Luna Park | Amusing the Zillion

Posts Tagged ‘Luna Park’

From Coney Island to Russia: Time Travel via Graphic Novel

Posted in Reading & Writing, tagged book review, comic book, Coney Island, Danijel Zezelj, graphic novel, Kevin Baker, Luna Park, Russian history, Vertigo Books on January 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

Luna Park is the dazzling collaborative debut of novelist Kevin Baker (Dreamland, Strivers Row and artist Danijel Zezelj, the author of more than 20 graphic novels. Their graphic novel starts out as a noirish tale set in a Coney Island closed for the winter and being gobbled up by a Russian mobster from Brighton Beach. The year is 2009, but the narrative takes the reader hurtling through history to the war in Chechnya, as well as to Coney Island’s Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park in the early 1900s, and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). The trip is vertiginous, but Zezelj’s bold and emotive illustrations and colorist Dave Stewart‘s palette will sweep you away.

When we first meet the protagonist Alik, he is prowling the bleak landscape of Coney Island, murmuring his favorite line from Pushkin’s “Bronze Horseman”: “I’ll fix myself a humble, simple shelter. Where Parasha and I can live in quiet.. “

The Russian émigré is an enforcer for a loan shark who runs a shady kiddie park on the site of the original Luna Park. Of course this is a fictional alternate universe since Luna Park closed in the 1940s and the site has been occupied by a housing complex since 1959. In the novel, the Astroland Rocket and Burger Girl are still in place on the roof of Gregory & Paul’s Boardwalk food stand, but G & P’s has become a sideshow instead of Paul’s Daughter. As the saying goes, any resemblance to real characters or events is purely coincidental.

Luna Park’s lovers Alik and Marina and their doomed counterparts in the novel’s other times and places resemble a set of nesting Russian dolls. “Hey soldier c’mere and know your future,” Marina calls to Alik when they meet at the mobster Feliks’s nightclub and center of operations. Her tarot cards are inspired by the illustrious figures of Mother Russia’s past. Alik is haunted by nightmares of the war in Chechnya and guilt over the death of his lover Mariam. He tells Marina: “I don’t believe in the future.” Despite Alik’s addiction to heroin and Marina’s enslavement by the mobster who controls Coney Island, the new couple find refuge in each others arms.

Two thirds of the way though the book, Alik either falls though Baker’s equivalent of Alice’s Looking Glass or is blown to eternity in a shoot out with the mob. Perhaps Alik or one of his reincarnations is hallucinating. We’re not entirely sure. All of a sudden, Alik is no longer himself, but a little boy spending the day in Coney Island with his parents.

It is the early 1900s because the family traipses through Luna Park and Dreamland. They ride the Steeplechase horses before Alik finds himself back in Russia where he grows up to be a soldier in the Russian Civil War. The time travel speeds up and history repeats itself: love, war, betrayal, death. The shocker of an ending reveals a crime novel within a crime novel that will have you reconsidering history and re-reading Luna Park to find the clues carefully planted along the way

Luna Park. Writer: Kevin Baker. Artist: Danijel Zezelj. Colorist: Dave Stewart. Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher. Published by Vertigo Books/DC Comics, 2009. Hardcover, $24.99.

Animation of the Day: Coney Island’s Luna Park at Night

Posted in history, Photo of the Day, tagged 1900s, animation, Coney Island, Electric Eden, Luna Park, Photography, stereo card, wiggle stereoscopy on December 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a front seat view from Coney Island’s long-vanished Shoot-the-Chutes (1895-1944), originally built for Sea Lion Park. Our friends at Clicksypics have transformed a 1904 Underwood & Underwood stereo card of “Brilliant Luna Park at Night, Coney Island, New York’s great pleasure resort” into an animation of Coney Island’s Electric Eden. By 1907, Luna Park was illuminated by 1,300,000 incandescent bulbs at a cost of $5,600 a week. What a holiday light display it would be today!

Luna Park at Night Stereo Card Animation

“I came up with this idea on a whim, I don’t know that it’s been done before, I just knew that I had never seen any,” says the stereo animation’s creator. For the full collection and information about how these wiggle pictures are made, visit Clicksy’s weblog.

Photo Album: Coney Island Shines at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2009 in Vegas

Posted in amusement industry, News, tagged Charles Denson, Coney Island, Coney Island Development Corporation, Coney Island History Project, IAAPA, IAAPA Hall of Fame, Luna Park, Thompson & Dundy on November 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Coney Island was in the spotlight at the November 16-20 IAAPA (The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) Expo 2009 in Las Vegas. Among the 1000-plus exhibitors at the world’s largest conference and trade show for the attractions industry was the Coney Island Development Corporation, whose RFP for a 10-year lease with the City of New York for a “Coney Island Amusement Operator” was the talk of the show floor. (Read our take on “The Contenders from A to Z.”) At the show’s Kickoff Event on Nov. 17, Fred Thompson and Skip Dundy, the creators of Coney Island’s legendary Luna Park (1903-1946), were posthumously inducted into the IAAPA Hall of Fame.

Accepting the IAAPA Hall of Fame Award on behalf of Coney Island’s amusement pioneers were historian Charles Denson, Executive Director of the Coney Island History Project, and Carol Hill Albert, co-founder of the Coney Island History Project and operator of Coney Island’s Cyclone roller coaster. “We’d like to see Coney Island rebuilt with the same sense of creativity and wonder that Thompson and Dundy showed 100 years ago,” said Denson, who accepted the award on behalf of Elmer “Skip” Dundy. According to Dundy’s obituary in the New York Times, “Mr. Thompson supplied the inventive faculty for the concern, and Mr. Dundy attended to the no less complicated matter of obtaining three-quarters of a million required to start the enterprise. When the gates were thrust open to the public, the partners had just $11 between them.”

“I’m thrilled for the Coney Island History Project to be accepting this award on behalf of Fred Thompson,” said Carol Hill Albert, who founded the History Project with her husband Jerome Albert in honor of Dewey Albert, creator of Astroland Park. “Coney Island’s fabulous history was always an answer to ‘Can You Top This’ and Fred Thompson placed the bar so high that even today amusement parks all over the world are reaping its benefit.” The award, which is considered the industry’s highest honor, was presented by Tim O’Brien, VP Communications for Ripley Entertainment Inc. and chairman of the IAAPA Hall of Fame and Archives Committee. Additional info about the IAAPA Hall of Fame and Thompson & Dundy’s work is available on the IAAPA and Coney Island History Project websites.

Nate Bliss and Lynn Kelly of the Coney Island Development Corporation and Laura Kirschbaum from NYCEDC drummed up interest in “Coney Island’s Next Act” at their booth at the trade show. The CIDC was a first time exhibitor at the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2008 in Orlando. This year, the CIDC went to Vegas as a Silver Sponsor (banner signage in lobbies, enhanced Show Guide listing and more) to showcase the City of New York’s RFP for a “Coney Island Amusement Operator.” “We’re looking for the new Luna Park developers, if you will,” said Lynn Kelly, president of the CIDC, at a special information session for prospective bidders. “This is a unique moment in time for Coney Island, to bring it back to life in a 21st century way. We’re thrilled to be here again and to have something substantive to offer this industry.”

Coney Islanders in Vegas: Dennis Vourderis of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park (center) visits Manny Cohen and Stan Fox of Coney Island Arcade USA in their booth. For Coney Island’s amusement operators, attending the IAAPA conference and trade show for the attractions industry is an annual ritual. Coney Island Arcade manufactures and sells coin op amusement games. Cohen also operates an arcade on the Bowery at 12th Street in the heart of Brooklyn’s world-famous amusement area. “Business was better than I expected. There was a lot of activity and interest,” said Fox, whose family owned arcades in Coney Island since the 1940s.

IAAPA estimates that 24,000 people, including approximately 14,700 buyers, from 108 nations participated in the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2009 in Las Vegas. Attendees from Coney Island included Steve Vourderis and sons, of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park, and Cyclone roller coaster staff and crew members, who enrolled in IAAPA’s educational programs and ride safety seminars. On IAAPA Museum Day, Charles Denson of the Coney Island History Project attended the seminar “Museums, Arts and Culture, and Economic Development” presented by Jack Rouse and Stephen Sheppard. On November 20, it was goodbye Vegas, see you on Palm Sunday (opening day of the season) in Coney Island and next November at the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2010 in Orlando! A big thank you to Charles Denson for sharing his IAAPA photo album.