September | 2012 | Amusing the Zillion

Archive for September, 2012

Coney Island Artists in GO! Brooklyn Open Studio Weekend

Posted in art, Photo Album, Photography, tagged Africasso, Brooklyn Museum, Daniel Blake, GO! Brooklyn, Marie Roberts, Open Studio, Philomena Marano, Richard Eagan, Takeshi Yamada on September 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

Banner painter Marie Roberts in her Studio at Coney Island USA. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Banner painter Marie Roberts in her Studio at Coney Island USA. January 1, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

This weekend, five of our artist friends who live, work or find their inspiration in Coney Island are opening their studios for the Brooklyn Museum’s “GO! Brooklyn” event. The crowd-curated art project asks visitors to register online, “check in” at least five studios in person and vote for three of them. The ten artists who win the most votes will have a shot at being in a group exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. With over 1,700 artists from 45 Brooklyn nabes participating, creating an itinerary is half the fun. To browse the studios and register, visit the project’s website. The open studio weekend is on September 8 and 9, 2012, from 11am until 7pm.

Let our portraits of the People’s Playground’s truly unusual and talented artists be your guide to “Go! Coney Island.”

Marie Roberts is a third-generation Coney Islander who grew up going to Steeplechase Park and listening to her family’s reminiscences of Dreamland. A professor of art at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Marie found her métier painting the vibrantly colorful banners advertising the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. You can view her work 365 days a year on the CIUSA Building at Surf Avenue and 12th Street. Her studio is located on the second floor of the landmark building.

ATZ first met sculptor, painter and performance artist Daniel Blake aka Africasso in 2007 when he exhibited his sculptural mashup of historic Coney Island rides at the Coney Island History Project. The lifelong Coney Island resident will be showing his giraffe sculptures at Marie’s studio this weekend. Marie Roberts, Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11224

Africasso’s Art Guitar, Daniel Blake AKA Africasso. June 8, 2008. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

Coney Island resident Takeshi Yamada’s Neptune Avenue studio is his Museum of World Wonders. Among the Osaka-born artist’s curious creations are Fiji mermaids, two-headed babies, a dog-headed spider and other sideshow gaff art. The Grand Champion of Taxidermy at the Secret Science Club’s 2006 Carnivorous Nights shows his work in a variety of venues, from traditional art galleries and museums to midway sideshows. The portrait of Takeshi and his freak baby show was taken at Dreamland, the amusement park set up on the former Astroland site in 2009. One of Coney’s most recognizable eccentrics, Takeshi is frequently seen and photographed clad in a black tuxedo strolling the Boardwalk with his sea rabbit Seara, a taxidermied wonder with webbed feet and a mermaid’s tail. Takeshi Yamada’s Museum of World Wonders, 1405 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11224

Artist Takeshi Yamada's Freak Baby Show in Coney Island's Dreamland, Summer 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Artist Takeshi Yamada’s Freak Baby Show in Coney Island’s Dreamland, July 12, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Brooklyn artists Richard Eagan and Philomena Marano co-founded the Coney Island Hysterical Society in 1981 because they were “Hysterical” at the rate that the amusement rides and attractions were shutting down. Joined by like-minded artists and friends the group restored and operated a Spookhouse behind Nathan’s and created an homage to souvenir cut out photo boards. Thirty years later, Eagan and Marano continue to make art “dedicated to keeping the spirit of Coney Island alive” (CIHS motto) in their Gowanus studio.

Richard Eagan AKA Kay Sera with Oceanic Baths at Coney Island Hysterical Society Studio in Gowanus. October 2, 2010. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

These portraits were taken in 2010, when ATZ visited Coney Island Hysterical Society’s studio on the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour. “The short hop to combining the Coney work with the exploding architecture was a no-brainer once I accepted that the Coney Island of my childhood was imploding, burning, and would never return,” Eagan said of “Oceanic Baths,” which is not an actual Coney Island place name.

Bensonhurst native Philomena Marano is known for her bold and colorful cut paper collages and prints of Coney’s amusement rides and signs. The Wonder Wheel, the Cyclone, and Parachute Jump as well as shooting galleries and bumper cars are all part of her iconography. Faber’s Fascination, which went dark in 2010, inspired the cut paper piece “Play Fascination” in the portrait.

Coney Island Hysterical Society, 62 18th Street, 3rd floor, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Philomena Marano with ‘Play Fascination’ at Coney Island Hysterical Society Studio in Gowanus. October 2, 2010. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

Related posts on ATZ...

August 6, 2012: Art of the Day: Madame Twisto by Marie Roberts

December 7, 2010: Art of the Day: Freak Taxidermy Skull by Takeshi Yamada

October 26, 2010: Studio Visit: Richard Eagan of the Coney Island Hysterical Society

October 26, 2010: Studio Visit: Philomena Marano of the Coney Island Hysterical Society

Read Full Post »

Exclusive: McCullough’s Kiddie Park Closing After 50 Years in Coney Island

Posted in amusement park, Redevelopment, tagged Carol McCullough, Coney Island, Jimmy McCullough, McCullough, McCullough's Kiddie Park, Thor Equities on September 4, 2012| 13 Comments »

Bumble Bees and Herschell Carousel at McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island, September 3, 2012. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

A family who has operated amusements in Coney Island for four generations and is related to the Tilyous of Steeplechase Park is closing their last remaining business here. We’re sad to report the news that McCullough’s Kiddie Park, which has been on 12th Street at the Bowery in Coney Island since the 1960s is closing this month. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to come to an agreement on extending the lease. Technically today is the last day,” Carol McCullough told ATZ on Labor Day, “but we might stay open another weekend or two or three, depending on the weather.” The lease with property owner Thor Equities leaves them until the end of the year to move the rides off the property.

“Jimmy McCullough and the McCullough family would like to thank our customers for generations and decades, and all of our business associates in Coney Island,” said Carol McCullough, whose father Jimmy is the oldest ride owner in Coney Island. The closing of McCullough’s marks yet another critical point in the exit of independent amusement operators in Coney Island. It started in 2007, with Thor’s eviction of Norman Kaufman’s Batting Range and Go Kart City and the Zipper and Spider rides documented in Amy Nicholson’s upcoming film “Zipper.”

Although McCullough’s Kiddie Park has operated on 12th Street for fifty years, the family’s history in Coney Island goes back much further. Four generations of McCulloughs have owned and operated amusement rides here. They are related to the Tilyou family of Steeplechase Park as well as to the Stubbman family, whose Coney Island carousel became part of the one in Flushing Meadows.

“My grandfather’s parents were James McCullough and Katherine Tilyou, who had eight children,” said Carol, who along with her sister has worked in the family business for the past twenty-six years. The McCulloughs were also traveling showmen. They owned and operated such rides as one of the first Zippers ever manufactured, the Round-Up and the Skywheel, which they brought to Toronto’s CNE and booked into fairs as independent ride operators.

The park currently has ten kiddie rides: Bumblebees, Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Swings, Motorcycles, Yellow Submarine, Dizzy Dragons, Himalaya, Ladybug and Frog Hopper. Last year, McCullough’s had to be reconfigured and lost two rides after a sublease expired on an adjacent property also owned by Thor Equities.

In the 1950s, the McCullough family had Kiddielands at Surf Avenue and 15th Street and Surf Avenue and 8th Street next to the Cyclone. They also operated four historic carousels which remain in New York City’s parks. One of them was the 1912 carousel carved by Charles Carmel which was at 8th Street and is now the Prospect Park Carousel. The Stubbman Carousel, known as the Steeplechase Carousel when the McCulloughs operated it at 16th Street and the Boardwalk, was sent to the New York World’s Fair in 1964 along with some horses from Feltman’s and still operates in Flushing Meadows Park. The third was the B&B Carousell, the last wooden carousel in Coney Island, which Jimmy McCullough sold to the City in 2005 after the death of his business partner Mike Salzstein. The restored carousel will reopen in Coney Island’s new Steeplechase Plaza next year.

You can listen to Jimmy McCullough’s interview about learning the carousel business from his father, James McCullough, who began his career working on the Steeplechase and Stubbmann carousels, in the Coney Island History Project’s Oral History Archive.

“Many thanks to all! It’s been quite a ride, pun intended,” said Carol McCullough. “We wish everyone well who operates there and hope that Coney Island goes on for a great many years to come for people to enjoy.”

Art of the Day: World’s Smallest Woman Arrives in Coney Island

Posted in art, sideshow, tagged Jack Constantine, San Gennaro, Single-O, World's Smallest Woman on September 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

On Saturday, the World’s Smallest Woman arrived for her annual run in Coney Island prior to playing the September 13-23rd Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. The single-O attraction is set up in Cha Cha’s Steeplechase Park near the West 12th Street entrance. ATZ learned that this particular “World’s Smallest Woman” is named Elizabeth and hails from Haiti. She is one of sideshow impresario Jack Constantine’s five “World’s Smallest Women” who travel the U.S. carnival and fair circuit. We’ve seen this ever-popular attraction at the New York State Fair, Florida State Fair and State Fair Meadowlands, among others. Four of the ladies are Haitian and one is Jamaican.

In past years the show has charged as little as 50 cents admission. Whatever the price–it’s the front of the show that gets the dough! When the trailer-mounted showfront was unfolded, the fanciful, time-tested advertisement for the World’s Smallest Woman was revealed- “29 Tiny Inches – Hands 2 In. Wide. Size 2 Shoe – 10,000 Reward If Not Real and Alive. As Seen in LIFE – You Talk to Her – She Will Talk to You.”