Coney Island

NEW YORK, although not yet the largest city in the world, has the largest suburb in the world; Long Island, the name by which that suburb is appropriately called, being about one hundred and twenty miles in length by twenty in breadth. There is hardly a town or village on Long Island, from Brooklyn to Babylon, from Patchogue to Montauk Point, from the oozy margin of the Sunswick to the beach at Rockaway, but is in some way or another conducive to the comfort and pleasures of dwellers in New York city. Viewed as a suburb, Long Island offers greater inducements to all sorts of comers, perhaps, than any other city outlet in the world. Brooklyn has its famous Heights, the palatial mansions of which are owned, for the most part, by solid men of business, whom Mammon daily summons to the money markets of New York. Long Island has its game preserves, too, and the sporting clubs by whose efforts many of its brooks and ponds are kept stocked with speckled trout consist mainly of residents of New York city, or at least of persons whose business and interests are there. But all is not aristocratic in the vast suburb. Throughout the length and breadth of Long Island, in all its cities, towns, and hamlets, there flourish innumerable retreats that are dear to the democratic German heart. Umbrageous groves, sacred to Gambrinus, the Bacchus of lager-beer, are ready here all through the summer time for excursion parties, and hitherward resort many festive Germans of New York, to pass the Sundays or afternoons of week-days in ponderous gayety under the shade of the spreading trees, accompanied by their wives and families. Then, the truly democratic sport furnished by the fast trotting-horse has long been a feature of Long Island, which possesses some of the oldest racecourses in the North. These, during the racing season, are thronged with visitors from the city, to each of whom Long Island, from end to end and across its breadth, is simply an extensive suburb, excellently calculated by its natural accommodations of land and water for a holiday retreat from the work and turmoil of the city.

And among the least aristocratic features of the great suburb, none, perhaps, is more characteristic than Coney Island, the popular watering-place of New York city, to the people of which, the tradesmen, mechanics, and workers generally, it stands in the same relation that Long Branch does to the wealthier and more exclusive classes. The fact that it is within one hour’s journey from New York by steamboat, and but little more than that by the horse-cars from Brooklyn, renders Coney Island unfashionable, since its advantages are attainable by all. Twelve years ago the facilities for reaching it were fewer than at present, as were the accommodations on the beach, and it is only within seven or eight years past that it has assumed the appearance of a great bathing-place now presented by it. Stretching out into the sea at the southwestern end of Long Island, this desolate strip of barren sandhills and shingly beach offers no attraction beyond that of the surging of the great Atlantic upon its shore. It is separated from Long Island only by a narrow, marshy creek, thus being so indistinctly an island that, whether approaching it by land or by water, a stranger visiting it would hardly take it to be one. The origin of its name appears to be a matter of surmise rather than of tradition or record. Some guess that it is called Coney Island on account of the rabbits by which its sparse patches of brushwood are inhabited; but this can hardly be accepted as the origin of the name, seeing that the only rabbits to be found upon the island, which are of the domesticated kind, were introduced long after it was known to mariners and explorers by the name. A better reason is afforded by the topographical features of the island itself, which, a low delta about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, and without shelter of any kind, has been blown by the winds into a series of truncated cones of fine sand. Thus the word “ coney,” allowable as an adjective, fitly characterizes the appearance of the place.

Very intermittent and scanty is the vegetation of Coney Island. Coarse, reedy grass, the blades of which are nearly as hard and sharp as those of steel weapons, grows grudgingly upon the hillocks of pearly white sand. In the little valleys between these spring tufts of stunted bay bushes, the leaves of which have, in a slight degree, the flavor peculiar to the bay-tree of the West Indies. But these bay bushes of Coney Island do not “ flourish like a green bay-tree,” being rather sere and yellow as to leaf. Yet visitors to the island gather sprigs from them, which they take to the city as trophies of their wild adventures in the sea of sand. Stunted cedars are to be seen here and there on the brows of the wind-beaten dunes. There are a few sheltered nooks among the hillocks where the ubiquitous ailantus - tree waves its feathery branches, in bold assertion of its ability to grow anywhere, irrespective of climate and soil. Here, in a spot screened by the sand-hills from all winds, is a long, low cabin, something like a canal boat, the bit of sandy ground on which it stands surrounded by a fence of hurdles. With the small sheds and out-houses standing near by, it presents the appearance of a farm, which is enhanced by the numbers of pullets that run to and fro upon the premises, or stray away from it into the chimps of bay bushes in search of grasshoppers and other small game. In front of the cabin there is a row of ailantus-trees, which have already gained a height of some fifteen or twenty feet. It is a peculiarity of all the trees and bushes on Coney Island that they bloom out riotously during the summer months with bathing outfits hung upon them to dry. Every dweller here is in the bathing interest, and although the lowly cottage by the sea is the private residence of the gentleman who occupies it, yet his business manifestly lies among the bathing-houses on the beach, as one can tell by the vestments that flutter from his clothes-lines and trees. One tree so rankly blossoms with wonderfully short and shrunken dresses, as to suggest a spectacular transformation like that of the theatre, leading one to expect that human forms will bloom out like fruit on the branches, as soon as the blossoms peel off. At one point among the hillocks there lies a huddle of discarded bathing - houses, which, from the abandon with which they lean against one another, as well as from their evident inability to stand upright, suggest the idea that, on being dismissed from the service, they had come up suddenly from the beach and gone upon a spree.

At the lower end of the island there is a wharf to which the steamboats come, and when one of them disgorges its contents, very motley is the crowd that winds its way from it along the rush-laid path that, leads to the beach. The women and children usually outnumber the men, and, as is generally the case in New York assemblages that do not rally round the standard of fashion, the German element is largely represented in the throng. Family groups are always a feature here, the thrifty mothers carrying provision baskets, the jars that protrude from which, having probably been emptied during the voyage, are taken by the happy fathers to the bar of some beach hostelry, there to be replenished with lager-beer or something stronger, according to order. Holiday attire, not gay, but of the picnic kind, is the rule here — that is, among the respectable women, who are in the majority, though certain flaunting exceptions generally occur. The younger women usually have their beaux with them, which is judicious, seeing that beach flirtation is not only compatible with learning to swim, but absolutely indispensable to the perfect acquisition of that useful accomplishment. Children of all sizes are here, from the baby whose bath is to be a bucket of seawater, to the bigger ones who can bounder about in the surf or swim upon the crested waves. Several flashy men are usually to be seen in the crowd; men with velvet coats, and having Alaska diamond pins stuck in the breasts of their filigree shirts; men curled and oiled within an inch of their wild lives. These are gamblers from New York, though they usually describe themselves as “sports,”and they do a stroke of business at the island in more ways than one. Small speculators with various wares for sale are usually among the passengers that come by the boat; and here is one of them who has posted himself at a turn of the path, offering to the passers a variety of styles in very short bathing drawers carried in a card box.

Wooden buildings of various colors and sizes crop up at intervals, a little way above high-water mark, all along the brown, curving beach. Near the landing is the old Pavilion, a large, windy frame building that has weathered the storms of the coast for many a year. Every pore in its planks, every joint, every crack, is thoroughly saturated with sand. Sand, instead of pepper, appears to have been used in the compilation of its clam chowders and oyster stews; and it is here, of all places, that the sandwich appears to be most truthfully denoted by its timehonored name. Gilbert Davis, the original proprietor of the Pavilion, — dead now for some years, — used to be known as the “ Governor of Coney Island.” He may be remembered as a stoutish, elderly gentleman with spectacles, who sat out most of his life with a newspaper before him, his chair tilted back at an angle that brought his heels to a convenient elevation against some post or wall. Although the “governor” has gone to his rest, the establishment is still carried on, and a very brisk business is done in it, during the height of the season, in catering to the wants of hungry bathers, not to mention the constant traffic in drinks, mixed and otherwise, at its breezy bar. It is to the Pavilion that the passengers first crowd when a boat arrives at the wharf.

Starting from the lower end of the island, and walking along the beach, one of the first things observable by the visitor is a series of small groups of men, gathered at intervals upon the shelving sand. On approaching one of these circles, the explorer will see in the centre of it a man provided with a bit of plank propped upon a crutch or leg stuck into the sand. This fellow is one of the beach gamblers by whom the place is infested during the bathing season, and for whose suppression movements have been made year after year, but hitherto without success. He is manipulating three cards, which he shifts about with great rapidity, “ pattering ” volubly all the time about his game, which he offers to back for any amount the spectators may see fit to “plank down.” He keeps jingling heavy gold pieces to allure the unwary, and his display of greenbacks of all denominations is absolutely profuse. Presently the circle is joined by one of the flashy gentlemen in velvet and diamonds who came down by the boat, and this person, producing a sheaf of greenbacks, at once enters into a dispute with the dealer, whose proffered stake he covers, and of course wins. It appears strange that the hollowness of this old trick of collusion does not put people on their guard, but the parting of the fool from his money seems to be a law of nature, illustrations of which are daily to be seen upon Coney Island beach. Young men who come down here to bathe frequently lose all the money they have about them to these thimble-rigging rascals, led away by the sight of the gold or greenbacks pocketed by some tawdry fellow who has the word “ confederate ” branded everywhere on his brazen face.

During the three summer months vast numbers of people are daily to be seen bathing all along the stretches of this beach. Out from the bathing-houses come tumbling, indiscriminately, men, women, and children, all of them disguised beyond any possibility of recognition in their “wild attire.” The scene enables one to realize the notion of a lunatic asylum let loose, its inmates chasing each other with mad gesticulations about the shore and into the lapping surf. The women flap about in the water and scream like the fowls to which that element is natural; and some of them are strong swimmers, too, striking out boldly to a good distance from the beach. Numbers of the men lie wallowing for hours in the sand, in which they roll like wild beasts, rubbing it madly into their hair, and plastering themselves all over with it. Some of the bathers wear fancy dresses which they have brought with them. Here comes one in a striped black and white shirt with scanty drawers to match, and he is immediately hailed as a “ zebray ” by one of the grovelers in the sand. The word spreads from mouth to mouth along the shore, until the striped gentleman is fain to seek an asylum beneath the friendly waves. The scene upon the beach and in the water alike is a very rough one, having nothing about it of the reserve that regulates manners at the more aristocratic summer resorts.

Not unfrequently some of the small Arabs of New York and Brooklyn streets are to be seen here, paddling in the pools left by the tide in the sandy hollows of the beach. It is certain that none of these urchins could have come down either by horse-car or boat, as that kind of traveling would be quite beyond their means. They are pedestrians through necessity, and have padded it all the way down upon their little bare feet. Absolutely independent of the sea-beaten gentlemen who furnish bathing-dresses are these energetic pigwidgeons, whose only costume generally consists of a fragmentary shirt and piecemeal trousers, the two garments, in some cases, being mysteriously combined into one. In this guise they splash into the pools or surf at some secluded point of the island, afterwards running about under the scorching sun until they are dry. Here, driven up stern-foremost on the beach, is the hull of a wrecked vessel, lettered on her stern as the “ Polly Price, of Great Egg Harbor.” Into this the sea-water flows, affording a safe and commodious bath for a troop of these waifs from the city, who are plunging and flapping about in it like young ducks in a shower of rain.

Towards the upper end of the island buildings occur more frequently, wooden structures, all of them, and several of considerable size. Most of these have been put up within two or three years past, and the beach at Wyckoff’s now presents somewhat the appearance of a village whose houses had been flurried by an alarm of fire or flood, and had run out of themselves in different directions to ascertain the cause of the commotion. The Wyckoffs were the original settlers of Goney Island, and it is not many years since they had a monopoly of accommodations for visitors here. There are several generations of them here at present, all keeping beach hotels on a larger or smaller scale, with the collateral occupation of “ running a chowder mill,” as the phrase goes here. A very conspicuous figure hereabouts, for many years, was the original Wyckoff, who died a centenarian but a short time since, and was the great-greatgrandfather — or even more, I believe — of some of the younger ones of the name who cling faithfully to the sandy old tract. He was a very weird-looking old patriarch, was that Wyckoff, furrowed and yellow as the “ ribbed sea sand,” and, although bent nearly double by age and rheumatism, going to and fro about his home-buildings or after his cattle in the marsh with all the energy of a young man, until within a short time of his death. Sometimes he was to be seen mounted upon a sandy knoll, leaning upon a tall staff, with his long iron-gray hair waving in the wind, and shaking a lean, tawny finger to seaward, as though rebuking Neptune for some trespass committed upon the Wyckoff domain. One of the hotels here has a large lookout platform on its roof, which is sometimes used as a ballroom, and about which, during the velocipede mania, the bold riders of the bicycle used to career with their unbridled steeds.

Each of these unsubstantial, airy hostelries has near it an open shed, consisting merely of a roof supported by poles, anil it is in this that the rites and mysteries of roasting the inevitable clam are carried on. The artists who prepare the clam-roasts are generally stalwart negroes, to whose indolent, leisurely habits the task appears to be well fitted. It is curious to observe with what mathematical precision yon corpulent darky, seated upon an inverted champagne basket, arranges the clams in solid squares, a form which he sometimes varies — so that the monotony of the thing may not unsettle his mind — with circles, ovals, or fanciful creations of elaborate design. Over these, when they have been properly packed, are placed heaps of dry brushwood, a quantity of which is always kept ready for use. When they have been set on fire, and the flames go crackling and wavering in the breeze, then the sable Soyer grins the grin of contentment, and, leaning back against his post, abandons himself to watching for the results of his toil, occasionally replenishing and arranging the fire with shovel and tongs. The savor from the roasting bivalves is an appetizing one, and Sambo frequently acknowledges the influence of it by helping himself privately from the mathematical mess that has been arranged by bis practiced hands. There is a story of a negro hereabouts who was so fond of clams cooked in this style that by the time the roast should have been ready it had disappeared, and the process of arrangement and burning had to be gone through over again. In the kitchens of the hotels clams are cooked in various other ways, but the roasting of them is always carried on in the open sheds, and it is very picturesque, with the fire, and the smoke, and the squatting darkies in their variegated attire and slouched hats.

Until after darkness has well set in, there is some show of life along the beach, but only towards the head of the island, in the hotels clustered at which many persons take up their residence for a part of the summer. The evening is the favorite time for bathing at this point, but, lower down, the beach is very quiet and deserted, as the last boat has taken its departure for the city long since, carrying away the last installment of the boisterous throng of bathers and wallowers in the sand, by whom the beach had been made lively throughout the afternoon. Desolation broods awfully dark and still over Coney Island at night, when all the lodgers in the beach houses have retired to rest after the fatigues of the day. It is then that the city man realizes the utter emptiness of life without gas and other modern conveniences. Fortunate is he if the combined influences of sea air and salt water, and the exercise necessarily taken by him during the day, enable him to sleep early and soundly, since otherwise his experience of Coney Island must be ever after associated with damp linen, penetrating sand, and, perchance, the chromatic exercises on a stridulous piano of some young miss who has remained late in the drawingroom of the beach hotel, with the fell purpose of continuing her musical education regardless of circumstances and place.

It is at this cluster of hotels that the horse-cars from Brooklyn pull up and reverse; and hither, also, repair the numerous persons who Come down from the city in their own conveyances, or in hired carriages. There are several excellent roads by which access is to be had to the head of the island, and, on fine afternoons during the season, these are thronged with vehicles, many of which are of the sporting kind, drawn by fast trotting-horses, the dust flying as they flash along, and the loud “ Hi ! hi! ” of the drivers ringing out in the air as they strive to pass each other with their nervous teams. Many of the most famous trotters of New York and its environs, trotters that have won renown in the Olympic dust of Harlem Lane, and gathered laurels on the regular tracks on which matches are decided, are to be seen every summer day, spinning along the Coney Island plank road, or on some of the other lanes and roads that run between the island and Brooklyn. Along some of these roads there are numbers of wayside inns, most of which have sprung up within a few years past, to meet the demand for accommodation and refreshment that has resulted from the decided success of Coney Island as a popular summer resort. Several of these places look both snug and picturesque, embowered as they are amid luxuriant foliage, with flower-gardens about them, and signs setting forth their styles and titles dangling from posts planted by the side of the road. They are mostly patronized by men of the sporting class, livery-stable keepers and the like, whose talk is less of literature and theology than of horses, billiards, the prize-ring, city government, and offices of the sinecure sort. Sunday is the great gala day for these as well as for the revelers who crowd to the island by boat or car, and on this account it may well he imagined that by no class of people is Sunday regarded with greater favor than by the steamboat men, horse-car men, innkeepers, and men who hire out dresses at the bathing-houses on the beach.

The journey between Coney Island and Brooklyn by horse-car offers disadvantages, one experience of which would be sufficient to deter many persons from trying it again. Except at very early morning these cars are crowded to excess, and, especially on the way back to the city, roughs of the worst New York type — and what can be worse than that ? — not unfrequently force their way into these vehicles. The wonder is how little the passengers generally, many of them women of respectable appearance, seem to be incommoded by, or even disgusted at, the presence of these pernicious brutes. Here, now, soon after leaving the terminus at Coney Island, the conductor of the car stops it to take up three young men who have hailed him in terms that did not sound like blandishment. None of them are sober, and one, a powerfully built young fellow of twenty or thereabouts, is so drunk that, as he is supported to the car by his two companions, his feet trail upon the ground. He is in his shirt-sleeves and has been lighting, for his features are battered “ out of drawing,” and his clothes are saturated with blood. In the breast of his shirt is stuck the “ diamond ” pin, without which no New York rough ever considers himself presentable to decent society, and his fingers, which are all bruised and excoriated, are loaded with cheap, tawdry rings. There is no opposition whatever made to the entrance of this fascinating trio into the ear. The fighting rough is hustled into it by his companions and laid out upon a seat, every object touched by him in the car being immediately smeared with his blood. No person among the passengers — and they are by no means a rough-looking set — appears to consider the circumstance an unusual one, or one to which exeeptiou should be taken. It seems from the testimony of the companions of the battered young man, whom one of them with pride avers to be “ a firstclass bully of the Fourth Ward,” that, while he was yet sober or partially so, he got into a roadside quarrel with one of a gang of negroes from the city, who were seeking for employment about the hotels on the island, and was badly thrashed by his opponent. Mortification at this drove him to drink, and hence his pleasing addition to the company in the car.

It will be seen from this brief account of a peculiar place, that Coney Island is more conspicuous for a rough side than for a smooth one. Its natural advantages as a sea-bathing place for New York city are numerous, but they are counterbalanced by many circumstances at present inseparable from it. Few things could be more shocking to the sensibilities of a fashionable New York family than to inquire whether they intended going to Coney Island for the season. Occasionally, indeed, a " heavy swell ” of the fashionable avenue will take a turn down there with his team, “by way of a lark,” but he does this in the confidence that he is not likely to be brought face to face with any of his set, and his account of things when he returns to the city includes nothing of Coney Island with its vulgar associations and motley crowd.

Charles Dawson Shanly.