This literary anthology celebrates the history and romance of Coney Island with works by some of the 19th and 20th centuries’ greatest authors and poets. Featuring a stunning gallery of portraits by the world's finest poets, essayists, and fiction writers--including Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, José Martí, Maxim Gorky, Federico García Lorca, Isaac Bashevis Singer, E. E. Cummings, Djuna Barnes, Colson Whitehead, Robert Olen Butler, and Katie Roiphe—this anthology illuminates the unique history and transporting experience of New York City’s quintessential beach destination. Moody, mystical, and enchanting, Coney Island has thrilled newcomers and soothed native New Yorkers for decades. Its fantasy entertainments, renowned beach foods, world-class boardwalk, and expansive beach offer a kaleidoscopic panorama of people, places, and events that have inspired writers of all types and nationalities. It becomes, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote, "a Coney Island of the mind."

Featuring a stunning gallery of portraits by the world's finest poets, essayists, and fiction writers - including Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, José Martí, Maxim Gorky, and Katie Roiphe - this anthology focusses on the unique history and transporting experience of a beloved fixture of the New York City landscape. It captures the highs and lows of the place, with works that picture it as a restful resort, a playground for the masses and a symbol of America's democratic spirit, as well as a Sodom by the sea, a garish display of capitalist excess and a paradigm of urban decay.

Denson gives us an insider's look at one of New York's best-known neighborhoods, weaving together memories of his childhood adventures with colorful stories of the area's past and interviews with local personalities, all brought to life by hundreds of photographs, detailed maps, and authentic memorabilia.

A portrait of the pioneering entrepreneur who designed and built Luna Park - which in 1903 transformed Coney Island into a respectable venue for middle-class recreation - and created the Hippodrome, the world's largest theater when it opened in 1905, filling it with lavish spectacles at affordable ticket prices. The author also explores the development of the idea of adult amusements in America during Thompson's day, and ours.

Twenty-nine poems from the 1950's.

More than simply an escape from New York's sweltering summer streets, the strip of Brooklyn's south shore known as Coney Island embodied a new American attitude toward entertainment. Here, you'll experience the decadent delights of this magical land of ritzy hotels and penny arcades, where dance pavilions and freak shows shared space with sizzling burlesque and cooling ocean breezes. You'll meet George Tilyou, whose Steeplechase Park featured the Blowhole Theater, the Insanitarium and the Human Pool Table, and Nathan Handwerker, whose Nathan's Famous hot dogs became synonymous with summertime food. You'll ride the legendary Cyclone roller coaster and stroll through Dreamland and Luna Park, where generations of New Yorkers met and mingled in a place that came to define American fun.

Describes the story of a group of people from the Philippines who were transported to Coney Island in 1905 to be portrayed as “headhunting, dog-eating savages” in a Luna Park freak show.