In popular culture in the U.S. and around the world, the name, “Coney Island,” is almost as well-known a New York icon as “Broadway” or “Times Square.” However, to a considerable extent, the renown of Coney Island may stem from its glory days in the early twentieth century. At that time Coney Island was synonymous with an escape from the ordinary and a place to forget one’s troubles. One hundred years ago the worldwide fame of Coney Island as an amusement resort could be roughly compared to the worldwide fame of Disney World today.

But Coney Island never was and never will be a corporate theme park. Instead, it was and is primarily an amusement park for New York’s poor and the working class. It is the only beach resort reachable by subway – in New York and in North America.

The subway pervades Coney Island in more ways then one. It is not only the primary means of transportation for most of Coney Island’s visitors. The sight and sound of the elevated subway just across the street from the various amusement parks almost suggest that the subway itself is just another amusement park ride.

Like Times Square, Coney Island has had a long and checkered history. And like Times Square, Coney Island may have reached rock bottom in the 1980s. Today, Coney Island’s partial revival tracks against the cultural ascendency of its home borough, Brooklyn.

The influence of Brooklyn’s new breed of hipsters can be seen in the annual Mermaid Parade on Surf Avenue. This event encapsulates Coney Island at its best – multicultural, exuberant and flamboyant. Hopefully, that unique combination represents Coney Island’s future – as well as embodies the evolving meaning of the name, “Coney Island,” in the language and in popular culture.