Postcard Thursday: Happy Birthday to the Roller Coaster

The Cyclone at Coney Island is one of the world's most famous wooden roller coasters, but it was not the first such ride at the amusement parks that lined the boardwalk out there. In fact, the first roller coaster ever built, the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, opened at Coney Island in June 1884. (Sources differ as to whether it opened on June 6 or today, June 16).




Modeled on an earlier coal railroad at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, that had been successfully turned into an entertainment, the switchback was the brainchild of LaMarcus A. Thompson. Visitors would climb to the top of a tower and board a car that then dropped six hundred feet over an undulating track. At the far end the car would be "switched back" to another track and returned to the tower. Thompson envisioned his ride as wholesome family entertainment -- in a period when amusement parks were often seen as dens of sin and iniquity -- and the cars, traveling at an "invigorating" six miles per hour, provided great views of the Coney Island beach and boardwalk.* He charged 5 cents a ride and made back the $1600 he'd invested in the roller coaster in less than three weeks.

It is unclear how long the Switchback Railway lasted at Coney Island (or even precisely where it stood). Despite its early success, Thompson soon faced a host of competitors and his original coaster may only have stood for three years. However, Thompson's career in designing roller coasters was just beginning. Firmly believing that his passengers wanted to see beautiful things as they rode his rides, Thompson went on to create numerous scenic switchback coasters where the cars entered tunnels painted with dioramas of nature scenes. Eventually the painted scenes gave way to dark tunnels, adding to the thrill.

As Thompson built more rides, he improved their technology adding such features as cable pulleys to haul the cars to the top, linked cars to create longer trains, and emergency brakes in case of accident. Though Thompson didn't hold the patent on the original roller coaster,** by the end of his life he had patented more than 30 improvement to the ride and is still known to this day as the "Father of Gravity."

* The ferris wheel -- normally the best place to get a view at an amusement park -- was not invented until the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

** The patents for the first roller coasters were issued in 1872 and 1878; however neither of the original patentees ever built a working model, making Thompson's ride the first of its kind.

SAVE THE DATE

We'll be talking about "Alexander Hamilton's New York"

at the New-York Historical Society

on Friday, July 29, at 6:30pm

Details to follow

* * * * Read more about NYC history in   Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Greetings from Coney Island

This recent addition to the Inside the Apple archives is a wonderful look at Coney Island during its heyday. This postcard dates to 1906, the peak of the amusement park era. Just a decade earlier, most of the area was given over to restaurants, bath houses on the beach, and a few dance halls. There were a few rides--and the famous elephant, which burned down in 1896--but entertainment would not take over as Coney Island's main draw until the turn of the century.

By the time this postcard was issued, most of Coney Island was given over to amusement parks, including the famous Steeplechase Park, Dreamland, and Luna Park (which is pictured inside the "N" of "Island" in the image above).

More intriguing are the women who grace the letters of "Greetings." Who are they? Bathing beauties? Actually, they look more like chorus girls or Gibson Girls, the most famous of whom, Evelyn Nesbit, was in the headlines at the time because her husband, Harry Thaw, murdered Stanford White on June 25, 1906. We have a tendency to think of amusement parks today as being the domain of families and children, but in 1906, Coney Island was definitely an adult's paradise, as this postcard attests. (Even carousels, like the one today in Central Park, were geared to adult riders.)

What's most fascinating to us, however, are the three figures inside the "G" of "Greetings": Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Was this to show that a trip to Coney Island--with its daring rides and scantily clad women--was still a morally upstanding place? Remember, T.R. was the sitting president at the time. It would be like going to Vegas today and having Barack Obama's face in the corner of your postcard of the Strip.

You can see a great map of Coney Island in 1906 at http://www.westland.net/coneyisland/mapsdocs/coneymap06.htm. Click on any red dot on the map and it will bring up a vintage postcard or other image from the era.

You can also read our earlier history of the postcard, and see a guidebook to saving money at Coney Island from the Brooklyn Historical Society here.

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Temperature's Rising....

As temperatures rise and cooling centers open around the city today, it’s good to remember how wonderful air conditioners are. Our predecessors have weathered some terrible heat waves in New York.

The hottest June day on record is in some dispute, but June 29, 1934, June 27, 1966, and June 25, 1952, are each contenders, with the mercury perhaps reaching 101 degrees. The New York Times reported in 1934 that the official temperature reached 97 degrees (101 in Central Park, which was not then the official reading) and that temperatures soared to 137 degrees in the full sun in the park. To gain relief from the scorching heat, children frolicked in city fountains (including Civic Virtue, then still in front of City Hall), and perhaps as many as 8,000 people brought blankets to Coney Island to sleep at the beach.

Back in the 19th century, stifling heat waves were less frequent—but certainly more deadly. On September 7, 1881, the temperature reached 101 degrees and the Times wrote:  “Sept. 7, 1881, will long be remembered, not merely as the hottest day of the year, but as one of the hottest of the century.” The streets of the city were deserted except for those forced out in the heat, which unfortunately included the city’s many horses, some of whom died of heat stroke as they worked. The only crowds to be found were those “crowded all day long around the bulletin boards giving the news from the bedside of President Garfield.” (Garfield had been shot July 2nd and clung to life until September 19, when he finally succumbed to the assassin’s bullet.)

By far the worst heat wave to strike the city came in August 1896, when over 1,300 people died in the city, many of them stifled to death in tenement apartments that since 1879 were supposed to allow access to light and air, but many of which did not. As Edward Kohn points out in Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt, the heat wave was a test for Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt and an important moment in cementing his progressive credentials. Unlike in 1934, no one flocked to the beach during this heat wave: there was a ban on the public sleeping in public parks, and so many people crammed on to the roofs of their tenements, hoping to escape the brutal, stagnant temperatures. Among Roosevelt’s attempts to mitigate the disaster included hosing down the streets and handing out free ice. Alas, much of Roosevelt’s good work came too late: the city only began to address the heat wave in a coordinated way on its tenth—and last—day.

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Read more about Teddy Roosevelt--NYC's only homegrown president--in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Coney Island's Switchback Railway: America's First Roller Coaster

Last weekend, the new Luna Park opened at Coney Island to much fanfare. Today, of course, the amusement park section of Coney Island is tiny compared to what it was in its heyday at the turn of the 20th century, when rides and amusements filled the boardwalk from end to end.

Modern visitors who want to relive a little bit of the area's history can ride the Cyclone, the 1927 wooden roller coaster on Surf Avenue. However, the history of the roller coaster is much older than the Cyclone and this Sunday marks the birthday of Coney Island's (and America's) first roller coaster, the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, which opened on June 6, 1884.

Modeled on an earlier coal railroad at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, that had been successfully turned into an entertainment, the switchback was the brainchild of LaMarcus A. Thompson. Visitors would climb to the top of a tower and board a car that then dropped six hundred feet over an undulating track. At the far end the car would be "switched back" to another track and returned to the tower. Thompson envisioned his ride as wholesome family entertainment -- in a period when amusement parks were often seen as dens of sin and iniquity -- and the cars, traveling at an "invigorating" six miles per hour, provided great views of the Coney Island beach and boardwalk.* He charged 5 cents a ride and made back the $1600 he'd invested in the roller coaster in less than three weeks.

It is unclear how long the Switchback Railway lasted at Coney Island (or even precisely where it stood). Despite its early success, Thompson soon faced a host of competitors and his original coaster may only have stood for three years. However, Thompson's career in designing roller coasters was just beginning. Firmly believing that his passengers wanted to see beautiful things as they rode his rides, Thompson went on to create numerous scenic switchback coasters where the cars entered tunnels painted with dioramas of nature scenes. Eventually the painted scenes gave way to dark tunnels, adding to the thrill.

As Thompson built more rides, he improved their technology adding such features as cable pulleys to haul the cars to the top, linked cars to create longer trains, and emergency brakes in case of accident. Though Thompson didn't hold the patent on the original roller coaster,** by the end of his life he had patented more than 30 improvement to the ride and is still known to this day as the "Father of Gravity."

* The ferris wheel -- normally the best place to get a view at an amusement park -- was not invented until the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

** The patents for the first roller coasters were issued in 1872 and 1878; however neither of the original patentees ever built a working model, making Thompson's ride the first of its kind.

 * * *

Read more about New York in the 19th century in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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The Coney Island Carousel in Central Park

In case you missed the brand-new issue of Carousel News and Trader magazine, the merry-go-round in Central Park is turning 100 years old this year.

The original Central Park carousel was installed in 1871 and was, according Sara Cedar Miller’s excellent park history, hand cranked! Manual labor was soon replaced by a blind horse or mule that was hitched to a crank in the building’s basement. In 1924, an electrified carousel was installed, but this burned down the night of November 7, 1950, in what was perhaps an electrical fire, and the carousel we have today was opened soon thereafter.

The current Central Park carousel originally opened at Coney Island in 1908 during the heyday of the boardwalk as a leisure destination. Known as the BMT Trolley Carousel, it was built by the firm of Stein & Goldstein, one of America’s premier carousel manufacturers. Many of the early amusement parks at Coney Island were run by the trolley companies—as an incentive to ride a certain line, your ticket to Coney Island would also include admission to that company’s rides. However, by the 1940s the subway had displaced the old trolley companies and the BMT carousel was in a warehouse gathering dust. Luckily, when the Central Park carousel burned down, someone remembered that this old Stein & Goldstein merry-go-round was in storage and it was moved to Central Park.

If you haven’t checked out the Central Park carousel recently, it’s well worth a visit. Stein & Goldstein’s handiwork is amazing: each horse is unique and the outside horses are 3/4-life size. (According to Carousel News and Trader, the Central Park horses may be largest hand-carved specimens left from the golden age of carousel manufacturing.) The carousel also reaches a top speed of about 12 miles an hour—more than double the speed of a typical modern merry-go-round.

Photo by mvhargan on flickr.

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