On Saturday we chatted with Luke Stangarone in front of Coney Island USA, where he was cleaning a stained glass window, one of two which the Sheepshead Bay resident is donating to the Coney Island Museum. Rescued from three feet of mud in a Park Slope basement, the windows originally came from Coney Island’s Feltman’s complex, says Stangarone. The tantalizing question is which part of Feltman’s? Stangarone speculates the windows could be from the ballroom or the carousel pavilion. He says that his wife’s relatives, the Whittakers, worked at the Parachute Jump and rescued the artifacts from Feltman’s demolition more than 50 years ago. Can you help identify this window into Coney Island’s past?
Charles Feltman is famous as the inventor of the hot dog, but his entertainment complex on Surf Avenue was multi-faceted and covered a full city block. According to the Coney Island History Project, which has a 120-year-old chair from Feltman’s Maple Garden on display, the Feltman empire included nine restaurants, two bars, a ballroom, an outdoor movie theater, a hotel, a beer garden, a bathhouse, a pavilion, a Tyrolean village, a carousel, a roller coaster called the ZIZ and the maple garden! Since Feltman’s closed in 1954 and was demolished to make way for Astroland Park in 1962, you’d have be over 60 to remember going there. Perhaps someone will recognize the window from family photos that show the stained glass window in the background. Let us know if you have any clues!
Related posts on ATZ…
November 5, 2010: Museum Piece or Obsolete? Old Carnival Games, Stick Joints on eBay
February 25, 2010: Happy Belated Birthday to Coney Island’s William F Mangels
January 19, 2010: Nathan Slept Here! Coney Island’s Feltman’s Kitchen Set for Demolition
November 16, 2009: Rare & Vintage: Coney Island Sideshow Banner by Dan Casola
lundys window
Thanks for your comment, Sharon! A Google image search of Lundy’s turned up this photo of a leaded window with the initials FWIL–“standing for “Frederick William Irving Lundy.”
and this Lundys Walkthrough set on gerritsenbeach.net’s flickr
We’ve also heard from a reader who suggested the window may have come from the Feltman mansion at 8th Ave & Carroll St in Park Slope, which was demolished in 1950
[…] to uncover the history of a magnificently preserved stained glass window. He’s enlisted the help of Amusing the Zillion blogger Tricia Vita, who then turned to us. And since we’re pretty useless, we decided to turn to […]
I was thinking that the windows are so similar to Lundy’s including the diamond criss-cross pattern.
I don’t if that suggest a similar time of construction for the panes.
I left out a word.
The last sentence should read “I don’t know if that suggest a similar time of construction for the panes”
I was also thinking along similar lines. For example, an architectural historian might have some insight. Perhaps there is archival info about studios which produced such windows. Have gotten similar info on furniture & signage, so it is a possibility.
I have put down my accordion and paintbrushes, pawed through some of the stuff in my apartment and found my
crystal ball (ok, it was under those 1947 editions of ‘Whisper’ magazine-I was looking for those). I’m gazing into it right now and I see either Tyrolean Village or Beer Garden…or Ballroom…
or…or…
I think the stained glass comes from a part of Feltman’s that seems relatively ignored – the white table cloth restaurant fronting on the board walk !
There also was a mural along the west wall showing pigs jumping into a machine on the right from which emerged a string of franks on the ledt !
Incidently, the “Feltman Mansion” was in the Park Slope neighborhood, fronting on 8th Avenue. Could it be that the windows were found in its basement ?
Good luck