Reed Farrel Coleman discusses the unique setting to his latest book Soul Patch.
Nothing is so sad as an empty amusement park. And no amusement park is so sad as Coney Island. Once the world's playground, it is no longer the world's anything; not even important enough to be fogotten.
These are the opening lines to Soul Patch, the sequel to The James Deans and the next novel in my Moe Prager Mystery series. Coney Island plays a central role in my work precisely because it is more a place that used to be than a place that is. At one point early in the 20th century, Coney Island was one of the busiest tourist attractions in the world. By 1956, the year I was born, Coney Island was slipping slowly, if inexorably, into a painful, persistent kind of living death.
Unlike Ebbets Field-the former home ballpark of the Brooklyn Dodgers-which was mercifully plowed under, pieces of Coney Island have been left standing as monuments to stupidity and waste, to possibility and unkept promise, to beauty and decay. This dichotomy of spirit isn't my invention. Coney Island seems to inspire it. Maybe it's the salt air or the creaking planks of the boardwalk or the sea rusted girders of its impotent rides. For years, the two most popular books about the place were Sodom by the Sea and Good Old Coney Island. See what I mean about that dichotomy of spirit?
I'm getting ahead of myself, for not everyone knows Coney Island. First off, Coney Island isn't an island at all, but a peninsula that juts slightly into the Atlantic along Brooklyn's south shore. It got its name from Dutch sailors who spotted the native rabbits or "conies", as they called them, from the decks of their ships as those vessels swung around into the mouth of New Amsterdam harbor. Brooklyn was Indian territory and farmland in those days. Hard for me to reconcile that image of Brooklyn with the Brooklyn I was raised in and with movies like The French Connection, The Warriors, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Do the Right Thing, The Godfather, Saturday Night Fever, Smoke, Requiem for a Dream and Moonstruck.
As early as the 1830s, people were traveling to the beach at Coney Island and, by the time of the Civil War, hotels and bathhouses were popular in the area. In fact, that entire section of Brooklyn's shoreline, from Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay in the east to Brighton Beach to Coney Island in the west, developed into a tourist mecca. By the 1880s, it had become a sort of a Las Vegas by the sea. Gambling, prostitution, horse racing, and just about any vice or desire could be handled by the locals. But it wasn't until 1897, when Sea Lion Park was opened, that Coney Island started to evolve into what we would think of as an amusement park. Coney Island never actually was just one amusement park, but an amalgam of several theme parks-Dreamland, Steeplechase Park, Luna Park(formerly Sea Lion Park), and much later, Astroland-in close proximity to one another. Sorry folks, but Walt Disney didn't invent the theme park nor was he remotely original in grouping differently themed parks in a single geographic area.{mospagebreak title=Steeplechase Park}
Each of the parks was owned by different men with wildly different visions of what to offer the public. Steeplechase Park, for instance, was aptly named as it's central attraction was a ride that featured wooden horses than ran along steel rails throughout the entire park. This ride was still around when I was a little kid and although I was too young to ride, I have fond memories of watching my brothers and cousins fly around on those beat up old horses. Dreamland's rides were supposed to reinforce the moral beliefs of the day. And Luna Park was famous for its shows and the 250,000 incandescent bulbs strung throughout the grounds.
In 1916, Nathan Handwerker opened a hot dog stand. You know the place as Nathan's Famous and you probably have a franchise near your house or in the local mall. Oddly enough, I grew up with one of Nathan Handwerker's grandchildren. Robert Handwerker lived around the corner from me and we went to PS 209 together. I wonder what he's up to. Probably not writing PI novels. Up until World War II, Coney Island continued growing. Rides like the famous Cyclone rollercoaster and the Parachute Jump were added to the parks.
But it wasn't the vibrant, growing, glorious Coney Island to which my dad took me on Sunday afternoons. No, the Coney Island of my childhood was a collection of filthy streets and ragged ruins which mocked its former glory. Both Dreamland and Luna Park had long ago burned down. On the grounds of the old Luna Park sit the Luna Park houses, the most depressing collection of apartment buildings I can imagine this side of the former Iron Curtain. To paraphrase a few lines from The James Deans, Luna Park had once been so bright that scientists have speculated that it might have been visible from space. Now the neighbors wish you couldn't see it from across the street. And old Steeplechase Park was in dreadful disrepair, frayed and crumbling around the edges. I remember the bulldozers razing the place. The only piece of it left standing is the rusting superstructure of the Parachute Jump. It's kind of like a poor man's Eiffel Tower.{mospagebreak title=The Parachute Jump}
In spite of its decay, I have always loved Coney Island. I loved endlessly riding the Cyclone with my friends. I love a good Nathan's hot dog and the most unique tasting fries in the world. But now the word is that the Coney Island I know is at its end. The real estate developers have finally done it, gobbling up all that disused oceanfront property. I hear they're going to leave only Nathan's, the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel, and the Parachute Jump as window dressing. I will see them as tombstones and forever miss the mocking ruins and dirty streets.
Of all my work, Soul Patch is the novel most influenced in tone by its setting. A large portion of the book is set in the Coney Island of my youth. Coney Island is the location of the 60th Precinct, where my protagonist Moe Prager spent his entire NYPD career. If any of my books prove that setting can be character, this is that book. And though I can't hope to impart to you the effect Coney Island has had on my evolution, I do think Soul Patch can give you a taste and a glimpse into my inspirations.
If you want a look at the disappearing Coney Island, go to www.reedcoleman.com or www.BleakHouseBooks.com or view the promo video here for Soul Patch.
Reed Farrel Coleman is a member of ITW, IACW and the former Exec. VP of Mystery Writers of America. His novel, The James Deans, won the Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Awards and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity and Gumshoe Awards. He is the editor of the short story anthology Hardboiled Brooklyn. His essays and short stories appear in Wall Street Noir, Brooklyn Noir 3, These Guns For Hire, Damn Near Dead, Dublin Noir, and Crime Spree Magazine. He also writes under the pen name Tony Spinosa. Reed lives on Long Island with his wife and two teenage children.
