For more than 150 years, Coney Island has occupied a singular place in the American imagination. From a watering hole for the wealthy to an amusement mecca for the masses, an extraordinary array of artists have viewed Coney Island as a microcosm of the American experience. The exhibition brings to life the excitement of Coney Island through art, artifacts and photographs to illustrate how Coney Island’s magnetic world of attractions has become a touchstone for American mass culture and popular recreation.
Join us!
A Day at the Park
Join local historian Robert Presnar at the Hoyt for a casual conversation on the history of Cascade Park in the context of Coney Island and our changing ideas of recreation over the last century. Free admission. Reservations requested.
This exhibition is made possible by NEH on the Road, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is adapted from the traveling exhibition Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1961-2008 and organized by Robin Jeffee Frank, Ph.D., former Chief Curator and Krieble Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at Wadsworth Antheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. It was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry Luce Foundation, and The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, Inc. It was adapted and toured for NEH on the Road by Mind-American Arts alliance. Any views findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.