The Voices of Coney Island in the 1960s
Hear the voices of the Coney Island barkers, inviting you to experience the World in Wax, the Fabulous Himalaya, the Magic Carpet Fun House, and the Cyclone. They will also entice you to bathe in the ocean, buy an ice cream cone, and take a train ride around the park.
In 1962, Joan Franklin, with her husband Robert, established Cinema Sound, Ltd., an audio recording studio based out of their own home – a town house on the Upper West Side – where they produced documentary portraits of New York City. They explored a very wide range of topics in their programming, and this tape of Coney Island barkers performing is just one of many held in the NYPR archive.
Coney Island was transformed in the 1920s by the completion of the New West End Terminal, now known as the Stillwell Avenue – Coney Island terminal. The then-five-cent subway ride gave the city’s poorer citizens newfound access to the park and boardwalk, giving Coney Island the nickname the Nickel Empire. In 1923, the beaches opened to the public, and the opening of the Cyclone soon followed in the summer of 1927. This shift in the culture of Coney Island transformed the park into the icon it is today.
The raw tape of this particular Cinema Sounds recording features barkers from all over the park, performing specifically at the audio engineer's request, so in this way it is not entirely candid. You can hear the engineer ask barkers to repeat themselves and have other off-mic exchanges. In the recording mash-up above, you'll hear clips cut from the repetitive raw tape, including the voice of the engineer. While the exact recording date of the tape is unknown, we can deduce that it must have been made sometime between 1962, when Cinema Sound, Ltd., was established, and 1984, when the World in Wax closed.
In 1997, for the Cyclone’s 70th Anniversary, WNYC’s Richard Hake did a piece on the roller coaster, a clip of which can be heard in this mash-up piece – the sound of the Cyclone ascending to its famous 85 foot drop. Also, featured at the end is a recording of the song Coney Island Baby, sung by the Excellents in 1962.
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