“Colonel Charles Lindbergh has been on the Cyclone a number of times and considers it a greater experience than flying an airplane at top speed.”
– Coney Island brochure, 1930s
In 1973, Peter Netley was in Coney Island. This is the New York resort a year after Stephen Salmieri was there, a decade after an unknown photographer spent a day with their family on the sands and the rides, just as these people did in 1948. For decades people have been flocking to the vibrant seaside neighbourhood.
Peter’s work is available as a book at Cafe Royal.
Anyone arriving in Coney Island by subway in 1973 could glimpse the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel in the spaces between high‐rise apartment blocks. The resort’s glory days were in the past, but it was still a fun place to be.
In the 1930s, writer and editor Jo Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) called Coney “America’s incredible carnival”. As one brochure boasted to turn‐of‐the‐century readers, Coney was a “Happy Island of Illusion”…