Unspecified/General

A peninsula at the southern edge of Brooklyn, Coney Island has been New York's seaside playground for more than a century, a stretch of broad beach, boardwalk and amusement parks facing the Atlantic. Once an actual island, separated from the rest of Brooklyn by a creek, it grew from a fashionable nineteenth-century resort into a raucous, democratic destination that drew millions of working-class New Yorkers escaping the summer heat. Its heyday came in the early 1900s, when three competing amusement parks, Steeplechase, Luna Park and Dreamland, lit up the shoreline with electric bulbs, rides and spectacle on a scale then unmatched. Fires, the Depression and changing tastes thinned the crowds and closed the great parks one by one, but several icons survived: the wooden Cyclone roller coaster of 1927, the Wonder Wheel of 1920, and the skeletal Parachute Jump, moved here from the 1939 World's Fair and now a landmark, if no longer in use. Food is part of the legend. Nathan's Famous opened on the corner in 1916, and its Fourth of July hot dog eating contest has become an oddball national tradition broadcast across the country. A new Luna Park opened in 2010, reviving the rides, and the long Riegelmann Boardwalk still runs the length of the beach past the aquarium and the minor-league baseball stadium nearby. For visitors the appeal is nostalgic and unpretentious: a free public beach, classic rides, cheap food and a faintly faded, carnival atmosphere quite unlike the polished parts of the city. It is packed and lively on summer weekends and during events such as the annual Mermaid Parade, and quiet, even melancholy, out of season, when much of it shuts down. It is reachable directly by subway from Manhattan. Beyond the rides, the peninsula holds the New York Aquarium, the city's only one, and Maimonides Park, summer home of the minor-league Brooklyn Cyclones. Newer attractions such as the steel Thunderbolt coaster have joined the survivors, and the boardwalk hosts free summer concerts and fireworks. The Mermaid Parade, begun in 1983, has grown into one of the country's largest art parades, a riot of costumes that marks the unofficial start of the season.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: New York City, NY, United States