VIDEO: Travel Back to Coney Island’s Summer Heyday in the 1940s
“Coney Island, the world’s greatest fun frolic, with its beach miles long, all peppered with people. The place where merriment is king.” That’s the opening line in this fun video that offers a tour of 1940s Coney Island during its heyday as the go-to summer destination.
The narrator describes the millions of people on the boardwalk and beach, and while this might seem like an exaggeration at first, the footage clearly shows hordes of revelers sunbathing, swimming, lining up for the freakshow, and enjoying the rides (many of which probably wouldn’t be deemed safe today). There’s also great scenes of the Miss Coney Island contest (a swimsuit beauty pageant where the judge takes out the tape measurer for the contestants’ waists), the famous Cyclone, and Luna Park lit up at night.
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