Coney Island Blog - News

Jimmy Prince, Coney Island Photo ©  by Charles Denson 2009

Jimmy Prince was the kindest man in the world and the brightest light in Coney Island, a man who personified compassion, love and respect. There was no one else like him. He was born in 1932, the same year that Major Market opened on Mermaid Avenue and he began working at the market in June 1949 at the age of 18. Eventually he owned the store, and kept it open seven days a week, twelve hours a day until 2009. Jimmy became "Mr. Major," and his store became the heart of Coney Island, a refuge during hard times, where people came to find warmth and solace and nourishment. He was always positive and believed that Coney Island would survive.

Major Market became an anchor for Coney Island and an oasis for the community. Many generations grew up visiting “Mr. Major,” and would later bring their children to meet him and continue the tradition through the decades. Jimmy provided the same quality prime meat and produce found in New York’s finest restaurants. He wanted his Coney Island customers to have the best, even if it meant sacrificing and operating at a loss in the later years. He gave respect and received love in return.

In 2007, Jimmy confided that he was contemplating retirement and we began a two-year project to document his last days on Mermaid Avenue. The project became the 2009 feature documentary, "The Prince of Mermaid Avenue."  After closing the store that he’d operated for 60 years, Jimmy volunteered on weekends at the Coney Island History Project. Our Exhibit Center provided a transition for him as he could spend time with old friends and customers who stopped by to see him. His smile and delightful personality enchanted visitors to Coney Island who met him for the first time at the History Project."Mr. Major's" delightful, upbeat personality always made you feel at home. His passions included collecting baseball cards and postage stamps, and a visit to his home always included a trip to his basement “museum of baseball” where he showed photos of the Brooklyn Dodgers he'd taken at Ebbets Field. He always hoped that the Postal Service would issue a Coney Island stamp and we began lobbying for it. 

 Jimmy's bright light has not gone out, it will shine brightly forever in the hearts of all who knew him. He was a wonderful friend.

– Charles Denson

Jimmy Prince, Coney Island Photo © by Charles Denson 2009

Jimmy Prince and Charles Denson at Major Market, 2003

Last Saturday the Coney Island History project joined sponsors City Parks Foundation, NYSMEA and Partnerships for Parks for the sixth annual It’s My Estuary Day on the Kaiser Park shoreline. We tabled with our partners to present the history and ecology of Coney Island natural ecosystems. Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse and the Kayak Foundation brought two dozen kayaks and invited local children and adults to learn to kayak and then paddle over to visit the yellow submarine on Coney Island Creek. It was an amazing day but was bittersweet because it could be the final time they can launch at Kaiser Park, where the city plans to build a massive ferry dock at Coney Island's only public access point on Coney Island Creek.

Our new episode 'A Century of Bathhouses' has dropped! Listen and subscribe to Coney Island Stories on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 6 features stories of Washington Baths, Ravenhall, and Silver's Baths, among others, told by bathhouse owners, workers and patrons recorded for the Coney Island History Project’s oral history archive between 2000 and 2020. Bathhouses were the first businesses in Coney Island. Even before Coney’s first hotel was built in 1829, crude bathhouse shacks were set among the dunes. Before the city built the boardwalk in the 1920s, most of the Coney Island beach was private and bathhouses provided the only access to the beach and provided patrons a summer home away from home. Many had overnight accommodations, restaurants, and swimming pools, and some offered massages and the ever popular nude sunbathing.  They were very sociable places and generations of family and friends from the same neighborhoods patronized the same bath houses for years until the last one, Brighton Beach Baths, was demolished in the early 1990s. Now hardly anyone knows what a bathhouse is. 

Before Ruby Jacobs opened @RubysBarGrill he operated Coney Island bathhouses. In this 2000 #oralhistory his daughter Cindy describes those days. Listen via Ep 6 of @ConeyHistory's #ConeyIslandStories #podcast available on Apple, Spotify, Google and more! https://t.co/8a8SytWQMe pic.twitter.com/gl0I32Smul

— Coney Island History (@ConeyHistory) March 15, 2021

We’re excited to introduce Neter Antoine, a 2020-2021 CUNY Cultural Corps intern who is our new production assistant. Neter is a visual artist and dancer who is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Therapeutic Recreation at the City University of New York’s Lehman College.

"I am a creative thinker and an active learner from Bed-Stuy (Bedford Stuyvesant), Brooklyn," writes Neter. "My fondest memories of Coney Island involve people; sharing in the fervor of Coney Island's many parts with others is what I cherish most about it. The concept of storytelling from the perspective of a wide variety of people - a sharing of memories - is what drew me to the Coney Island History Project."

The Coney Island History Project has a history of working with interns but due to the pandemic we're working from home and this is our first experience working remotely with an intern. Neter is helping to develop and create new virtual content for 2021, including Zoom events such as reminiscence activities for seniors and virtual tours, online exhibitions, and audio and video promos for social media.

Established by CUNY with New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and The Rockefeller Foundation in 2016, CUNY Cultural Corps partners with the City’s arts and cultural organizations to provide paid internships for CUNY students as a pipeline to careers in the arts. Thanks to a gift from the Mellon Foundation, CUNY Cultural Corps has been able to expand the number of opportunities for students to gain professional experience in the arts and culture sector.