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Autumn Reading: The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

Posted in Books, Reading & Writing, tagged Bontoc, book review, Claire Prentice, Coney Island, Dreamland, Igorot, Igorrote, Igorrotes, Luna Park, Philippines, The Lost Tribe of Coney Island on November 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In 1905, when Coney Island had a trio of three grand amusement parks–Steeplechase, Luna and Dreamland–popular attractions included a scenic railway that transported visitors to the North Pole, Africa, the Grand Canyon and Hades, and live shows such as a Midget City and Dr. Couney’s Infant Incubators. “None of this season’s novelties at Coney Island is better worth seeing than the Igorrote Village in Luna Park,” wrote a Brooklyn Eagle reporter of a brand-new attraction where nearly naked, tattooed tribespeople from the Philippines entertained the masses by performing dances and rituals. “For obvious reasons the surroundings of the Filipino headhunter are not so realistic as at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition last summer, but otherwise the exhibition has the same impression in its sheer contrast of savages with civilized people,” said the reporter.

Journalist Claire Prentice scoured innumerable archives to piece together and vividly bring to life this fascinating, long-forgotten episode of amusement park history in her new book The Lost Tribe of Coney Island. Touted as “headhunting, dog-eating savages” by the press, the Igorrotes were a show biz sensation and a gold mine for their increasingly unscrupulous manager Truman K. Hunt, the former lieutenant governor of Bontoc. He obtained permission from the U.S. government to bring the group to America after having managed the government’s own Igorrote Village at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The exhibits were “used to push the case that America had a duty to protect, educate and civilize such savage beings, and later, when the treatment they experienced became a national scandal, they were used to argue that America had no place in the Philippines at all,” writes Prentice.

“Uncle Sam” and the Igorrotes at Luna Park, June 1905. The New York Tribune

Upon arrival at Luna Park in May, the Igorrotes energetically built and rebuilt the thatched huts of their Village and presented “an amusement park version of their daily lives.” Hunt staged sham romances and weddings and a fake dog-napping as publicity stunts. At home, the Igorrotes feasted on dog meat for special occasions but were forced to eat it daily in Coney Island to please the crowds. When the press asked if the tribe would be hunting human heads in America, Hunt replied “The only heads they will take in this country will be those of the goddess Liberty, inscribed on the good American dollar, at gay Coney Island this summer.”

The cast of characters including tribal chief Fomoaley Ponci, translator Julio Balinag and children Tainan and Friday are portrayed with great empathy. Among the sad realizations in this sad and astonishing story is that with the exception of their journey from Grand Central Station to Coney Island, the Igorrotes did not get to see New York City. While reporters asked them–What do you think of America?–Hunt kept them captive in their “Village” and even their requests to walk around inside Luna Park were rejected.

Igorotte Village at Dreamland, Coney Island. 1905. Library of Congress Photo

Before the 1905 season was over at Luna Park, the opportunistic showman had smuggled the Igorrote Village across the street to rival Dreamland, lured by a higher offer, and then to fairs and parks in far-flung cities. A government agent and Pinkerton detectives were on his trail following a report that the Igorrotes were being exploited and their wages withheld.

Prentice writes that during the summer at Coney Island, the Igorrotes were bringing in $20,000 per week (equal to about $525,000 today), but when they were finally sent home by the government in 1906, each one got just over $30. Though arrested and prosecuted, Hunt had squandered the fortune that the Igorrotes brought in, including their promised monthly wages of $15 each and the money they’d earned from selling souvenirs. An afterword provides information about what happened to the Filipinos after they returned home and the fate of the other characters in the book.

On December 10, the Brooklyn Public Library is hosting an author reading from 7-8pm, with a wine and cheese reception at 6:30pm at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza. Admission is free. The Coney Island Museum will have an author reading and Q & A on December 13 at 1pm. Admission to the museum is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, kids under 12 and residents of zip code 11224. Free for Coney Island USA members.

The Lost Tribe of Coney Island: Headhunters, Luna Park, and the Man Who Pulled Off the Spectacle of the Century by Claire Prentice. New Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Hardcover, $26.00

Spring Reading: Automatic Pleasures: The History of the Coin Machine

Posted in Amusement Game, Books, history, Reading & Writing, tagged Automatic Pleasures, book review, coin-op amusement, coin-op game, coin-operated, Mills Novelty Company, Nic Costa, penny arcade, slot machine on March 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Nic Costa’s classic Automatic Pleasures: The History of the Coin Op Machine is once again in print and as relevant as ever, considering the resurgence of pinball in bars and the popularity of a new Cupcake ATM on Lexington Avenue that had a line of people 12 to 15 deep on opening day. There’s also the nearly 10,000 slot machines at New York’s Aqueduct and Yonkers racetracks, a harbinger of many more to come with the legalization of casinos in New York State.

Gambling machines, the one armed bandit, penny arcades, fortunetelling machines, strength testers, shooting games, viewers, and vending and service machines are among the automatic entertainments covered in the book, which is illustrated with both black & white and color photos.

Did you know the first-ever vending machine was a coin-operated holy water dispenser invented by Hero of Alexandria nearly 2000 years ago? Costa writes that it wasn’t until the development of markets and a society based on paid labor that devices saving time were valued and produced in number.

The first coin freed patent was in 1857, for “A Self-Acting Machine for the Delivery of Postage and Receipt Stamps.” A penny inserted would automatically feed out a stamp from a roll. By the mid-1890s more than 1,000 patent applications for coin freed machines had been received by the U.K. Patent Office. Tellingly, many of the early machines could be used either as fortune tellers or games of chance. Games with automatic payouts of a cigar, a card or a token became increasingly popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1890s.

In the U.K. in the first years of the 20th century, there was a spate of prosecutions against businesses, including saloons and shops, which had the automatic machines. The intent was to suppress “public corruption” and “juvenile depravity.” The enforcement of anti-gambling laws resulted in European manufacturers having to concentrate on games of skill with a low pay-out, which led to the later American domination of the world market.

Automatic Pleasures is enlivened by numerous excerpts from firsthand accounts of the era. Herbert Mills of Chicago’s Mills Novelty Company, once the world’s leading manufacturer of coin operated machines, writes about the Automatic Vaudeville or Penny Arcade business in the early 20th century:

The Penny Arcade has become a permanent institution as much as the theater, the opera, the circus, the concert, the lecture or the gymnasium, for it combines in a modified form of all of these and because it makes such universal appeal, particularly to the poorer classes, it is destined to grow constantly in popularity and size. Only about 10 per cent of the total population have an income of more than $1,200.00 per year, and therefore, the percentage of those who can afford a dollar for a concert ticket or two dollars for a theater ticket is very small. But everyone can patronize the Penny Vaudeville and afford ten cents for half an hours entertainment.

Automatic Pleasures: The History of The Coin Machine by Nic Costa, D’Aleman Publishing, 2013. Paperback, $32.42

“Airstream: The Silver RV” and the Lure of the Road

Posted in Books, Reading & Writing, tagged airstream, book review, lure of the road, on the road, RV, Tara Cox, Wally Byam on December 14, 2013| 4 Comments »

“Goodbye New York” essays have become increasingly popular but the big question is where would you move? For this former carny kid, no one place will do. The nomadic life of a trailerite seems like an answer. Did you know that you can buy an Airstream for $8,000 to $80,000? From there, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to the next rest area on the Interstate, parking lot at Walmart, RV camp, trailer park, or a new life on the fair circuit.

All of this is preliminary to saying that Airstream: The Silver RV is the perfect gift for anyone who cherishes dreams of a life on the road. Author Tara Cox, the founding editor-in-chief of RVLiving Magazine, who hopes one day to own an Airstream of her own, has researched the history and lore of the vintage classic.

Airstream founder Wally Byam and his wife Marion at the trailer factory. Photo via Airstream.com

Airstream founder Wally Byam’s first aluminum trailer –“The Airstream Clipper” named after the Pan Am Clipper–debuted in 1936 at a time when the onset of the Great Depression created a boom in the trailer industry. Over 400 trailer companies were competing for customers when just a few years earlier there were forty-eight, Cox says. The book’s selection of photos shows the evolution of the Airstream’s “Streamline Moderne” style, which has made it an enduring icon as well as a pop-culture phenom in recent years.

One of the Airstreams at Kate’s Lazy Desert Motel near Joshua Tree. Via LazyMeadow.com

One of several “glamping” destinations mentioned is Kate’s Lazy Desert Airstream Motel owned by Kate Pierson of the forever fabulous band the B-52s. Six vintage Airstreams were restored and decorated by artists Philip Maberry and Scott Walker, who owned the “funky little shack” featured in the B-52s’ “Love Shack” video.

The travel trailer of my carny childhood, which was not an Airstream but had an Art Deco look, was put in storage every year after Columbus Day on the Goshen fairgrounds in Connecticut. One of my earliest memories is tearfully waving goodbye to it till spring when we went back out on the road with the carnival. Perhaps I’ll find something like it if and when the time comes to retire from life in New York City. “Adventure is where you find it, any place, every place,” said Wally Byam, “except at home in the rocking chair.”

Airstream:The Silver RV by Tara Cox. Published by Shire Publications, 2013. Paperback, $9.95