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Tag Archives: Coney Island


PM Daily, July 22, 1940, pp. 16-17

Yesterday at Coney Island… Temperature 89… They Came Early, Stayed Late
Cameraman Reports On Lost Kids, Parking Troubles
Saturday was very hot. So I figured Sunday ought to be a good day to make crowd shots at Coney Island. I arrived at the beach at Coney at 4 a.m., Sunday…
I came back Sunday afternoon… After making the crowd shot I went into the “Cage”…
On the way back to the city I was hailed by a female hitch hiker… She wanted to go home and change into a play suit and ride with me. But I told her I had too much work to do and not enough time to play.
When I got back to the city I took a shower and finished my pictures. While I was at Coney I had two kosher frankfurters and two beers at a Jewish delicatessen on the Boardwalk. Later on for a chaser I had five more beers, a malted milk, two root beers, three Coca Colas and two glasses of buttermilk. And five cigars, costing 19 cents.”


Weegee Daily, July 22, 2012

Today at Coney Island… Temperature 80… They Came Early, Stayed Late(?)
Cameraman Reports on the Weather, Tea and Sweets.
Saturday was warm, although not as hot and humid as the previous record-breaking few weeks, and it was the 72nd anniversary of a famous photo… So I figured Sunday ought to be a good day to make crowd shots at Coney Island. I arrived at the beach at Coney at 12:30 p.m. Sunday…
After making the crowd shot I went into the amazing and extraordinary Coney Island Sideshows by the Seashore and wonderful and otherworldly Coney Island Museum… ” I would have stayed and played pinball and skee-ball, but “I had too much work to do and not enough time to play.”
I found the Robert Wilson Coney Island mural, but the Weegee “inspired” or “quoted” or “appropriated” part was hard to find…
On the way back to the city the Q train was running local on the R track…
When I got back to the city I took a shower and finished my pictures and made a sublime blog post. While I was at Coney I had a bottle of water. Later on for a chaser I had one cup of organic ice coffee and three cups of organic green tea. And Icelandic milk chocolate, costing $3.50.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coney Island
And this is Coney Island on a quiet Sunday afternoon… a crowd of over a MILLION is usual and attracts no attention (I wonder who counts them)… it costs only a nickel to get there from any part of the city, and undressing is permitted on the beach… Some come to bathe, but others come to watch the girls. A good spot being the boardwalk…
Naked City, p 176

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July 22, 2012. Coney Island as seen from pier… site of at least one famous photo…

A Weegee Daily Map can be seen here!


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

There were a number of attempts by Weegee to make the famous Coney Island photo…
Here are some of them:


PM Daily June 17, 1940, pp.16-17
(The first draft of the first draft of the first draft of history…)


Weegee’s photos of the crowd at Coney Island, taken before July 22, 1940 (perhaps in chronological order)…

The number of variants, or number of exposures, or photos that Weegee made of the same scene is something that interests us a great deal. The version of this photo that was published in PM Daily on July 22, 1940, is not the same photo that appears in the all of the Weegee books, from Naked City to Weegee’s World… A prominent photo agency has a number of variations on their web site…

An early “version” of, or attempt at, this photo was published in PM Daily on June 17, 1940, in a trial or test version of the paper, a day before PM started publishing, a day before Volume one, Number one…