Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-10
Seeing the Elephant at Coney Island

this thirty times greater army that
eagerly evades all sight. smell and
sound of the sea and wonder what per-
version of taste and intellect it is that
draws three hundred thousand people
| through the absolute misery of a voy-
age over the worst transportation sys-
tenn in the United States to a seaside
resort and then impels them to stay
away from the water as if it were a
pestilence.
You look at these people and wonder
more and more. They are fairly well
dressed. They seem to be peaceable
and pleasant. They are pathetically
eager to enjoy themselves. They do
not look stupid or especially vulgar.
You will never understand them from
looking at them. You can understand
only if you know how they live "at
home" in New York.
Stranger. we, the three hundred
thousand. are one-quarter of the famous
tenement house population of the
boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
We are the one-quarter that is housed
in the worst buildings ever devised by
man to house human beings. We three
hundred thousand live mostly in rooms
that are so dark that when we arise in
the morning we cannot tell whether
the sun is Shining with its most daz-
zling splendor or whether the day is
as gloomy as the grave with cloud and
rain. Even when our rooms possess
the luxury of one or two windows that
look on a street instead of an airshaft.
we cannot see the sky unless we hang
out of the window and crane our necks
to look upward.
Our Mad Pleasure
Each one of us, riding with 299, 900
others of us in the cars crowded not
only to the guards but literally to the
roof where some of us clink happily,
enjoys the mad ride to the island
the ride that makes your sensitive soul
crinkle to the edges with disgust and
offends your nose till you pray that
you might cease breathing.
We are the people We climb through
the windows of the cars, and if you
don't like to have us land in your lap
or even in your face with our shoes as
we accomplish the feat. pray remem-
ber that there are 10000 of us who do
like it against every one of you who
does not.
We are frantic with delight. We are
drunk with anticipation. We see the
lath and plaster and painted canvas
island swim before us enchanted-not
lath and canvas, but the island of the
blessed.
To US each fat woman's den is
grotto of wonders. The stuffed mer-
maids are alive and genuine to us, even
though we have paid our nickels many
times these many years to see the
reality. The trip through the canvas
Venice is more delightful to us than
the trip through the real Venice would
be to your more or less jaded sense.
What do we care for the sea? We
are out for good time. We conde-
scend to let the sea remain sea. Pres
entity we shall wonder down in small
relays to look at IT, Perhaps we will
even sit on the sand and eat our lunch.
con or let the children dig for time.
Then we shall yawn and ask, What
can we do next? The earrousels or
the loop the-loop?
The smells Of Coney Islands streets
are altar of roses to us who have lived
day and night immersed I'm the smells
Of the tenements. Coney Islands sky
is canopy Of glory. TO us, fresh from
the black caYerns and tunnels of our
hives. Coney Islands structures of
lath are miracles Of inspired architec-
ture, dreams made real, and royal
splendor
Turn our backs on these marvels to
look at lot of water that does nothing
except move monotonously up and
down i'm waves2 Well. we 100000 guess
not-not until we go crazy
A Kind Fortune for the Rest
II is a kind fortune for the army that
does like the water that the greater
army does not. If everybody who goes
10 COney Island were 10 go into the
lsurf, there wouldn't be any sea left.