Coney Island

The heat is on
On the street
Inside your head
On every beat
--Glenn Frey

On the southern most tip of Brooklyn a small peninsula juts west. For early explorers it was an intuitive place to set up camp as it sat at the opening of New York harbor. The Dutch called it Conyne Eylandt, meaning Rabbit Island. Subsequent English morphed it to Coney Island.

Its position on the water and sandy beaches made Coney Island a natural target for entrepreneurial development. By the mid-late 1800s, Coney was populated with hotels, amusement parks, and other resort structures.

Like magnets, Coney's beaches have attracted people on hot summer days. Circa 1924:

Circa 2016:

Years pass, but the need to beat the heat at Coney hasn't.