page_title: Dreamland (Coney Island, 1904)
section_title: Destruction
hierarchical_section_title: Dreamland (Coney Island, 1904) / Destruction
caption_attribution_description: English: Bain News Service,, publisher. Remains balloon swing, Coney Island Fire, 1911 1911 May 27. 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Notes: Title an date from data provided by the Bain News Service on the negative. Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Format: Glass negatives. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print General information about the Bain Collection is available at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09252 Call Number: LC-B2- 2203-5
context_page_description: Dreamland was an amusement park at Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, which operated from 1904 to 1911. It was the last of the three original large parks built on Coney Island, along with Steeplechase Park and Luna Park.
context_section_description: In spite of its many draws, Dreamland struggled to compete with Luna Park, which was better managed. In preparation for its 1911 season, many changes were made. Samuel W. Gumpertz (later director of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus) was put in the park's top executive post. The buildings, once all painted white in a bid for elegance, were redone in bright colors. On the night before opening day, an attraction called Hell Gate, in which visitors took a boat ride on rushing waters through dim caverns, was undergoing last-minute repairs by a roofing company owned by Samuel Engelstein. A leak had to be caulked with tar. During these repairs, at about 1:30 a.m. on May 27, 1911, the light bulbs that illuminated the operations exploded, likely due to an electrical malfunction. In the darkness, a worker kicked over a bucket of hot pitch, and soon Hell Gate was in flames.
  The fire quickly spread throughout the park. The buildings were made of frames of lath (thin strips of wood) covered with staff (a moldable mixture of plaster of Paris and hemp fiber). Both materials were highly flammable, and as they were common in the Coney Island amusement parks, fires were a persistent problem there. Because of this, a new high-pressure water pumping station had been constructed at Twelfth Street and Neptune Avenue a few years earlier, but on that night it failed. Water was available, but there was not enough to contain the fire that enveloped Dreamland. The Dicker family's adjacent hotel also burned down in this fire.
  Chaos broke loose as the park burned. As the single-armed Captain Bonavita strove to save his big cats with only the swiftly encroaching flames for illumination, some of the terrified animals escaped, but about 60 animals died. A lion named Black Prince rushed into the streets, among crowds of onlookers, and was shot by police. By morning, the fire was out and Dreamland was completely destroyed and never rebuilt. Early editions of The New York Times claimed the incubator babies had perished in the flames, but later the paper corrected this and reported that they had all been saved.  According to contemporaneous accounts, a number of these saves were accomplished by Sgt. Frederick Klinck of the NYPD, who made several trips into the burning structure to rescue incubator babies.
  Almost ten years after the fire, Reynolds, who by then owned the majority of Dreamland's outstanding bonds and stood to make a windfall, used his political connections to have New York City purchase the land on which Dreamland once stood. The city bought the area, valued at $1.5 million, for $1.8 million.
caption: Remains of the balloon swing
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