Coney Island Blog - News

Coney Island is the fun place to be on New Year’s Day and the best way to welcome 2026 is with a dip in the Atlantic! Join or watch the Coney Island Polar Bear Club's 123rd Annual New Year's Day Plunge on January 1st from 11 AM until 1 PM. The party starts on the Boardwalk at 10 AM.

In an oral history interview recorded for the Coney Island History Project, Polar Bear Club member Naum Barash says of his winter swims: "You come out feeling like a newborn, like you were born just a second ago." Over 4,000 people participated in the 2025 Plunge. There is no fee to participate but all funds raised help support local non-profits offering environmental, educational, and cultural programming including the Alliance for Coney Island, Coney Island History Project, Coney Island USA, Coney Island YMCA, New York Aquarium, Parachute Literary Arts, and more.

Please visit the event website to register in advance for the Coney Island New Year's Day Polar Plunge or make a donation.

Photo Credit: Dan Turkewitz via @coney_island_polarbear_club

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.

This afternoon the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) announced the date of the first public hearing for "The Coney" Casino Community Advisory Committee.

WHAT: The Coney Community Advisory Committee Public Hearing

WHEN: TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2025, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

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

This hearing will be webcast live at https://www.youtube.com/live/mdFwBScQqcc

Visit NYSGC's web page for more info on the meeting and links to the casino proposal:

https://nycasinos.ny.gov/event/coney-community-advisory-committee-public-hearing-august-26-2025

According to the NYSGC the Community Advisory Committee's job is to “review the application, gauge local support, and ultimately issue a finding determining whether there is adequate support." The process is as follows:

For each proposed 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.

On July 30, an organizational meeting of the CAC for 'The Coney' casino was held and NYC Councilman Justin Brannan was elected chair of the committee. Brannan and two other elected officials, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, appointed themselves to the committee. The other three members of the committee are Portia Henry, a program manager at Amtrak; Alex Sommer, the director of the Brooklyn office for the Department of City Planning; and Marissa Solomon, a community resident who volunteers at the Coney Island Museum. They were appointed by Governor Hochul, Mayor Adams, and Assemblymember Brook-Krasny, respectively.

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 December 31, 2025. Each casino licensee will pay a $500 million license fee.

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)

"Coney Island Casino Plan Comes Under Fire at First Committee Review" (BK Reader, Aug 1)

If you don't want Coney Island to be replaced by a casino, we urge you to email your comments as soon as possible to TheConeyPublicComment@nystec.com.

Please sign and share the petitions against the Coney casino organized by our friends and neighbors Coney Island USA and Luna Park. Over 30,000 signatures have been collected so far.

Happy National Hot Dog Day! In this early photo of Nathan's you can see the original logo created for the store by Coney Island sign painter Harry Wildman (1875-1930). His credit "Wildman Co." is beneath the logo and we've circled it in red. In Lloyd Handwerker's book about his grandfather, Famous Nathan, he celebrates Wildman's artistry: "He designed the green Nathan's logo, complete with elaborate curlicues and serifs. Wildman's iconic work has survived with few modifications to this day. As he had done with numerous signs and ad around Coney, he painted the broadly stylized lettering on oilcloth. Finally the store had a name."

Newly published in our oral history archive is an interview with Harry Wildman's great grandson Randy Profeta recorded for us by Tricia Vita. Researching his family history, Profeta learned that Wildman did sign work for Feltmans, Nathan's, Steeplechase Park, Luna Park, and numerous other businesses. Family lore credits Harry with the creation of the Steeplechase Face, the park's grinning logo. "A lot of what we have is, in essence, anecdotal," says Profeta. "I mean it's information that has passed from generation to generation." Additional sources include newspaper clippings and Michael Onorato's 1992 interview with his grandmother. Beatrice Wildman Onorato. You can listen to the oral history interview in the online archive on our website.