Walkabout: Fly Me to the Moon, Part 1
I’ve written a few articles about the development of Coney Island, from the Golden Age of the posh resort hotels, to the rise and fall of the great amusement parks, such as Dreamland and Steeplechase Park. The third of the “Big Three” amusement parks was Luna Park, and I thought an apt way to celebrate…

I’ve written a few articles about the development of Coney Island, from the Golden Age of the posh resort hotels, to the rise and fall of the great amusement parks, such as Dreamland and Steeplechase Park. The third of the “Big Three” amusement parks was Luna Park, and I thought an apt way to celebrate the end of summer would be to tell the tale of the only landlocked amusement park on Coney Island, one whose name lives on today, albeit in a whole new world of professional amusement. It’s fitting, given the name, that Luna Park began with a trip to the moon. But in the strange, unreal world of early 20th century amusement parks in Coney Island, Luna Park’s history is the oddest of all, with not only showmanship and innovative amusements, but also random cruelty to animals, casual racism, flagrant spending, brilliant marketing, spectacular miscalculations, and the fate of all of Coney’s original parks, a final blaze of glory.
Luna Park was the last of the three major amusement parks on Coney Island. Steeplechase and Dreamland were already in operation when two carnies from the Midwest, Frederick Thompson and Elmer “Skip” Dundy, came on the scene in 1903. Two years before, the partners had come up with one incredible attraction that was the star of Buffalo’s Pan-American Exhibition. It was a ride called “A Trip to the Moon,” and offered customers an exciting voyage to the moon in a huge spaceship with large flapping wings. The ship was named “Luna”, and was a large cigar-shaped craft with red wings. Passengers sat in lounge chairs on the deck, or could stand at the railing. When the departure bell sounded, the ship rose on cables into the air, while the huge wings slowly flapped, carrying their passengers aloft. Thanks to a revolving cyclorama below, and aided by wind machines and lighting, the illusion that the ship was going higher and higher into the atmosphere was achieved.
The ship went through a storm and passengers could see the lightning, hear the thunder, and feel the spray of rain and see and hear the run-off drip from the canvas roof. Then the ship emerged into the bright sun again, and then, as the earth got smaller and smaller, into space itself. When it got to the moon, minutes later, the passengers saw a fantastic landscape of strange colored lights, brightly colored rocks and strange plants. The ship landed, and Moon People escorted them to a huge castle where they saw the Man in the Moon sitting on his throne in his audience room. He welcomed the visitors and had Moon Maidens give everyone pieces of green cheese to take back to Earth with them. They re-boarded their space boat, and came back to earth. The whole ride took about 20 minutes and was the most popular attraction of the entire fair. It was dreadful science, but it was pure entertainment genius.
George Tilyou, the canny master of Steeplechase Park, was shopping for new attractions for his Coney Island park, and he loved “A Trip to the Moon”. It was a unique kind of attraction that didn’t just have people sitting around watching something; they were actively involved in the trip. He negotiated with Thompson and Dundy, and offered them 60% of the take on their ride if they would set up in Steeplechase for the summer 1902 season. “Luna” would sail to the moon from Coney Island. The ride was as popular there as in Buffalo. In an especially rainy summer, with only 22 dry days out of 92, the moon ride made Tilyou’s Steeplechase Park the only money making park that year, with over 850,000 people flocking to ride to the moon. Tilyou knew he wouldn’t be able to hold Thompson and Dundy another year; they had sampled the sweet taste of success.
The partners decided to lease the old Sea Lion Park, the site of the first Coney amusement park. The lot stretched back from Surf Avenue for 22 acres. The Surf Avenue address had been the location of the famous Victorian folly, the Elephant Hotel, which had burned down in 1896. Frederick Thompson had been an architectural draftsman in his previous life, and he designed his new park around his star attraction, the Trip to the Moon, and his new extravaganza, “Journey to the Bottom of the Sea”. He didn’t want his park to look like the Classically inspired Chicago World’s Exhibition, or even Dreamland or Steeplechase, both of which, at the heart of it, were Beaux-Arts in nature. He decided to go with gleaming, exotic Orientalism, and built towers, minarets and spires everywhere in the park. Every year he added more spires and towers, so that by the time he was finished, there were 1221 red and white painted towers, domes and minarets in the park, all lined with over 250,000 electric lights, so the place was a wonder during the day, but an exotic fairyland at night. Thompson and Dundy named their new park “Luna Park”, after their spacecraft, which had made it all possible.
The park was built around the lagoon that had been in the old Sea Lion Park, and they kept the Shoot the Chutes ride, as well as the dance hall and swimming pool. Because Skip Dundy loved the circus, there were plenty of animal acts, including elephants and other wild animals, and aerialists and other circus performers. Thompson had a planner’s practicality and a showman’s brain. He designed the park in such a way as to space out all of the star attractions, keeping patrons moving through the park, and offering them enough freebies along the way to keep them happy while they moved deeper into the park to the money attractions. Over 700 men began construction of Luna Park in the fall of 1902, building new attractions, and moving the Trip to the Moon over from Steeplechase.
In order to facilitate the heavy lifting, Thompson had the parks’ elephants move heavy sets and machinery, but something would go horribly wrong. One of the elephants, a female named Topsy, went berserk and killed a trainer, when the man fed her a lit cigarette. They decided that she was vicious and dangerous and had to be killed. It was December, when all of the parks were closed, but Thompson decided to make a publicity spectacle of it, and kill Topsy in a public execution. Their initial plan was to poison her by feeding her poisoned carrots laced with potassium cyanide. Hundreds of people showed up to watch, but the carrots had no effect. Milking it for all it was worth, they announced that they would kill Topsy the next Sunday by electrocuting her. They had originally planned to hang her, but animal rights activists protested so much, yes, even in 1902, that that plan was scratched. The next week, record crowds showed up to watch the gruesome death. They attached electrodes to th elephant’s front foot and one back foot and turned on the current. The poor elephant’s hide smoked, she convulsed, and then died within about 10 seconds. Thompson would save two of her feet and part of her hide, and make an office chair. I really don’t like this guy much at all.
The park cost a fortune to build, and Skip Dundy was in charge of getting well-heeled investors to fund them. He must have been some talker, because they raised the money, although they were living hand to mouth up until the opening. When opening day rolled around on May 16, 1903, they only had eleven dollars between them, just enough to make change. Their clothes were threadbare, and they had to borrow clothes from their valet, who had been working for free for several months, in order to attend the ceremonies. When the gates opened, patrons were introduced to a gleaming, light-filled fantasy world of towers and pavilions, with fun to be had, and fantastic worlds to explore. There was a re-creation of the city of Venice, and further on, a new and enlarged “Luna III”, which could hold more people for their new and improved moon ride, and beyond that, a new “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” ride in a submarine. There was a Hippodrome with animal acts, and a circus big top with aerialists and other acts. The park had restaurants, a Japanese tea room, boat rides on a Babbling Brook, shops, and a ballroom with an orchestra. One of the most unusual exhibits was Dr. Courney’s Unique Baby Incubator exhibit, the first successful baby incubators in the world, designed to protect premature and at-risk babies. They were tended by nurses and wet nurses in sealed rooms with piped-in heated air. Dr. Courney’s system saved hundreds of babies’ lives. The exhibit was especially popular with women.
The whole place was an unqualified success. It was so successful that by July, only three months after opening, Thompson and Dundy had paid back all of their investors. On July 4, 1903, they had 142,332 people in their park. By the end of the year, they were no longer penniless in threadbare clothing, Frederick Thompson and Skip Dundy were rolling in money.
Check out the park on my Flickr page.
Next time: New attractions for the park, new attractions for the heart, and the foolishness of those who get rich quick. More on the history of Coney Island’s Luna Park, with more photographs. This story is based on information gathered from Jeffrey Stanton’s History of Coney Island, Wikipedia, the Brooklyn Eagle and the New York Times.

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