Brad Hamilton Photography

Projects: CONEY ISLAND, BABY

Brooklyn, NY

Coney Island has been getting a facelift recently with the Italian-designed Luna Park now replacing the once artfully dilapidated Astroland. Many more structural changes are on the way, but what one resident describes as "the funky array of humanity letting it all hang out" remains intact. Families, freaks, hipsters, and homeboys all come together between Surf Ave and the sea to create an endlessly fascinating parade of people.

One of several access points to Coney Island's 3-mile boardwalk.
   
An estimated 75,000 people visited Coney Island on July 4th weekend, 2010.
   
An escapee from the nearby New York Aquarium catches a ride.
     
  
Food vendors cruise the east-west thoroughfare maneuvering their carts through the crowds at water's edge.
   
The Coney Island Circus Sideshow is still in operation on the original site where legendary performers like Jojo the Dogfaced Boy worked in the 50's.
   
The Electro Spin is one of 19 rides featured in the newly opened Luna Park which replaces Astroland, sold to Thor Equities in 2006 for $30 million.
     
  
Matt Polacheck's wife sits in front of the graphic he created for the Shmaltz Brewing Company's line of Coney-themed beers.
   
Young men and women keep an eye out for "the boys" as they jump off The Steeplechase Pier into the Atlantic. Despite it being illegal, Coney's lifeguards hang back and wait for the cops to intervene.
   
Diving off The Steeplechase Pier.
     
  
   
A young mother leads her daughter through the weekend crowds.
   
Beachgoers tend to crowd the area to the east of the Steeplechase Pier and directly across from the 90-year old Wonder Wheel, now a New York City landmark.
     
  
   
  
A woman waits for her friends outside another New York City landmark, the Cyclone roller coaster. Originally built in 1927 and restored in 1975, the Cyclone is the ultimate rickety wooden coaster and not for everyone.
     
  
A family rinses off a day's worth of sand and saltwater at one of the communal showers along the boardwalk.
   
Temperatures reached 100 degrees on July 5th, 2010, sending thousands into the cooling water.