The Great Coney Island Spectacularium is pleased to announce a rare opportunity to hear from the producers of the Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire.

Although this seems nearly unbelievable, on an average day in Coney Island around 1900, one might have seen one or more of the following: A Boer War reenactment featuring real Boer War veterans; A recreation of the destruction of Pompeii by volcano, San Francisco by earthquake, Galveston by flood, and/or Titanic by iceburg; Freakishly small premature infants battling for their lives in infant incubators; A recreation village of the head-hunting Bontac Tribe of the Philippines with real tribespeople on display; An immersive spectacular which staged tenement fires every half hour and featured a cast of 2,000; A trip to the moon, under the sea, or to heaven and hell by way of being buried alive in a glass coffin; and, as they say, much, much more.

The Great Coney Island Spectacularium asks how this all could have been forgotten? What does it say about who we are now, and what have we lost in this historical omission?

The centerpiece of this installation is The Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire, which is an immersive 360 degree spectacle based on the great panoramas and cosmoramas that populated Coney Island in the 19th century. It tells the story with image, sound, and light of the most spectacular disaster in Coney Island history: the complete and dramatic destruction of Dreamland, one of the three great parks that made up turn of the century Coney Island, by fire 100 years ago in 1911. Dreamland was never rebuilt, but had it been, we are certain it would have given pride of place to a disaster spectacle that allowed visitors to experience the great fire that had destroyed it. The Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire is our attempt to create the attraction that should have been, and to allow contemporary audiences to experience a 19th century-style immersive spectacle of the sort celebrated in the exhibition.

Next Thursday September 22, the crew behind the construction and conception of the Cosmorama will be at The Coney Island Museum giving a presentation about the making of the piece, followed by guided tours of the exhibition.  This will include the scenic and lighting designers, the director, the script writers and the artists who made the whole thing come to life.  All will be on hand to answer any questions you might have.

Full details follow. We very much hope very much to see you there!

Date: Thursday, September 22
Time: 7:30pm – 8:30pm
Admission: $5, Free for Coney Island USA Members.
Loction: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn

The Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire is the first Cyclorama in Coney Island since Luna Park met its own fiery demise in the 1940′s. The art of creating a full-scale immersive Victorian entertainment was lost to Coney Island’s denizens until this year. Find out how the Coney Island Museum resurrected the theatrical skills and the know-how necessary to create a 360-degree painted panorama with sound and lights for the 21st century.

Aaron Beebe, director of the Coney Island Museum; Joanna Ebenstein, Artist in residence for 2011; and their collaborators will be on hand to discuss the ins-and-outs and the technology behind the Cosmorama, with detailed technical descriptions from the lighting designers, the scenic artists, and the producers of this new and exciting spectacle.

Beebe and Ebenstein will be joined by the artisans and craftspeople from the Metropolitan Opera and other institutions who helped make this work possible. Guided tours of the Cosmorama will be held.

More on The Cosmorama can be found here.

Opening reception for Zoe Beloff’s “The Somnambulists”
at The Great Coney Island Spectacularium
Date: This Friday, July 22nd
Time: 7-10 PM
Where: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue
Admission: Free

This Friday, we at The Great Coney Island Spectacularium cordially invite you to an opening reception to celebrate the launch of our short-term exhibition of Zoe Beloff’s fantastic installation “The Somnambulists.” This exhibition will be on view at The Spectacularium from July 22nd until August 20th.

More on “The Somnambulists” following; hope very much to see you at the reception!

The Somnambulists is comprised of five hand-painted miniature wooden theaters, into which moving images are projected. The largest of these theaters will house two high-definition 3-D color video projections of vaudevillian musical dramas: A Modern Case of Possession, and History of a Fixed Idea. Shot stereoscopically, the films depict three-dimensional figures, approximately one fifth of human scale, that appear to perform on stage with an effect closer to hallucination than projection. The installation centers on the idea of literally staging the unconscious as a hysterical drama. For these films, Beloff was inspired by several remarkable developments at the end of the 19th century: the discovery of the unconscious by psychotherapists, doctors’ emerging practice of filming their hysterical patients with motion picture cameras, and the public’s fascination with madness which manifested itself in the emotive, hysterical behavior of actors in Parisian cabarets.

Both A Modern Case of Possession and History of a Fixed Idea are based upon 19th century case histories written by the famous French psycho-pathologist Pierre Janet. In each, an actor representing Dr. Janet acts as a kind of narrator, leading us through scenes in which his patients express their delusions through song. Janet realized that his patients’ hysterical attacks provided a window, visual and auditory, into the unconscious working of their minds. Aware that they could neither hear nor speak to him in the throes of their delirium, Janet discovered that he could communicate by entering their imaginary world, as a second actor. It was as if he had walked into their mental theaters and as a master of ceremonies, was able to alleviate the fears that manifested themselves as grotesque, monstrous creatures.

In addition to these films Beloff will present four miniature theaters housing depictions of actual hysterics filmed by doctors in Belgium, Romania, and the United States. Updating a Victorian stage trick called “Pepper’s Ghost”, Beloff has transformed these patients into ghostly figures performing an endless loop of madness within the space of each diorama. Beloff will also display a new print which contains her illustrations of the theaters and various players, and outlines the acts and scenes of History of a Fixed Idea.

Beloff’s book, The Somnambulists: A Compendium of Source Material, which was published by Christine Burgin and includes a DVD, points to the complex interweaving of concepts from psychology, literature, performance, visual art, and moving-image technology at the turn of the last century. The text begins with an introduction to the “players”, with brief biographies of the scholars, artists, and performers who appear within the volume. Acting as a kind of index to Beloff’s artistic pursuits, her book provides an in-depth understanding of the range of ideas that form the basis of this exhibition.

You can find out more about the event here and more about Zoe and her work here.

Much has been said about the sad and sudden passing of epic collector and friend to many Billy Jamieson. I am not sure I have anything to add to this often eloquent outpouring of disbelief and grief, except to add note of my own sadness, and to take this moment to mark his passing. James Taylor put it best, perhaps, on his website “Shocked and Amazed”:

Hearing of Bill Jamieson’s death yesterday was about as shocking an occurrence as can be imagined in this business. Still a young man, truly, and a man whose importance to collecting and “spreading the word” had yet to be fully felt, his passing leaves a hole at least 10X larger in the business than the enormous hoard of attractions he leaves behind…

My own experience with Billy was marked by kindness, generosity of spirit, and a sharp and roving intelligence. He loaned us a variety of artifacts from The Niagara Falls Museum–a circa 1827 dime museum whose entire contents he had purchased in 1999–for use in The Great Coney Island Spectacularium. He also joined us at Coney a few weeks back, where we enjoyed the pleasure of his company on the judges stand of The Mermaid Parade followed by a memorable and inspiring lecture in the museum.

I still cannot quite believe he is really dead. He was one of the most full-of-life and inspiring men it has ever been my pleasure to meet. Rest in peace, Billy. You are–and will continue to be–sorely missed.

Photo sourced from Colorslab.

This Father’s Day Sunday: a unique opportunity to learn about about the historical, curious, and amazing Niagara Falls Museum (est. 1827) from the mouth of its new keeper, Bill Jamieson, surrounded by an assortment of astounding objects from the museum as installed in The Great Coney Island Spectacularium!

This event is seriously not to be missed! Full details follow; VERY much hope to see you there!

Portrait of a Dime Museum: The Niagra Falls Museum (1827-1999)
A Lecture by Historian, Museologist, and Collector Bill Jamieson, Owner of The Niagara Falls Museum Collection
Location: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue
Date: Sunday, June 19
Time: 1:00 PM
Admission: $5

In the 19th and early 20th Centuries, popular museums–many of them charging a dime for admission, and thus often referred to as “dime museums”– were a beloved part of the amusement landscape. In the U.S., these attractions were pioneered by Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum (est. 1784) and P. T. Barnum’s American Museum (est. 1842). These early museums exhibited a dizzying array of curiosities including live menageries, animal and human freaks, taxidermy, artworks, waxworks, cosmoramas, temperance plays, trained bears, the tree under which Jesus’ disciples sat, Jenny Lind, General Tom Thumb, Chang and Eng, and Barnum’s infamous Feejee Mermaid.

The Niagara Falls Museum–Canada’s oldest museum–was an important early dime museum founded in 1827 and open to the public until 1999. The collection is unique for being a remarkably intact early dime museum collection, showing the kind of breadth and variety rarely seen in the museums of today. Over the course of its tenure, it was notable for hosting such wonders as the mummy of pharaoh Ramses I (repatriated in 2003), early Wild West Shows starring General Custer’s scout “Wild Bill” Hickock and local Woodland Indians, and a number of artifacts from the Pan American Exposition of 1901 including the shell and coral collection famous naturalist Dr. Louis Agassiz. It was also renowned for its strong natural history collection with a focus on local fauna and freak animals living and dead.

Over its lifetime, the museum changed location and hands several times, and many collections were added or discarded. It was ultimately purchased by Bill Jamieson–a private collector in Toronto–with the hopes of one day restoring the museum to its original splendor. This year, Mr. Jamieson loaned an assortment of astounding artifacts–including 19th Century waxworks, the remains of Skipper the two-legged dog, taxidermy, Native American artifacts, and seaweed artwork– from The Niagara Falls Museum to be exhibited as part of The Great Coney Island Spectacularium; these objects are currently on view as part of this exhibition at The Coney Island Museum through April 2012.

This Father’s Day afternoon, please join us at The Coney Island Museum for a unique opportunity to learn about about the historical, curious, and amazing Niagara Falls Museum surrounded by an assortment of astounding objects from the collection.

Bill Jamieson is a historian, ethnologist, museologist, ancient and tribal art dealer and collector. Bill’s interests evolve around the forgotten cultures and customs of the South Pacific, Indonesian, African, South and North American Indians, and Egyptian. His fascination with artifacts from these cultures, as well as oddities and curiosities from around the globe, especially objects of the Macabre. Bill’s fieldwork amongst the Shuar in Ecuador and Peru has helped him with much knowledge of this tribal group. His expertise has been drawn upon by National Geographic’s documentary production unit for a series Headhunting, Human Sacrifice, and Cannibalism as well as by numerous museums and researchers. He has been a member of the Canadian Chapter of the New York Explorers Club since 1997. Bill is active in loaning and donating to such Toronto institutions as the Royal Ontario Museum and Art Gallery of Ontario. Bill is presently working on a pilot for a series for History Television.

Click on image to see full-sized version

Centennial Celebration of the Great Dreamland Fire Featuring the Opening of Coney Island’s Newest Cosmorama
Presented by The Coney Island Museum, The Morbid Anatomy Library, and Atlas Obscura
Date: Friday May 27, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Admission: $25 (Tickets at the door, or purchase here)
Location: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn (map here)

One Night Only! Coney Island will relive the awful splendor of the greatest and most horrific disaster to hit New York City in the pre-9-11 era. The great Dreamland fire of 1911 is the unsung and unremembered event that ended a way of life. See the vast panorama of Dreamland at your feet! Hear the thrilling story of the fire! Experience the dawning of a new era!

Please join the Great Coney Island Spectacularium in celebrating the centennial of The Great Dreamland Fire of 1911 with the unveiling of a 360 degree immersive cosmorama telling the story of the great fire in pictures, sound, and light. Based on Coney Island’s greatest immersive disaster spectacles, the cosmorama is the product of months of labor, thousands of dollars, and the expertise of artists and designers from New York’s most important institutions.

A triumph of immersive art and theater, the Cosmorama was created in part with the help of artists and artisans from the Metropolitan Opera, and uses real boards from the original Coney Island boardwalk in its construction. The centennial celebration will include:

• Complimentary Gin Bar (!!!) courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin and Atlas Obscura
• Our incomparable host, Lord Whimsy, author of The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume 1
• Special guest appearance by Ryan Matthew, Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn of TV’s “Oddities”
• A Rare Appearance of the long submerged bell of the Dreamland Pier, 100 years after its climactic plunge into the depths of the cold Atlantic
• Puppet Vaudeville from Jonny Clockworks and “The Cosmic Bicycle” of “The ClockWorks Puppet Theatre”
• Vintage Coney Island Films from the collection of artist Zoe Beloff
• Giveaways of anatomical puzzle and other sundries complements of Kikkerland Design
• Custom Cocktails and Early 20th Century disaster tunes complements of The Foppinton Brothers
• The Accordion stylings of Matt Dallow
• A toast to Vincent Price, who was born during the fire in St. Louis, Missouri!
• “Reconstruction,” a performance featuring contortionist Jonathan Nosan and with musical accompaniment by Gordon Beeferman, Composer/Pianist
• Sword Swallowing, burlesque and Coney Island entertainment
• 19th Century waxworks, freak animals, and a real shrunken head
• Unlimited access all night long to the newly unveiled Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire
• And, of course, More!

We hope very VERY much to see you there!

As many of you know, The Great Coney Island Spectacularium has finally opened, just a few weeks ago.

As part of the exhibition, we are–with the help of scenic painters, lighting designers and prop builders from the theater and opera world–in the midst of building a new component for the exhibition, an 19th Century-style panorama/cosmorama that will allow visitors to experience the 1911 complete destruction of Dreamland by fire in an immersive 360 degree sound, sight, and light spectacular. This component is set to premiere on May 27th, the centenary of the disaster, and is inspired by the immersive disaster spectacles so popular in Coney Island around the turn of the century.

Here’s the rub: immersive amusements of this sort, as we are learning the hard way, are quite expensive to produce–probably a large reason that they were put out of business by cinema!–and we are, sadly, seriously under budget.

If 19th Century-style immersive spectacles of this sort are the kind of thing you would like to experience, and you would like to help contribute towards making this project a reality, we would be so pleased to welcome your contribution! Tax-deductable donations to Coney Island USA–our mother institution–can be made by clicking here and then hitting the “Donate” button. No amount too small! All donations appreciated.

Whether you are able to donate or not, please mark your calendar for the cosmorama opening party, which will take place on the centenary of the great disaster on Friday, May 27th, 2011. Or, come experience it later; The Comorama and the rest of The Spectacularium will be on view to the public at the Coney Island Museum until April 29th, 2012.

You can find out more about The Cosmorama by clicking here. You can join our mailing list to get updates about the opening party and other events by entering your email under “events mailing list” on the upper right hand side of this webpage. You can join our Facebook group by clicking here.

Thanks, and see you at Coney!
Joanna and Aaron

The under-discussed Cliff House in what appears to be a hold-to-light postcard from 1902. We will be exploiting a similar effect in our soon-to-open Cosmorama of the Great Dreamland Fire, which will premiere on May 27th; we also have our own Coney Island hold-to-light postcards on view in the Spectacularium installation.

More on the upcoming Cosmorama here. More on The Cliff House and Sutro Baths here.

Found on the Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosites Blog.

As the artifacts in our exhibition get winnowed down for safe entry through an (over)zealous border (fingers crossed, people!), Aaron and I travel closer to home to find some supplemental objects. Top photo: amazing Victorian otter and eel shadow box, thanks to Evan Michelson of Obscura Antiques and TV’s “Oddities,” shown left, with Aaron and Noah to the right. Bottom photo: Denny Daniel of The Museum of Interesting Things heroically helping me–with a broken foot, no less!–liberate a wonderful display case from the street for use in our exhibition.

Well, it’s a monstrous beast to create, but we’ve finally nailed down the line-up for the opening events.  The 10-day Congress of Curious Peoples is coming up fast and the line-up is now public.  Tickets are on-sale now!

I can’t believe what an event this is going to be.  We have some of the most amazing people I can think of under one roof this year.  It’s unlikely we’re going to be able to repeat this kind of line-up again!

So I know its confusing, and we’ll be trying to streamline the descriptions and creating individual facebook events, but it’s up and we’re ready to set aside tickets for people.  Come down and celebrate with us!

http://www.spectacularium.org/congress-of-curious-peoples/

As part of that noble effort which is Obscura Day, why not come down to Coney Island, take in the grand opening of “The Great Coney Island Spectacularium,” check out Super Freak Weekend, and celebrate the premiere of season two of the new TV series “Oddities” with free Hendricks Gin cocktails, episode viewing, and general revelry assorted cast members?

Why not indeed!

Full details follow; really hope to see you there!

Title: Coney Island Spectacularium and “Oddites” Screening
Date: Saturday, April 9
Time: 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Cost: $15.00
Where: The Coney Island Museum, Surf Avenue, Brooklyn
Click here to purchase tickets

Party in the Coney Island Museum to celebrate the opening of the Coney Island Spectacularium, super freak weekend, and meet the stars of the Discovery Channel show Oddities at the premiere of season two.

At the end of the 19th Century, Coney Island was the pinnacle of an astonishing era of live attractions – the Great Coney Island Spectacularium aims to recreate that momentous age, bringing you sites, sounds, and immersive experiences that can’t be seen anywhere else on earth. The attendees of this event will be the first to experience this taste of Coney Island at the height of its spectacle with the opening of the Coney Island Spectacularium.

But that is only one part of this multi-faceted event! Also taking place is a sideshow performance by some of the countries best sideshow performers gathered in Coney for the annual super freak weekend.

Topping it all off is the premiere of season two of the Discovery Channel show Oddities, with its stars Mike, Evan and Ryan in attendance! Free Hendrick’s Gin cocktails will be served upstairs, and there will be a cash bar (wine and beer) available downstairs. Trivia contest prizes to be supplied by Kikkerland. The evening will be hosted by Lord Whimsy, witticist and author of The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume One.

Details/Special Instructions:
Doors open at 8:00, screening of the season premiere at 8:30.
Tickets are $15.

It’s also day two of the Congress of Curious Peoples, Coney Island USA’s 10-day series of lectures and performances about curiosity and curiosities, broadly conceived, so be sure to check out the schedule for the rest of the week..
Obscura Day is an international celebration of unusual places, happening all over the world on April 9, 2011.

Visit ObscuraDay.com to see all of our 2011 events.

To by tickets, click here. For more about the Great Coney Island Spectacularium, click here. For more about “Oddities,” click here.

“Experience Pompeii before and after the epic eruption 2,000 years ago. Imagine the moment their world vanished and discover the miraculous artifacts unearthed since. Witness the life and death of those frozen in time by ash – including the largest collection of body casts ever presented.

• Over 250 artifacts – includes some never-before-seen objects and the largest collection of body casts ever on display including a dramatic skeleton collection

• A brand-new, immersive movie experience depicting a timelapsed representation starting from the moment of Vesuvius’ massive explosion”

–From the “Pompeii the Exhibit” Website

More than a museum, Discovery Times Square is New York’s destination for discovery through unique and immersive exhibits
–Website for Discovery Times Square

“There is a lot of traffic these days in well-preserved bodies, human and otherwise. They are sliced and pickled for artistic effect or uncannily dissected and plasticized, with every blood vessel visible. They have toured the world, wrapped and mummified in the manner of ancient Egypt, or have been displayed, more modestly preserved by the dry desert sands of the Silk Road. And there are many, many more mummies yet to come.

Why this onslaught of the almost-living dead in museums? Are we latter-day Ezekiels seeking prophetic messages from ancient skeletal remnants? Has the technology used to prepare the dead for world travel suddenly advanced? Or has the need for income by the overseers of mummies suddenly increased?”

–From “When the Dead Arise and Head to Times Square,” Edward Rothstein, the New York Times

“Pompeii the Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius”–a new exhibition at Discovery Times Square–activates the same tension between spectacle and education, prurience and propriety, which was exploited to such great financial reward by Gunther von Hangens in Body Worlds and which characterized many 19th Century popular amusements such as tourist visits to the Paris Morgue, popular anatomical museums, and the scores of death- and destruction-themed spectaculars to be found at Coney Island in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

In fact, “Pompeii the Exhibit” of 2011 has much in common with a particular Coney Island attraction of 1889–the spectacular “The Last Days of Pompeii”–if not in the particulars than in the shared drive to offer the paying public a fully immersive recreation of the destruction of Pompeii, and in their use of over-the-top hyperbolic detail in describing the wonders of their respective exhibitions.

“The Last Days of Pompeii” of 1889–an immersive spectacle that combined historical vignette, theatre performance, and a pyrotechnic display in recreating the destruction of Pompeii by the fires of Vesuvius–boasted in its press about the number and variety of its cast (over 400 people! “a ballet troupe of 36 dancers trained by Batiste Cherotte… a male chorus…, soldiers, acrobats, jugglers, tumblers, [and] wire-walkers”!)

2011′s “Pompeii the Exhibit,” on the other hand, focuses on the numbers and authenticity of its artifacts (over 250! Some never seen before! The largest number of body casts ever on display!), bringing to mind the press for such Coney Island Spectaculars such as “The Boer War” (Real British and Boer veterans!) and the “Streets of Delhi” (300 authentic Indian natives in costume! Elephants! Camels! Horses!). To further blur the line between “legitimate museum” and popular attraction, “Pompeii the Exhibit” is hosted at a popular exhibition hall sponsored by a television channel–Discovery Times Square–rather than an “ordained” museum such as AMNH; Also, Pompeii the Exhibit” provides visitors not just artifacts and other traditional ways of experiencing history but also what its website describes as a “brand-new, immersive movie experience” reenacting “the moment of Vesuvius’ massive explosion.”

So what to make of it all? I see this new exhibition as excitingly in the tradition of 19th Century popular educational amusements–dime museums, popular anatomical museums, and Coney Island recreations–spaces where spectacle and education, prurience and propriety, coexisted for mass consumption. Fun, didactic, spectacular, and a resounding and thoughtful endorsement in today’s Times to boot. I, for one, can’t wait to go see it.

You can read a fascinating review of “Pompeii the Exhibit”–as quoted above–by Edward Rothstein in today’s New York Times by clicking here. You can find out more about Coney Island’s “The Last Days of Pompeii” by clicking here. You can find out more about “Pompeii the Exhibit” by clicking here.

Thanks so much to GF Newland for alerting me to this!

Image: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Plaster casts made from hollowed-out molds of rock, where bodies had been captured a moment before they ceased to be.

Reposted from Morbid Anatomy.

This exhibition has a lot of moving parts.  It’s going to open in April with a 10-day festival of performances and scholarly talks, then we’ll have some surprise celebrations in May, hopefully a book launch in June, big events throughout the year, and a lot of theatrical work as we go along.

The first big step is the opening though.  And the Congress of Curious Peoples.  So we’re looking for a few volunteers to help make the Congress a success this year.  In particular, we need someone to do some photo research for the Sideshow Hall of Fame.  We have a list of people who have been inducted over the last several years, but we don’t have photographs of all of them.  If you’re interested in giving a hand, please let me know?  you can send email to info@coneyisland.com with “congress volunteer” in the title.

We’re also looking for some construction help.  Demolition, light carpentry, handyman (or woman) stuff.

A sketch for the Great Cyclorama of the Burning of Dreamland

Well, the show is well and truly under way now!!  We’re working around the clock on this.

We’ve got scenic painters from the most prestigious institutions in the theater world, objects from the four corners of the earth, lighting designers, construction crews, scenic builders, artists, and publishers all meeting regularly to bring you something amazing.  It’s almost more than we can handle, but it’s going to be something you don’t want to miss!

And it all starts with the Congress of Curious Peoples, which if you were here last year, was already an amazing event.  This year, it’s going to be star-studded and amazing.  If I said that Ward Hall and Bobby Reynolds were both going to be here, would you believe me?

Stay calm.  Let your rational mind take over. Listen to it say, “you obviously can’t believe everything the Coney Island Museum tells you.”  So don’t run out and cancel your vacation travel plans for the week of April 8-18.  No.  You might not regret missing this show.  Not at all.  It’s ok.

Playing off the titillating terror of being buried alive–a theme exploited also by Edgar Allen Poe among many others–Coney Island’s Luna Park premiered a new attraction in 1907 which allowed the visitor to experience their own premature burial and added a trip through Hades and Paradise to boot. From a contemporary New York Times report on April 21, 1907:

NEW WONDERS THIS SEASON AT CONEY ISLAND – Beatific Heavenly Visions and Gruesome Scenes in Hell to be Luna Park’s Latest Novelty …

“The real big feature of the revised Luna Park,” Mr. Thompson explained, “is going to be what I have named Night and Morning: or, A Journey Through Heaven and Hell.” The idea in itself if, of course, not new, but the manner in which it has been worked up in entirely original and is expected to make it a ‘thriller.’ It shows you the complete journey to Hades and Paradise, and is full of surprises…. ”

The first room into which the people enter is like a big coffin with a glass top and the lid off. You look up through the roof and see the graveyard flowers and the weeping willows and other such atmospheric things. When everything is ready the coffin is lowered into the ground. It shivers and shakes, and when it tips up on end you hear a voice above give a warning to be careful. Then the lid is closed and you hear the thud of the dirt. “The man who is conducting the party now announces that they must have a spirit to guide them. A subject is put into a small coffin and in an instant he is transformed into a skeleton. Then a real skeleton appears and delivers a solemn lecture in which he tells the people that they must ‘leave all hope on the outside’–a gentle perversion of the old ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here.’

… Now there is a great clanking of chains and the side of the coffin comes out and visitors pass down into the mysterious caverns. First they see a twentieth century idea of Hell, with monopolists frying in pans and janitors fastened to hot radiators….

After the modern Hell the people come to the Chamber of Skeletons. Though these skeletons haven’t a stitch of clothes on them, they smoke cigarettes most unconcernedly all the time just like live men…. Next you come to the panorama of Hell, where you see a vision of all the condemned spirits being washed down by the River of Death.

Now comes the big change and you find yourself in a large ordinary room, with cathedral-like windows through which you can look outside and see the graveyard which looms up with a weird effect. Like great mist you can see the spirits rising from the graves and ascending to Heaven…

The great transformation now takes place. The whole grave yard floats off into space with the single exception of an immense cross, where the form of a young girl is seen clinging to the Rock of Ages. Fountains foam with all their prismatic colors, and the air is filled with troops of circling angels. The room itself vanishes and you find yourself in a bower of flowers under a blue sky.

At the climax and angel comes down with a halo which she places on the head of the girl who is still clinging to the cross Then all that vanishes and you are within four blank walls once more.”

Excerpted fom the April 21, 1907 issue of The New York Times; You can read the entire article here.

Image: Antoine Wiertz, The Premature Burial, 1854. Also the name of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Image found via a blog called Rouge’s Foam.

Reposted from Morbid Anatomy.

Vendors in Coney Island, Library of Congress

Hi everyone!

We’re looking for unusual vendors to set up shop in the “Colonnade of Curiosities” at this year’s Congress of Curious Peoples.  The whole event takes place from April 8-17, and we have tables available both weekends and during the week.  We want high end stuff, low brow stuff and all kinds of things in between.

The only catch is that your products have to be interesting.  Art, jewelery, sideshow related items, the strange, the bizarre and the macabre…  If you sell it and it’s interesting, we’d like to let you sell it in our space!

If you’re interested, please email: congressvendors@gmail.com

Please give a full description of your work and a link to a website and or photos in the email. And, unfortunately, due to the many submissions and limited space, we can only contact those we’re considering.

Thanks!

Image from Infomercantile.com

One thing that I love about studying Coney Island is its complexity.  It was never a single -operator resort and the businesses along Surf Avenue and the boardwalk often changed dramatically every year.  In some ways there was always a frontier-land attitude out here, with some businesses only setting up shop for a single season.  On the other hand, there were businesses and operators that had a firm foothold in Coney Island, and even when their storefronts changed, the business behind them didn’t.

Add to this free-for-all the fact that it was part of a circuit of spectacular shows that often toured the nation.  So attractions moved from Coney Island to World’s Fairs to Museums and back again with regularity.

For all these reasons, Coney Island would have been a prime spot in which a Manhattan-based company that designs spectacular shows might look for clients to purchase their wares.

http://www.infomercantile.com/blog/labels/amusement%20park.html

Via Depthandtime’s Flickr stream via Black and WTF.

A 9th Century Chinese Panorama

While Coney Island may have presented some of the most advanced American examples of a lot of these spectacular technologies, it certainly didn’t invent them.  When you went to see Avatar in 3-D on the Imax screen, did you know you were participating in such an ancient tradition?

The general plan is to offer permanent entertainment, the like of which was never before thought of in San Francisco.”
–“Sutro Baths Opening…Colonel T. P. Robinson Tells of the Round of Amusements to be Provided,” The San Francisco Call, Saturday, March 7, 1896

… rival in magnitude, utility and beauty, the famous abluvion resorts of Titus, Caracalla, Nero or Diocletian…

Five hundred dressing rooms … spacious elevators and broad staircases … pavilions, balustrades, promenades, alcoves and corridors adorned with tropical plants, fountains, flowers, pictures, … the collected treasure of foreign travels… a portico with four Ionic columns and pilasters which lead to a noble staircase, wide, gradual of ascent, bordered with broad-leaved palms, the flowering pomegranate, fragrant magnolias … [touching] the very rim of the reveling waves.
— Adolph Sutro: A Brief Story of a Brilliant Life, Eugenia Kellogg Holmes

San Francisco’s “Sutro Baths,” founded in 1896 and part of The Cliff House ocean resort, was not only the self-proclaimed “Largest Salt Water Natatorium in the World,” with its six salt-water pools and one fresh-water pool, 30 swimming rings, 9 spring boards, 7 slides, 3 trapezes, 2 diving platforms, and 500 dressing rooms; it also was a sort of turn of the century amusement emporium, offering to its patrons in addition to the pleasures of healthful bathing and convivial co-mingling: bucking broncos, potted palms and gracious promenades, an amphitheater seating 3,700 patrons, an amusement ‘midway’ sixty feet wide, a stereoscopic panorama, an Edison parlor with phonographs and kinetoscopes, concerts every evening and on the weekends, a mystic maze, a haunted swing and a two-story hobby-horse, a Venetian canal, a menagerie, and camels, donkeys and goats for children to ride.

In addition to all this, Adolf Sutro–who was also the second Jewish mayor of San Francisco– provided his patrons with a free museum intended to “amuse and instruct”(1) and featuring “mummies and innumerable other curios from ancient Egypt, a goodly number of specimens of Aztec pottery and art, Damascus plate, beautiful fans from various countries, Chinese and Japanese swords, wooden ware used by the North American Indians and totems from Alaska [and]… a superb collection of birds and animals, scenes from Japanese life, portfolios of photographs, valuable State papers and hundreds of other works of art and curios.”(2)

From the look of this photo (click on image to see it at full size) it seems as if Mr. Sutro also offered up–at least the moment this photograph was taken–an attraction called “San Francisco Two Days after Earthquake and Fire” and a panorama of the world.

Sadly, by the 1950s Sutro Baths was no longer profitable and closed to the public, and “the Stuffed animals and other curiosities which [had] decorated the interior of Sutro Baths…were crated and hoisted abroad a truck for fast delivery to the dump.” (see bottom image). In 1966, a fire destroyed the building while it was in the process of being demolished. Today all that remains of Sutro’s grand vision are a number of photographs, newspaper clippings and ephemera collections and the some nondescript ruins on Ocean Beach.

Image one: The Cliff House Project
Image two: lifewithoutbuildings.net
Image three: San Francisco News, September 10, 1952: “Cleanup Day At Sutro Baths–The Stuffed animals and other curiosities which have decorated the interior of Sutro Baths for lo, these many years, were crated today and hoisted abroad a truck for fast delivery to the dump. Ray Wayne and Joe Herrera are doing the job via Outsidelands.org

1: Sutro Baths, San Francisco Public Library
2: “’Pacific Service’ Supplies the World’s Largest Baths,” P.G.&E Magazine, September 1912

It has just been announced that the Cinémathèque Française is co-producing a phantasmagoria projection & spectacle in partnership with–and to be performed at–The Louvre Museum in Paris, France early next year.

Phantasmagoria, invented in the wake of–and said to be a response to–The French Revolution, were ghost shows in which images of skeletons, demons, and ghosts (see top image) were projected via modified magic lanterns and, through a series of ingenious special effects, appreared to move about, approach and retreat from, the viewer. These forms of spectacle were very popular around the time of the French Revolution and were also performed throughout the 19th Century; with the advent of film, they metamorphosed into the horror movie, a popular form to this day.

The phantasmagoria events at the Louvre will consist of a series of projections and spectacles between the dates of January 13th until March 28th of 2011; The highlight will be a grand phantasmagoria projection on March 6 where guest “Phantasmagores” Laure Parchomenko & Laurent Mannoni promise to conjure-up a variety of spirits which haunted the aftermath of the Revolution at 14:30 & 18:00.

More information about this event can be found (in French) here.

Via Morbid Anatomy.