Richard Eagan

Brooklyn-born Richard Eagan is an actor, artist, and writer whose boyhood visits to Steeplechase Park with his grandfather inspired a lifelong creative connection with Coney Island. In 1981, Eagan and Philomena Marano co-founded the Coney Island Hysterical Society, sparking an artists' renaissance in the then-blighted amusement area. In his oral history, Eagan describes the group's transformation of the disused Dragon’s Cave ride on the Bowery into the Spookhouse; his experiences as an outside talker for a shark show portrayed in his audio play Alive and On the Inside; and the bullseye and bursting shard imagery in his architectural portraits of Coney Island.

The newly published Hysterical Coney Island: An Art Memoir of the Coney Island Hysterical Society by Richard Eagan and Philomena Marano combines oral and written history, archival images, and full-color art to chronicle their high-spirited adventures in 1980's Coney Island. For info on the June 6 and 7 book launch events, visit https://citylore.org/events/hysterical-coney-island-book-launch/