coney Island: drownings and crowds
One hundred years ago today … three people drowned of the beach at Coney Island, and three more at Rockaway Beach a bit farther east, just over the Queens border.
New York Tribune, 26 July 1920, p. 12. Chronicling America.
That very morning the Times had run a picture of the popular public beach at Coney Island in the expectation that many New Yorkers would be spending Sunday there.
The New York Times, 25 July 1920. Chronicling America.
The chances of fatal accidents at Coney Island had heightened that summer, as the area had been more crowded than usual. The increase was largely due to changes in transit: first, the 1919 opening of the West End Terminal to accommodate four subway lines; and then a May 1, 1920 reduction in fare from ten cents to five for trips to Coney, bringing the ride into line with the rest of NYC’s system–which was at the time decentralized (as touched upon in our March 3 post).
Hugh Ryan describes the effect of this change in When Brooklyn Was Queer.
By the end of June, the Eagle would announce that some 350,000 New Yorkers had visited Coney Island on one particularly nice Saturday. In August, 450,000 would arrive in one day. And the numbers kept climbing . . . (104)
On this particular Sunday, 300,000 beach-goers arrived at Coney Island, according to the Tribune. The occasion of the estimate was an article about a reduction in the fees at bathhouses.
New York Tribune, 26 July 1920, p. 14. Chronicling America.
The July 25 crowds and costs at the bathhouses do not tell the whole tale. Coney Island bathhouses were, at the time, becoming gathering places for “queer male crowds,” according to Ryan (121). (Also see Chauncey, 210–211.) [Note: we will be elaborating on Coney Island as a LGBTQ space in an August post.]
Other reasons to be at Coney Island that day, included, of course, the amusement parks, such as Luna Park, opened in 1903, and visited by the “Kiddie Klub” in July 1920.
The Evening World, 9 July 1920, p. 15. Chronicling America.
1920 also saw the opening, on May 31, of “Deno’s Wonder Wheel,” at 3059 West 12th Street.
According to the Landmarks Preservation Commission Report, “The Wonder Wheel,” the ride was “invented by Charles Herman of New York and manufactured in 1918-20 by the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Amusement Company from steel produced at the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel. The wheel was paid for by Herman J. Garms, Sr.”
Sources/further reading:
Chauncey, George. Gay New York. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Ryan, Hugh. When Brooklyn Was Queer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, JULY 25, 2020.
TAGS: drowning, death, Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, Wonder Wheel, Luna Park, subway, lgbtq, bathhouses, leisure, swimming