Coney Island in 1911

Editor's note: This article is from the "Chambers Journal" Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg, South Africa) August 22, 1911. Thank you to Contributing Scholar George A. Thompson for finding and cataloging  the article. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written.

Image from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F80220437085586999%2F&psig=AOvVaw36abe_rcAPuPPlu_zDGKnh&ust=1739998474350000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCPDIvNWNzosDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

HOW OTHER PEOPLE BATHE
New York at the Sea.
Situated as it virtually is, on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, its sea-bathing
facilities are, without doubt, unexcelled by those of any city of the world. Within a
distance of fifteen miles from the financial and industrial heart of that immense area now
designed [sic] New York there are clean, well-kept white, shelving sandy beaches by the
score, and all easily and quickly reached by the many means of transport available.
The better known of these beaches, and consequently the most popular, are
Rockaway, Brighton, Manhattan, Midland South and, last -- but to the masses the most
important of all -- incomparable Coney Island, of which each recurring summer the
announcement is made tha "everything is new but the ocean". Lying, as these beaches
do, open to every breeze of the wide Atlantic, and being in such comparative proximity
to a centre of population of nearly six million (this includes Jersey City, Weehawken,
Hoboken, etc., on the western bank of the Hudson River, the numbers patronising them
daily throughout the summer are almost incredible. By an actual count of persons
visiting Coney Island alone by trains, trolleys (tramcars), and excursion steamers, and
estimating those reaching the resort by other vehicles, it has been found that on
several of the most sultry days last summer a number closely approximating five
hundred thousand enjoyed the sea-breezes, bathing, and other attractions there, and to
the number of nearly fifty thousand preferred to sleep on the sand and otherwise al
fresco rather than return to their stuffy tenements in the city.

CONEY ISLAND
*** Prior to the incorporation of Coney Island with Greater New York, the place
suffered from a bad name and not without reason. Lacking proper police protection,
with a licence law honoured in the breach rather than the observance, and with its many
houses of doubtful repute, it was undesirable and even unsafe for unprotected women
and children to visit it. Now, however, under the stricter supervision of New York's city
police and other officials, respectable men, mothers of families with their children, and
unprotected women need have no hesitation in visiting Coney Island by day or night, or,
if necessary or desirable, spending the night on the beach under the many temporary
structures erected as shelters from the sun or sudden storms.

Though the ocean is undoubtedly the main attraction, there are many others
which cater to the tastes of its cosmopolitan guests; in fact, New York's Coney Island is
the father of innumerable Coney Islands of smaller dimensions in every section of the
American continent, and it may be in others. Refreshment rooms, round-abouts,
shooting-galleries, bowling-alleys, dance-halls, music-halls, vaudeville theatres, loop-
the-loops, aerial-railways, and scores of other "shows"; are provided, and are liberally
patronised by a none too discriminating public.

Rockaway, Manhattan, and Brighton Beaches are situated east of Coney Island,
and are patronised by people of larger means, who are less transient than the visitors to
Coney Island. Rockaway is unique in respect of its city of tents, inhabited by families,
the members of which spend the entire summer by the sea.

In this way are avoided for a period of something like five months the unaccountably high rents charged in New York, and the immeasurable advantage gained of a residence within a few feet of the broad Atlantic.

At Manhattan and Brighton Beaches are immense permanent hotels of the
highest class, occupied for the most part by well-to-do-people for the entire summer
season, and in some cases the year round.

WELL BEHAVED PEOPLE
On none of the American beaches are seen moveable bathing-houses such as
are so prominent a feature of European watering-places; these being unnecessary
because of the fact that the rise and fall of the tide is so slight that the water can be
reached over clean white sand and even at low tide without difficulty. These beaches,
too, situated as they are in such close proximity to the immense population centred in
New York, are surprisingly free from flotsam and jetsam, which is often so disagreeable
a feature of the bathing facilities offered in some British and Continental watering-
places. Nor is there in evidence, even at Coney Island, where such an immense
quantity of light beer is consumed in ridiculously small measures called "glasses", it
must be confessed, any noticeable drunkenness. To the disgrace of some of the most
popular watering-places of England, it can with truth be said that more drunken men
and women can be seen in them in one day than in an entire summer at Coney Island.
And when one realises at how small an expense for transportation these beaches can
be reached from New York and other surrounding cities and towns, together with the
attractions and incentives to celebrate not wisely but too well, it is marvellous how such
a desirable condition of affairs exists.

CHEAP FARES
Comparing excursion fares from London with those from New York to and from
seaside places, it is obvious that New Yorkers can reach the sea at almost 50 percent
less cost than Londoners. There is advertised in New York to-day an excursion running
every Wednesday to and from a watering-place, necessitating one hundred and ten
miles of travel by train and boat, for a fare of seventy-five cents, or three shillings. An
English railway advertises a day excursion from London to Eastbourne and back, about
one hundred miles, for five shillings, and this, too, in a country where four shillings and
twopence has a much higher purchasing power than a dollar in America. Any resident
in New York desirous of spending a day at Coney Island, or in fact at any of the
watering-places specified, can reach his destination and return at a cost for travelling of
not more than thirty cents (fifteen pence), and in most cases for ten cents (five cents).
From this it will be seen that even the poor of New York need not deny themselves the
pleasure and benefit to be derived from an occasional trip to and dip in the broad
Atlantic.

On the New Jersey coast there are still more desirable bathing-beaches extending almost without intermission from Sandy Hook to Cape May, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles. These beaches are almost ideal for sea-bathing, as they are farther from the immense population of New York and vicinity, are patronised largely by wealthier people, permanent summer residents, and are without the usual accompaniments of noisy, nerve-racking, cheap attractions of the roundabout and loop-the-loop variety. There is usually a handsome bathing-pavilion, provided with a refreshment-room and innocent amusements, in which bathing-rooms can be rented for the season, month, week, day or hour.

A SPLENDID ROAD
Sandy Hook, being a Government reservation, has no civilian residents; but commencing at Seabright, and continuing in an almost unbroken line for twenty-five miles, are magnificent residences, seemingly of endless design, but all maintained in the best of taste, and surrounded by lawns of the deepest green sloping to the ocean; whilst immediately at the back of these residences runs a driveway which in the summer season exhibits a panorama of perfectly appointed vehicles -- motor, horse, and others probably equalled by no other road in the world ***

RELIGIOIUS LIFE
About twenty miles from Sandy Hook, and sandwiched between Asbury Park on the upper and Bradley Beach on the lower side, is that unique and widely known American Methodist summer centre of religious life, Ocean Grove. ***

FOR THE POOR
For the comfort, benefit and amusement of New York's poorest inhabitants are provided, at suitable intervals on each of the rivers bordering the city, free floating baths. Bathers may bring their own bathing-suits, or may rent for a nominal sum those supplied by the authorities. Situated, as these free baths are, literally at their doors, the inhabitants, who are in so many instances, crowded in loathsome tenements in the midst of industrial buildings, seize such facilities with avidity - with such eagerness, in fact, that long lines of sweltering people are formed into queues by policemen, and thus made to wait their orderly turn for a dip in the water, which, though not at all times particularly clean, affords them a ready means of "cooling-off".

Fresh-water bathing, for which also ample facilities exist, can be indulged in on the western bank of the Hudson River under the lofty and precipitous "Palisades", on in the many other streams flowing into the ocean in the neighbourhood. Many families select here and elsewhere an open spot, with or without the consent of the owner, and pitch their usually primitive tents for the summer.

Such are New York's watering-places and bathing facilities -- ample in number, convenient of access, and patronised during the almost tropical days of summer by a larger ratio of its population than is any other watering-place by the people of any other city of modern times. 

Coney Island circa 1910. Image from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fseeoldnyc.com%2Fconey-island-1910s%2F&psig=AOvVaw0OCgniE9faqwbmxXCfPMmE&ust=1739998935784000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCID8wKePzosDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

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