At the start of the twentieth century, visitors to Coney Island were multiplying rapidly. This photograph by Irving Underhill was taken in 1913 when the population of New York City was around 5 million and Brooklyn’s more than 1.6 million. With up to half a million tourists during the summers of the 1910s, Coney Island attractions were the weekend getaway for a significant number of New Yorkers. Seven years later, the expansion of the BMT train service connected Coney Island to Manhattan. Costing only a nickel, the number of daily visitors doubled to over a million a day.
In Underhill’s photograph, the swimmers and beach crowd at front seamlessly extend from the strollers and sightseers of the boardwalk and amusement parks. Men in shoes and ubiquitous straw boater hats and women in a variety of styles intermingle with the conservative woolen suits of the swimmers. The sand is so packed that there is little room for lounging or sleeping, although a few bold tourists attempt to make space between the footsteps. In the water, bathers hug the shallow shore line.
Beginning in 1880, and continuing until World War II, Coney Island was the single biggest amusement area in the United States. For more than a century it’s been adored for the pure carnival fantasy of it, the mass congregation of its sideshow characters, and an atmosphere of devil-may-care lunacy. This classic poster was used by Barnum & Bailey for their British tour of 1898-1899, and served to enhance the reputation of this freewheeling national treasure in New York City. A visual delight as well as a historic document of great interest, this image was also published in the more common horizontal format. Bottom text reads: “Remarkable head-foremost dives from enormous heights into shallow depths of water, together with thrilling & daring aquatic & sub-aqueous feats of every description.”
