these evenings became a habit.” – Sofya Lobova

Sofya Lobova was born in Kyiv in 1935 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. In her oral history, Lobova vividly describes her childhood memories of having to evacuate during World War II and her career working in Kyiv's Department of Culture. In Brooklyn, she became one of the leaders of the Russian-speaking community in Coney Island. Lobova was a longtime resident of NYCHA's Haber Houses and was the president of its senior center for many years.

Photo Credits:  Charles Denson (Perfetto), Julia Kanin (Lobova), Dan Pisark (Onorato), Fran Bass Serlin (Wofse), Samira Tazari (Torres)