Coney Island: The People's Playground - Hardcover

Immerso, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813531381 ISBN 13: 9780813531380

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2002

Synopsis

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Coney Island was the uncontested epicenter of America’s emerging mass culture. It was the quintessential American resort: the birthplace of the amusement park, the hot dog, and the roller coaster. Its history is one of breathtaking transformation and re-invention. Celebrated for its glittering amusement parks and its enormous crowds, it was in times past a mecca of grand hotels, race tracks, beer gardens, gambling dens, concert saloons, and dance halls. A new mass culture began to take shape there. Its harshest critics decried it as Bedlam by the Sea, but others deemed it as a necessary outlet for the masses where the democratic spirit was granted free rein. Despite its precipitous decline, Coney Island remains a metaphor for the American amusement industry and the hundreds of honky-tonk resorts and amusement parks it has spawned.

Coney Island: The People’s Playground is the first new history of Coney Island in almost half a century, tracing its evolution and cultural impact as an amusement center from its earliest development as a seaside resort to the present day Mermaid Parade. Presented in a photo-documentary format featuring more than one hundred vintage photos, archival material, personal accounts, and contemporary sources, the book evokes the atmosphere of the resort as experienced by those who visited it during its heyday. Through the reminiscences of nineteenth and twentieth century writers, literary figures, and amusement historians, Michael Immerso traces Coney Island’s remarkable evolution and subsequent decline, while at the same time examining the remarkable individuals and complex social forces that contributed to its rise and fall.

Coney Island is not merely a documentary of the amusement industry or the story of a fabled amusement park, but rather a narrative of the way Americans, and particularly immigrants and urban Americans, came to regard the pursuit of leisure as part of their national birthright.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Immerso is a writer, cultural historian, publicist, and social activist who has worked in collaboration with many of New Jersey's leading cultural and educational institutions as a curator and designer of cultural programs. He is the author of Newark's Little Italy: The Vanished First Ward (Rutgers University Press) and a co-producer of a documentary film based on the book.

Review:

"A Gray Line tour of Coney Island -- historical, informative..." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"An excellent tribute to working America's first Disneyland." -- Alphonse Vinh's Musings, National Public Radio

"The best comprehensive history of the resort from the late 1840s to the present." -- New York Archives Magazine

A comprehensive look back at this metaphor for America's infatuation with amusements and amusement parks. -- Daily Record

Definitive history of Coney Island takes you for a nostalgic ride. -- Star Ledger, Newark, NJ, 11/30/02

Immerso's writing is fluid and seamless, producing one of the best basic primers of Coney's chronology. -- Brooklyn Go, 12/28/02

Part history book, part pop culture examination, part sociology report, "Coney Island"...is as enjoyable as...well, an amusement park. -- Worrall Newspapers

Tells you everything factual you need to know about the place, and the stills alone are worth the cover price. -- Palm Beach Post, 12/15/02

The most detailed and insightful account yet of New York's Coney Island. -- American Studies International (October 2003, Vol. 41) Richard Longstreth

This generously-illustrated homage to and history of a major manifestation of pop culture is bound to grab your interest. -- Boston Herald, Friday August 29, 2003 (Editor's Choice)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0813531381
• ISBN 13: 9780813531380
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208