The Coney Island History Project has answered the City's RFP and submitted a proposal to bring the Astroland Rocket back to Coney Island. If our proposal is accepted we will assume ownership of the Rocket and plan to move it to a location near our exhibit center in Deno's Wonder Wheel Park provided by the park's owners, Steve and Dennis Vourderis. History Project co-founder and Astroland owner Carol Albert has offered to pay the cost of moving the Rocket back to Coney Island.
If the rocket comes back to the location we have chosen, the restoration of the ride would be overseen by Steve Vourderis and it would become an educational exhibit designed by History Project director Charles Denson. Stacy and Steve Vourderis, who spearheaded the park's annual History Day, hope to make the Rocket the centerpiece of next year's celebration.
When Astroland was closing, the Albert family had long planned to preserve the Astroland Rocket by donating it to the Coney Island History Project, the not-for-profit organization they founded in 2004. CIHP director Charles Denson is the author of Coney Island and Astroland, which uses primary sources to tell the history of the park, and the curator of the CIHP exhibit "The Astroland Archives Photography Exhibit: Back to the Future.” Mr. Denson would have liked to keep the Rocket as an exhibit, but at the time the History Project’s exhibition center was under the Cyclone roller coaster and did not have parking space for a rocket.
The Rocket was the first ride at Astroland and it defined the park’s space age theme when it opened in 1962. As one of the first of the “imaginary” space voyage simulators constructed during the Space Race, The attraction showed simulator films of “rocket rides” while the chassis “rocked” its viewers to outer space. The Ride, which has 26 seats, lasted about three minutes, the length of the film. Originally built as the “Star Flyer,” the Astroland Rocket later sat atop the boardwalk restaurant Gregory and Paul’s.
In 1928, when John F. Kennedy was a young boy living with his family in the Bronx (the Riverdale section, not the South Bronx), his father, Joe, was forming RKO studios and producing a movie called "Coney Island. " The flick starred silent picture queen Lois Wilson and was directed by Ralph Ince.
The motion picture industry had recently moved from Brooklyn (Vitagraph Studios in Midwood) to Hollywood and most of the Coney scenes were shot in Los Angeles. Promotion for the film described it as the story of " a young woman swept up in the romantic magic of America's favorite fun destination. . . "
Joseph P. Kennedy sold his movie studios in the early 1930s, went into the liquor business, and then into politics as President Roosevelt's ambassador to Great Britain. The rest is history.
The Coney Island History Project congratulates History teacher Mark Treyger on his election as Coney Island's new councilman. Councilman-elect Treyger begins his term sporting an impressive public service record. His campaign focused on education, the environment, tenants' rights, and youth employment, all issues vitally important to Coney Island. But perhaps his most important attribute is an understanding of history. Mr. Treyger is a fan of the book Coney Island: Lost and Found and he will now have a hand in shaping Coney's place in history and the future of New York.
Can you identify these still existing 19th-century Coney Island buildings?
One of the new features on our soon-to-be-released revamped website will identify historic Coney Island buildings, tell their histories, and show the structure's evolution by using before and after photos.
Happy Halloween from Mr. Cyclops and the Coney Island History Project! During the off-season, Coney Island History Project Walking Tours include a private visit to our exhibit center. This Spook-A-Rama veteran used to be on the roof of the iconic 1950s dark ride, which was restored after Sandy and is still in operation. “We didn’t just want to be back,” said Dennis Vourderis, who owns and operates Deno's Wonder Wheel Park with his brother, Steve, in an article in the Wall St Journal. “We wanted to be better. We wanted to stay special.” The Cyclops is on loan from the Vourderis family of Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park.
The New York State Marine Education Association presented the Herman Melville Literary Award to Charles Denson at their annual conference. "NYSMEA is pleased to recognize Charles Denson's contributions to marine education through the Coney Island History Project," said Dr. Meghan Marrero, President of NYSMEA. "His books, audio walking tours, and other works are important and timely. The NYSMEA Herman Melville Literary Award is a well-deserved honor."
The award is presented to a member or non-member who has made a major contribution to the world of maritime literature and/or art. Mr. Denson has documented the Coney Island Creek for over 40 years and is working on a book and film about the waterway. In the photo above, he is at the award ceremony with Dr. Merryl Kafka, NYSMEA board member and co-founder of the Rachel Carson HS of Coastal Studies in Coney Island.
"Coney Island as a resort began not on the ocean but on the banks of the Creek nearly two hundred years ago," says Denson. "The first hotel, restaurant and amusement park opened on the banks of Coney Island creek, and the history goes back nearly 400 years. The creek has great potential." Last year, Charles Denson and the Coney Island History Project received a grant from the Partnership for Parks to create CreekWalk, a self-guided walking tour brochure and a series of informational plaques installed on the creek side of Kaiser Park.
When Jimmy McCullough visited the History Project to sit for an interview a few years back, I felt that I was in the presence of Coney royalty. He was a man of few words, quiet and hardworking and, like most of the Coney old-timers, someone who rarely left his business during the season. Jimmy was related to three of Coney's pioneer families: the Tilyous, Stubbmanns, and McCulloughs. When the McCullough's Kiddie Park lease was not renewed by Thor Equities last year, the McCullough's little park on the Bowery was forced to close, becoming another one of Thor's vacant lots in the heart of Coney Island. 2013 is the first year since 1862 that there has not been a Tilyou descendant operating in Coney Island.
Jimmy and his family operated numerous small amusement parks and carousels in Coney Island, including the B&B Carousell, which was purchased by the City in 2005 and returned to Coney's Boardwalk earlier this year. Jimmy was a man of many talents who could build or fix anything mechanical and he knew the amusement business inside and out. He was a friend of the Coney Island History Project and will be sorely missed by all those who knew him and worked with him. His death brings a close to a golden age of Coney Island History --Charles Denson
Charles Denson's interview with Jimmy McCullough is part of the Coney Island History Project's Oral History Archive and may be listened to online here.
Services for Jimmy McCullough will be held this week. The family will receive friends at William E. Law Funeral Home, 1 Jerusalem Ave, Massapequa, NY on Thursday, August 22, 7-9PM and Friday, August 23, 2-4:30PM and 7-9PM. The funeral will be on Saturday, August 24, at 10AM at Maria Regina R.C. Church, 3945 Jerusalem Ave, Seaford, NY.
posted Aug 21st, 2013 in News and tagged with Coney Island, James J McCullough, James McCullough,...
Coney Island’s Astrotower was much more than an amusement ride. It served as a symbol of hope. To those of us living in Coney Island in the early 1960s, the tower represented the future of Coney Island, a sign that the neighborhood would survive the city’s urban renewal schemes.
At that time, most of the neighborhood was slated for demolition, and former amusement sites were being converted to housing. Venerable Steeplechase Park closed down the same year that the tower went up. The Albert family took a huge personal risk when they built Astroland and the Astrotower. When the tower was completed in 1964, Coney Island had a bright new landmark proclaiming that the amusement zone would not be wiped away.
The tower was never a thrill ride. It provided an overview, an aerial perspective on Coney Island. The Astrotower was not an ornate or baroque tower like the ones at Dreamland and the old Luna. It was a utilitarian structure, much like Coney’s first tall attraction, the 300-foot Iron Tower, built in the 1870s to resemble a giant oil rig. The Astrotower had idiosyncrasies: it liked to sing and dance, to sway in the wind as the cables hummed a mournful tune. This proved to be its undoing.
Back in the 1970s, when the iconic Parachute Jump was a rusting abandoned relic, there were constant calls for its demolition. But it survived its critics and is now restored as the Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn. The Astrotower would not be so lucky.
When the Coney Island History Project exhibit center opened below the Cyclone in 2007, I got to know the Astrotower’s longtime caretaker, Frank Pugliesi. On Sunday mornings I’d accompany him to the top while he did the weekly maintenance. Frank was an elevator mechanic, and he kept the tower in top shape. The motor room atop the tower looked like new, always clean and freshly painted in bright colors.
Toward the end, some saw the Astrotower as a relic, a leftover that did not belong in the “new” Coney Island. But the truth is that there might not have been a Coney Island for the latest regime to “rescue” if not for the enormous personal investment made by the Albert family in the early 1960s. The tower was a lasting reminder of the optimism that investment represented.
There was a recent plan to decorate the tower with pinwheels and lights, in sync with the new lighting on the Parachute Jump. It would have been beautifully repurposed. But it was not to be, and the Astrotower joins Coney’s towers of the past, a page in history. The tower went out in a dramatic fashion on the Fourth of July weekend 2013 in a fog of hysteria, false rumors, and conflicting reports. It was condemned and cut into pieces and unceremoniously hauled off to a junkyard. Was Hurricane Sandy to blame, or the removal of the observation car and counterweights that always kept it balanced? Or was the tower just trying to escape, its mission accomplished?
The Astrotower cannot be replaced, but another symbol of optimism is waiting in the wings. Now is the time to bring back the Astroland Rocket! --- Charles Denson
July 1, 2013: TODAY'S 60th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING OF 'LITTLE FUGITIVE" WAS CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN AND IS RESCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY, AUGUST 27.
Join us on July 1 August 27, for a free screening of "Little Fugitive" at Coney Island Flicks on the Beach. The 1953 movie by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin was filmed in Coney Island on the beach, boardwalk and in the amusement parks, and will be introduced by the directors' daughter Mary Engel. This year is the 60th anniversary of the film, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
The Coney Island History Project is co-sponsoring the pre-show, which begins at 7:30PM with Coney Poetry presented by Amanda Deutch of PARACHUTE: The Coney Island Performance Festival and a Coney Island history and film trivia contest. Prizes include autographed copies of History Project Director Charles Denson's "Wild Ride: A Coney Island Roller Coaster Family," poetry broadsides from PARACHUTE, and postcards from the Coney Island History Project. Stop by CIHP's tent on the Boardwalk to say hello and learn about our free exhibit center on West 12th Street and oral history archive.
"Little Fugitive," which screens at dusk, stars 7-year-old Joey (Richie Andrusco), who runs away from home to hide out in Coney Island after being tricked into thinking he'd shot his older brother. With his Mom away and with only a few dollars in his pocket, he eats, plays games, rides the carousel and ponies, and collects bottles on the beach and boardwalk to finance more rides.
"Andrusco's chewable little face registers 30 shades of pluck, and codirector Morris Engel's ever-mobile camera casually captures perfection--in sunlight filtering through boardwalk slats, in the quiet descent of the Parachute Jump, in the endlessly repeating pratfalls of the batting cage," writes Eric Hynes in Time Out. "Little Fugitive" is fun for the whole family, and is a perfect time capsule of Coney in the early 50's.
Coney Island Flicks on the Beach are shown at dusk on a jumbo 40-foot screen on the beach at West 10th Street every Monday night through August 19. The free summer series is presented by Rooftop Films in partnership with the Alliance for Coney Island and NYC & Co. "Little Fugitive" is an Artists Public Domain/Cinema Conservancy release. For info about upcoming films, see the schedule in the Coney Island Fun Guide.
posted Jun 30th, 2013 in Events and tagged with Coney Island, Coney Island Flicks on the Beach, Coney Island history...