Description

Sitting on the outskirts of the five boroughs, the world famous pleasure beach of Coney Island has been the summer destinfor New Yorkers since its heyday in the 1890s. Towards the end of the 1960s, one year after he first picked up a camera, Bruce Gilden took the subway train through Brooklyn to capture the sunbathers, the weekenders, the sideshow booths and the Cyclone rollercoaster. Coney Island’s reputhas steadily slipped since Gilden started to photograph there, and is now known as a place where the poor who cannot escape the summer city heat go for thrills. Regardless of this reputation, Gilden’s ability to eke out the characters and eccentricities give the beach and its surrounding neighborhood a humorous view of daily life from the sixties through until the late 1980s.

Signed by Bruce Gilden

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