Coney Island

When I was not quite three years old, my family moved from Brooklyn, New York to Chicago. We would visit family on our week vacation every summer. It was on one of those trips that I first went to Coney Island. My Uncle Zuskie took me the first time. The subway trip was memorable. The train route took us on an elevated trip through Brooklyn. Looking out the train window and seeing no guardrail keeping us from falling to the street below got the adrenalin flowing. Good preparation for the thrills that lay ahead.

My brother and I drove miniature racecars – we rammed each other with the magnificent bumper cars – we played pinball and ski-ball in the arcades where we also watched penny movies. We gawked as the rickety steeplechase where riders rode mechanical horses around a buildings roof. We stood in line forever gladly soaking up the smells of the French fries and hot dogs grilling at Nathan’s. We stared in awe at the crowds on the beach from the boardwalk.

I only visited Coney Island a few times after that. It was always as exciting.

As I grew older, Coney Island grew from an amusement park into a cultural icon.

The history of the place entered my consciousness. To “the huddled masses” Coney Island was a blessing. It was a place for rest and relaxation. When my Aunt Bess and Uncle Sam retired from the cloak industry they took an apartment on Ocean Ave. My Mother tells how the family would visit them for pinochle (and it was often) they would give my Mother a quarter and instruction to go to the arcade and win a couple of packs of cigarettes. She never disappointed. My father-in-law talked of standing on a soapbox on the boardwalk in the 1930’s and raising money for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting the fascists in Spain.

It was the playground, recreation center and propaganda center for this country’s greatest concentration of the working class.