'All once bright jewels . . .'
Island Of Dreams – Coney Island In The 70s – 1979 – Past Daily Pop Chronicles
Click on the link here for Audio Player – NPR Special Program – Island of Dreams – Coney Island – Nov. 1979 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
Iconic place, Coney Island. Long history. A place where seemingly half the world showed up on a Summer weekend to get away from the other half. A place that was the Playground of Dreams at the turn of the 20th Century. An amusement park where anything went and lavish spectacle was commonplace. A place once characterized somewhere in the early 1900s as “Sodom By The Sea”.
A place that, as the century wore on went through myriad changes. And by the 1970s was, perhaps a shell of its former self, but still a place where just about anything went, and some were still around to talk about the magical place.
In 1979 NPR produced a Special Documentary program about Coney Island. Titled Island of Dreams, the documentary touched on the past, told by those who were there, and brought up to 1979 by those who still worked and played there.
A fascinating glimpse of one of the most famous amusement centers in the world. How it changed, how it remained the same and how it was slowly morphing with the times.
Here is that one hour documentary, Island Of Dreams from November 1979.
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