Henry Spencer Ashbeea SundayAt

coney island

Scissors & Paste Bibliographies
Santa Rosa, California
2019NoteThis short piece was originally published in the Temple Bar Magazine, vol. lxv (1882), pp.263-7. My copytext for this reprint was the offprint done in the same year
by William Clowes and Sons, London, the titlepage of
which is reproduced above right. — P.J.K.

A SUNDAY AT CONEY ISLAND“THOUGH this island seems to be desert, uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible – yet the air breathes upon us
here most sweetly. The ground, indeed, is tawny. Let me
not dwell in this bare island.” - The Tempest.

Coney Island, Sir,” said an American gentleman to me– “Coney Island is a revelation.” With this assurance I“shelved” the good intention I had of passing my last Sunday in the United States at the feet of some of New York’s
noted preachers, and determined to spend the day of July
17th, 1881, at Coney Island.
We have a proverb in the Old World that every roadleads to Rome; with equal truth every road in the New
World may be said to lead to Coney Island, and I am confident that there is not a railway in the Union which would
not book its travellers, more or less directly, to that favoured resort. It seems at any rate that the whole railway
system of America culminates there; nor is Coney Island
satisfied with this, but must have distinct and independentlines of its own.
The means and modes of reaching this remarkable island are numerous, the railway being the most expeditious
and generally preferred. As I had, however, had more thanenough of American cars during the long journey fromSan Francisco to New York, I elected to go by steamboat,
more especially as it afforded me a favourable opportunityof seeing the harbour of New York.
So much had the beauty of this harbour been impressed
upon me, that I must own to a certain amount of surpriseat finding no fine scenery whatever, but simply an extensive roadstead with comparatively low-lying, and in noway picturesque banks. The river here is eminently welldisposed for the purposes of commerce; the piers andwharves are convenient, and their arrangement and appointments good; but beauty there is none. I was disappointed too at the scarcity of shipping in the harbour. I didnot of course expect to find so many vessels there as one isaccustomed to see in the Thames, although I had been
prepared for such a discovery, but considering the undoubtedly important commerce of the United States, theshipping in the port of New York seemed to me extremely
sparse.
The steamers and steam ferry boats which constantly
ply in the Hudson are entirely different from anything wehave in England. These huge monsters have one or two
terraced decks, parts of which are reserved for the especial
use of ladies, and contain saloons, drinking bars, &c. Hideous in appearance, they are convenient and commodious,and quite in keeping with nearly everything one meets in
the States – thoroughly practical, but eminently inartistic.
Let us endeavour to form a notion of Coney Island. It
is a very narrow strip of land, four miles and a half long,
lying off the main land below Brooklyn, and forming partof the town of Gravesend; it is ten miles from New Yorkcity by water. But how shall I succeed in conveying any
idea of the aspect and peculiarities of this odd wateringplace to my readers, accustomed perhaps to the luxuriant
verdure and picturesque scenery of Torquay or
Ilfracombe, of Ventnor or Scarborough, or even of the lessromantic Margate or Ramsgate? Imagine, then, a barren
waste with “such quantities of sand” that the most stonyhearted Carpenter might be expected to “weep like anything at the sight of it,” endowed with no natural beauties

whatever, devoid of trees, shrubs, or anything green shadeless, consequently, from one end to the other – nocottages, no fishermen, no nets spread out on the beach,no small boats on the sea, no Peggotty dwellings on shore,
no adjuncts, in fact, of any kind to a seaside place of recreation as we understand it. On the other hand, Coney
Island possesses some marvels peculiarly its own: it is covered with wooden pavilions, each one surmounted by atall flag-staff, on which the stars and stripes are ever conspicuous; there are skeleton towers in which one sees elevators going up and down continually; numerous shortrailroads, of which one is “elevated” as at New York; telegraph posts, enormous hotels and restaurants, shops, bazaars, drinking bars, open iced soda fountains, museums,camera obscuras, dancing booths, in full swing on this Sabbath day, merry-go-rounds, and shows of all kinds; an imitation cow life-size, and so life-like that I took it for aliving creature, from which milk is obtained through theudder, quite in the natural way; there is an institution fortaking care of children while the parents are bathing, furnished with velocipedes, swings, &c, and there is the largest advertisement in the world; into the sea project in all
directions iron piers and wooden jetties, at which steamers
are constantly discharging their living freights; the “margent of the sea” is everywhere crowded with bathers ofboth sexes immersing themselves in sweet companionship;
and amphitheatres with seats, for which fixed charges are
made, have been erected, the more conveniently to watch
their pranks, or skill in natation. Everything, in fact, possible to the architect, the engineer, or the machinist has
been done for Coney Island, and if one could be madehappy by machinery it is here that such happiness would
be obtainable. My taste does not unfortunately lie in that
direction. I value to their full extent lifts, tramways, andrailroads, and have a keen appreciation of their utility inthe state of civilization in which we live, yet I avoid themas much as possible when in quest of repose and recreation.
“Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet a while!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blind-worm Ignorance that slays the soul, O
tarry yet!”The steamers for Coney Island start from a pier at theextreme lower end of Broadway, the oldest, and to me by
far the most interesting part of New York.
“Where nowadays the Battery lies,
New York had just begun,
A new-born babe, to rub its eyes,
In Sixteen Sixty-one.”
I left the Battery, then, at half-past ten, and landed on
the Iron Pier about an hour afterwards. The steamboat wascrowded, but hardly more so than the pier on our arrival,even at this comparatively early hour, while the sea wasalready swarming with bathers. The Iron Pier is at once alanding-place, a promenade, a concert hall, a restaurant,
and a bathing establishment, all combined, and all on thelargest scale. It possesses, according to its own placard, noless than 1200 bathing-houses. What could I do better thanavail myself of this vast accommodation? I paid my twentyfive cents, and got into one of the twelve hundred boxes.
I cannot speak either of the purity of the water, or of theenjoyability of the bathing at this part of the island. Onehas to take one's bath underneath the pier and among its
supports, the effect of which is depressing, and one must

be very careful how one strikes out. I narrowly escaped amisadventure similar to one of those of which Le Sage’s
celebrated hero was the victim. I was floating on my backwhen suddenly a trap door immediately above me wasopened, and without holloa-ing “heads below,” or evencrying, “agua va,” a waiter emptied out a pail of slops. I
made one vigorous stroke, and, regardless of the risk I ranof striking my head against an iron pillar, managed just toescape the direful contents of the slop-pail. This satisfied
me with the bathing, and I retired as speedily as possible
to my box, where I purified myself with a pail of fresh
water provided for the purpose.
The most amusing and lively, albeit the least refinedpart of the island, is that in the immediate vicinity of theIron Pier; and I devoted an hour to inspecting the various
shows, in and out of which the people were flocking. Afterwards I took an omnibus to Brighton, and thence therailway to Manhattan, the journey in each instance occupying a few minutes only. Brighton and Manhattan exactly
resemble one another; they are not towns as their names
might lead one to suppose, nor even villages, but simplystations, at each of which is an enormous hotel, not unlike
those which one sometimes finds at Continental wateringplaces. These, and another large caravansery in a morewesterly direction, are the favourite resorts of the richer, I
may not say more aristocratic visitors. At Manhattan I
lunched, or rather endeavoured to swallow some food, theonly eatable part of which was that which had not passedthrough the cook’s bands, viz. the clams, a shellfish notdissimilar from an oyster. This was at the great hotel. During the meal I was entertained by the gossip of the coloured waiter, who, perceiving my greenness, took pity on
me, and was good enough to enlighten me as to the beauties and advantages of Coney Island. I made my way back

to the Iron Pier by the elevated railway. People were still
arriving in thousands, and I had some difficulty in threading my way through the advancing crowd to reach thesteamer, which was going back at once to bring more
pleasure-seekers. To New York I returned, a sadder, if nota wiser man, in time to have a quiet dinner at Delmonico’s, one of the most expensive institutions of its kind in
the States, and the only one where I found the food enjoyable.
The tastes of humanity are proverbially difficult to account for. That men who have been moving about New
York all the week by tramways and railroads for their business, who have been ascending the floors of their warehouses in lifts, should find relaxation on Sunday in frequenting the same means of locomotion at a place like Coney Island, is remarkable. But so it is – the inhabitants of
New York appear to take delight in iron, steam, and machinery, and the satisfaction which the visitors to Coney
Island evinced as they rode backwards and forwards in thecars, or up and down in the elevator, was a phenomenon
worthy of study. A quiet walk on the Battery, or in thepretty, if somewhat cockneyfied Central Park, would seemto be more enjoyable and quite as healthy. Coney Island isa reproduction in miniature of the United States, an epitome in fact of the great country – as active, as pushing, asmaterialistic, as unartistic. To New York one goes forbusiness, to Coney Island for pleasure; the difference is in
the name only, the equivalent for the dollar is the same inboth places.
The people I saw reminded me strongly of those one
finds at Ramsgate or Margate in the summer months, withan admixture of coloured folk. I have already mentionedthat on this Sabbath day dancing was going on continually;whilst music, vocal and instrumental, was to be heard everywhere. There appeared to be no restriction as to drinking; and yet I was agreeably struck with the fact that during
the whole day I met no one the worse for liquor, heard nobad language, witnessed no disputes; everybody conducted
himself in an orderly and decorous manner.

Coney Island around the time Ashbee visited