Luna Park in 1905. Wow! Even when I was a kid back in the 1950's, and 60's Coney Island was nothing like this. Like a glacier in the Andes Coney Island over this last century has slowly melted away.
It went from being a proto Disneyland to a patched up run down splinter palace surrounded by projects. Was that fire works or just another shoot out on the Boulevard of Crack Houses.
Well okay that was the early 90's. It's slightly better now. However now I hear it's gonna get even 'more' slightly better this summer. See below.
Yes it's a shrunken sad tragic version of the vast realm of dreams, and wonders that was the Luna Park/Coney Island of 100 years ago.
Well okay yeah it's an improvement, but still. Mind you I'm going just to have a look. Yeah I'll buy the t-shirt, and have a root beer, but ya know. Com'on comrades this is New fucking York City fer christ's sakes!
Can't some evil plutocrat dump 50 billion bucks on that swamp, and turn it into a Sodom on the Hudson?! Okay, okay, Sodom on the Atlantic, but you gets the picture.
Man Just imagine. An amusement park worthy of the deranged madness of the vast slaughter house that is our Emerald City! Hell I'd go Luna Park and move into a hotel right across the street from the gross neon house of bi-polar batwinged nuns from hell.
Now that's Amusement!
6 comments:
According to the American Heritage Magazine, amusement parks developed in the late 19th century as a destination so folks would pay fares on the trolley or inter-urban rail lines on evenings and weekends. Of course, in the late 19th century, it was worth the time and the fare.
However, after the TV newscasts have terrified and shocked us with Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey; wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq (twice), and Afgahnistan; earthquakes and tsunamis; economic panics and inflation, and tv "reality" shows, then how can bumper cars, roller coasters and merry-go-rounds thrill us as they did a century ago?
Old time amusement parks now seem so safe and secure in contrast to the current speed of change in our culture.
Exactly!
a 21st century American "amusement part" has to be as scary, and exciting as a hot'n hairy weekend in Bagdad!
Only you get out alive with only minor flesh wounds, and cotton candy.
Outright killing the patrons would be bad for business. We'd want'em to come back for more!
Although an occasional landmine incident would sweeten the risk.
I too live quite near what was once a seaside amusement park, I suppose in imitation of Coney Island. I fancy these things must have faded away as other forms of entertainment displaced them, like movies and TV and the web. Also, as Anonymous suggests, they seem to have been built on notions of happiness and fun that to us now seems hopelessly naive and antiquated. They're like a page out of Little Nemo in Slumberland, if you've ever seen that old comic. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they were an excellent venue for cruising boys.
As late as the early sixties Coney Island certainly was eminently cruisable, and certain of the locker rooms were noted for that. I was there.
Glad to hear it Ed, and I wish it were that way now!
Obviously I need to put up another Queer blog as my secret life is leaking out into this one.
Oh the Shame!
Well okay not shame. I just like things tidy.
I loves ya all btw, even youse that never post.
Post a Comment