"It seemed that the whole world had assembled on this beach, casting off its sinful, soiled clothes, and had established a naked city…"

Uncle Moses: a novel, By Sholem Asch, p.134, 1918

Weegee, PM, July 22, 1940

“The entire beach, as far as the eye could see, was inundated with wet, barefoot, half-naked people. Bodies, bodies, bodies everywhere… ‘And here we are now, all lying naked on Coney Island beach.'”

Large number of similarities between this passage from Sholem Asch’s “Uncle Moses” and Weegee’s text and photo…

According to the NY Times, from a review of a re-release of the 1932 film: “‘Uncle Moses,’ which is based on a 1918 novel by Sholem Asch (originally published in The Jewish Daily Forward in serial form), offers today’s audiences a glimpse of Maurice Schwartz…” (Maurice Schwartz! Another Weegee connection…)

The book can be read, downloaded, etc. here…