Coney Island Museum

Edification value 3/5
Entertainment value 3/5
Should you go? 4/5
Time spent 52 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned I liked three bumper cars on display, dating from (from left to right) the 1950s, the 1930s, and the 1980s. They demonstrate that if a technology is sufficiently perfect, it won’t change much over time.

Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn
Evolution of Bumper Cars
   
   

It often goes overlooked, but New York, like Venice, is a city of islands. And not just the obvious Manhattan, Staten, and Long.  This project has taken me to many of the city’s lesser islands, including City, Governor’sLiberty, and Ellis.  There’s no museum on Roosevelt Island, I note. But now, near the end of my journey, I’ve gone to Coney.

Coney Island Museum
The View From the Museum

Coney Island. Iconic playland for New York City, and thanks to twentieth century mass media, for the entire country.  Maybe the world.  Slightly tawdry, slightly tacky, entirely fun and open to one and all, the very name evokes the image of hot summer days, boardwalks, hot dogs, and a thousand and one sticky, sunburned delights. Continue reading “Coney Island Museum”