CONEY ISLAND

Coney Island isn’t just any amusement park. In its early 20th century heyday, New York’s premier people’s playground was a rowdy, mind-numbing pleasure mecca that more than matched the energies of the city that contained it. Its daredevil rides—the legendary nine-hill Cyclone roller coaster … the Wonder Wheel...the freefall Parachute Jump—set a fevered, frantic pace, while its bathing pavilions were more like phantasmagorical gilded palaces that shimmered in the air.  Not to forget the raucous nightspots. For a city that where glancing at strangers for more than two seconds has always been an impertinence, here was an escape hatch—a Bacchanalia where one and all had free rein to scream together in terror and joy. Sure, in recent decades Coney Island fell into decline, but today it is decidedly on the upswing, with brand new rides, a water park, and a mammoth glass atrium in the works.