Amusing the Zillion

Rare & Vintage: Auction of French Fairground Art

September 28, 2011 by Tricia

Ring toss figures, circa 1935. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

I used to work a Pitch Till U Win, but it didn’t have the character of the hand-carved and painted ring toss pictured above. Featuring caricatures of a gendarme, sailor, artistocrat and grouchy old lady, the game is equipped with a mechanical device that makes the legs of the figures come to life in an eccentric dance. With a pre-sale estimate of 12000-15000 euros ($16,257-$20,321), this antique game is beyond my budget, but it’s fun to window shop. The ring toss is part of a magnificent collection of fairground art, including rare carousel figures, decorative items and games on the block at the Paris auction house Cornette de Saint-Cyr. Collected, researched and restored over a 40-year period, the Fabienne and François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art will be sold in three sessions on September 28 and 29.

Ball toss game with Prussian soldier, circa 1910. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

As a carny kid who grew up working the Pitch Till U Win, Slot Roll Down and Bumper Joint, which have since disappeared from the American midway, I have an abiding interest in vintage carnival games. In the early 1980s, an elite group of dealers began exhibiting primitive carnival wheels, ball-toss figures and shooting gallery targets at the fall antiques show in New York. Viewing these exhibits, I felt pleased and proud that these midway games created by unknown artisans had been transformed into much-admired folk objects. The high prices shocked my frugal mother, who first went on the road during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, successful concessionaires were adept at building their own games, freely borrowing ideas from the fellow down the midway and the catalogs of supply houses catering to the carnival trade. My mother, who grew up speaking French, would have appreciated these hand-crafted French fairground games.

Shooting gallery target, car travels along roller coaster track, early 20th century. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

In regard to the history of his fairground art collection, François Marchal writes at length in an essay in the auction catalog. I dusted off my high school French and attempted a translation with the help of Google: “Apart from some oral testimony, the sources of information were very rare. If the history of the carnival was known, the objects, rides, games and decorations seemed to have escaped any investigation. In a way this was our good fortune. A promising field of exploration was thus offered to us. In the years after World War II, bulky outdated equipment was no longer of interest to anyone. This accelerated the dismantling of lavish rides inherited from the Belle Epoque.”

“The most amazing games invented for taking a break and enjoying oneself were abandoned and left to rot in squalid sheds,” Marchal recalls. “We were able to collect numerous pieces for next to nothing. It is true that these pieces were often faded and decrepit, sometimes ruined. So we gradually learned to restore them, Fabienne working more on the structure and me on the polychromy.”

Porte de tir à surprise, Au Beau Tambour des Zouaves. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

85th Birthday Party for Beloved Bartender at Ruby’s Bar

September 26, 2011 by Tricia

Sammy Rodriguez at Ruby's Bar, Coney Island. June 20, 2007. Photo © Kevin C Downs Photography

Last week a friend sent us this invite to Sammy Rodriguez’s 85th birthday party to be held on October 1st at Ruby’s Bar and Grill. Coney Island’s beloved dive bar, which will close forever at the end of October, is throwing a birthday bash for its beloved longtime bartender.

With all the changes the past few years it has been a while since we have all been out on a weekend and hung out for a few together. So let’s have a last gathering party with everyone ON SAM”S BIRTHDAY! This is our final year so — ONE LAST BIG HURRAH IS IN ORDER!!!!!!

Sat. Oct 1st 2pm til ???

This is a celebration for Sam and Ruby’s and the years they have had together in Coney. This is not a Save Coney Party or a Media party, this is a party of friends/summer family to celebrate our memories with Sam and Ruby’s.

Sam came from Puerto Rico and worked as a porter, fry cook and bartender in Coney Island for six decades. The story goes that he had a job at the spot “under the boardwalk” before Ruby Jacobs bought the place and kept him on. As one of my friends says, “He helped create Ruby’s as we know it.” Sam’s birthday is October 1st, which this year of all years luckily happens to fall on a weekend. Since he retired five years ago, it’s become a tradition for Sam to come up from Puerto Rico to celebrate his birthday at Ruby’s. We’ll be there to wish him a happy 85th birthday and many more to come, but the sad fact is it may be the last time for this get-together. Will Sam and friends make the trip to Coney Island once Ruby’s is gone? More than 450 attended the big bash when Sam turned 80.

Last call at Ruby’s Bar will be on ~~Saturday, October 29~~ Sunday, October 30, 2011. Along with seven other Mom-and-Pop businesses, including Paul’s Daughter and the Suh family’s souvenir shop next door, Ruby’s was kicked to the curb by New York City’s Economic Development Corporation and Zamperla’s Central Amusement International to make way for a corporatized, gentrified Boardwalk. This is of course last year’s news (“Out With the Old in Coney Island: Only 2 of 11 Boardwalk Businesses Invited Back,” ATZ, November 1, 2010). As Valerio Ferrari, CEO of Zamperla USA/CAI told us that day: “They didn’t have the vision that we have for the Boardwalk. It’s a business decision.”

What else is there to say? Come out on October 1st and October 29th, and anytime in between to raise a glass to Sammy and Ruby’s and yes, sentimentality –a word that is not in the playbook of the powers that be. On New Year’s Day and Opening Day, we’ll especially miss our old friends. Ironically, these small, family-owned businesses on the Boardwalk managed to keep Coney Island alive and thriving through tough times, even when real estate speculator Joe Sitt was their landlord. It was only after the Bloomberg administration “saved” the People’s Playground by buying the property from Sitt for an astounding $95.7 million dollars of taxpayer money that the Mom-and-Pops got evicted en masse. This is just wrong.

Ruby's, Coney Island. May 28, 2010. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i

Photography: Floating Above the Coney Island Boardwalk

September 7, 2011 by Tricia

On a sunny Saturday in July, we noticed a photographer with a large format camera perched in a cherry picker above the Boardwalk at West 12th Street. The Coney Island Rumor Mill had no idea what the photo shoot was for, but it was an unusual sight and we snapped a few photos. Our first guess was that Google had sent someone to do panoramic photos of Coney Island, but as the hours went by it became clear he was shooting from a fixed perspective all day and into the night.

Yesterday we realized the mystery photographer was Stephen Wilkes after coming across his stunning “Day to Night” photo of Coney Island’s beach, boardwalk and amusement rides. “That was indeed me in the cherry picker on July 16th,” wrote Wilkes in an email. “A perfect Saturday on Coney Island.”

Wilkes says that he photographs a scene continuously for up to 15 hours. “A select group of images are then digitally blended into one photograph, capturing the changing of time in a single frame.” In regard to the Coney Island photo, Wilkes told ATZ: “We will be launching a really cool time lapse video from that particular shoot, which will also be in the gallery exhibition.” The “Day to Night” series includes images of Times Square, the High Line and Central Park, among others, and will be on view at ClampArt Gallery in Chelsea from September 8 through October 29.

In an interview with Jen Doll in the Village Voice, Wilkes said his favorite photo of the series is the one of Coney Island:

The perspective is from floating above the boardwalk. The amusement park is night, the beach is day, and it’s full of activity. The level of detail — I’m working with a large-format camera, and it’s exciting that people can see the detail online, but in person, you can see it 60 inches big, and the photos look like windows, and you can actually see into people’s windows…

“Stephen Wilkes: Day to Night,” September 8-October 29, 2011. ClampArt, 521-531 West 25th Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10001, 646-230-0020. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11-6. Opening reception: Thursday, September 8, 6-8pm