About 100 class old and 65 column inch in diameter , this colored gambling steering wheel with flying lizard for spoke provides a peep into how Americans used to have fun . It once get down up when spun , and whichever Bolshevik or opprobrious routine it land on would wreak cheers or scowl from spectator pump — depend on where they put their money .
The wheel was used at Coney Island , the famed amusement park on the sandy southern shore of Brooklyn , and is now on presentation as part of the Brooklyn Museum ’s young exhibitConey Island : Visions of an American Dreamland , 1861–2008 . The show spotlights the strange place Coney Island holds in our corporate imaginativeness by examining artwork and artifacts both made there and revolutionize by the park , including this gambling bike .
“ It ties to Coney Island as a home of opportunity , ” tell Robin Jaffee Frank , Ph.D. , Chief Curator and Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art , who curated this show . “ It ’s a place where you could come and adventure and gain ground money and prizes or a chance encounter between strangers might be the winder to your future felicity . All these films and write up that we run across are about chance face-off at Coney Island . ”
effigy citation : Brooklyn Museum
The artefact is also a reminder that play — among other transgressions — was once one of the handsome draws of the parkland . In its earliest days , Coney Island was recognise as “ Sodom by the Sea , ” thanks to its proliferation of gambling game as well as uncommitted prostitutes , alcoholic drink , and more .
“ There was a constant attack to clean it up , like Times Square , and it was never really successful , ” pronounce Frank .
This crossing of line extended to socio-economic class and race , with people from distinct background signal who might not be expected — or allowed — to run into one another in day-by-day lifespan cramming together on a ride or determine the gambling bike whirl .
embed bulbs would light up as the bike turn , create a sparkle in the dragons ’ glassful eyes and the jewels that dotted each one ’s throat . It ’s just one creative way that the promoters and managers of Coney Island ’s theme parks — Luna Park , Steeplechase , and Dreamland — used electrical energy , from the hulking mechanical rides to zappers that clowns used to ( lightly ) shock visitors .
Dragons ( and exotic animals more generally ) were common figures throughout the park , and the show includes a photo by Walker Evans of dragons guard the majestic Dragon ’s Gorge indoor rollercoaster , which contract people through crisp turns on their way to “ Aidoneus . ” In a spooky co-occurrence , the Dragon ’s Gorge catch fervency in 1944 , destroying half of Luna Park .
Of course , dragons are not all about menace . They also ponder excitation and wonder — dragon were associated with prosperity and salutary luck in Chinatown and elsewhere .
These dual themes of terror and delight weave throughout much of the new display . Frank set about to conceive of the show when working as curator of the Yale University Art Gallery , when she find herself drag to Joseph Stella ’s monumental 1913–1914 paintingBattle of Lights , Coney Island , Mardi Gras , which boast abstraction of the Ferris cycle , Loop the Loop , and illuminated plasterer’s float that create a “ whirling vortex that you finger like you ’re being draw into along with all these cabbage people of people . ”
Joseph ’s Stella ’s Battle of Lights , Coney Island , viaWikimedia// Public Domain
spend five years assign the show together , Frank establish that over a period of 150 year ( from the Civil War to the 2008 closing of the Astroland amusement park ) , artists working in virtually every medium — picture , picture taking , pic , sculpture — had taken Coney Island as their subject . A identification number of actual artifacts from the commons — carrousel fauna , signs , and the gambling cycle — also aid bring home the bacon a historical linguistic context for the show . All told , the display features some 140 objects from creative person , including Diane Arbus , Weegee , William Merritt Chase , and the unknown Maker of the gambling wheel .
In fact , much about the wheel remains mysterious : which park it was used in , for instance , or how often it paid out to risk taker . The New - York Historical Society acquire it in the mid-1990s from the Smith Collection of Penny Arcade Machines and Related Memorabilia and it sit in storage until Frank quest it for this show . The name of the someone or manufacturing business who created it remains unknown .
“ I desire that visitor to the Brooklyn Museum will recognise it as an astounding work of art , ” says Frank . " ' Anonymous ' is the name of many a nifty craftsperson . "
