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Architectural Fragments from Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park

Margaret Stenz on June 17, 2010

On June 19, Coney Island will celebrate the beginning of summer with the annual Mermaid Parade, a colorful and highly unique procession of costumed mermaids, Neptunes, and sea creatures, marching bands, floats, antique cars, and the like. Because for many New Yorkers summer has always been associated with Coney Island, I’d like to celebrate the season by sharing some of the Brooklyn Museum’s art works from Coney Island—the Museum’s roaring zinc lion and pair of cast iron lampposts, both from the old Steeplechase Park.

Hugo Haase (German, 1857-1933). Lion, from the El Dorado Carousel, Coney Island, Brooklyn, ca. 1902. Zinc sheeting, Mounted: 82 x 36 x 69 in. (208.3 x 91.4 x 175.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Frederick Fried, 66.251.1. Creative Commons-BY-NC

One of the earliest art works to enter the Museum’s Sculpture Garden collection, and perhaps one of the most popular, is the roaring lion, installed over the rear staff entrance to the Museum, ready to pounce on those who enter. The lion had a long history before coming to the Museum in 1966. He was originally designed as one of a trio that pulled a chariot atop the entrance pavilion to the ornate El Dorado Carousel, a popular attraction at Coney Island for over 50 years.

Image from Carol A. Grissom, Zinc Sculpture in America 1850-1950 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), p. 427.

This elaborately gaudy gateway was decorated with life-size female figures playing harps or floating through the clouds and with painted curtains depicting women warriors on horses. The central gateway was surmounted by the chariot, and life-size figures of St George slaying the dragon topped the niches at either end. Like the lion, the rest of the façade was made of formed sheet zinc and painted in bright colors. Research has determined that the lion may have originally been painted a gold color with bronze metallic paint and illuminated with electric lightbulbs in its eye sockets and emitted sparks from its mouth.

The elaborate and ornate carousel itself was composed of three separate platforms, each rotating at different speeds. The innermost was a throne room surrounded by life-size angels with trumpets; the outer and inner tiers had beautifully carved chariots. The platforms were adorned with a menagerie of creatures—horses, pigs, ducks, eagles, dolphins, and cupids--all made of hand-carved wood and surrounded by Art Nouveau paintings, mirrored posts, and 6000 flashing lights. Inside was a four-ton band organ manufactured by A. Ruth und Sohn in Waldkirch, Germany.

The carousel was built in 1902 by Hugo Haase of Leipzig, a successful German amusement park ride manufacturer and bridge builder. In 1910, it was purchased by John Jurgens for the exorbitant price of $150,000 (plus $30,000 custom fees) and installed near Dreamland Park on Surf Avenue. It was only one of several independent carousels in Coney Island, but according to carousel expert Frederick Fried, it was “the most spectacular carousel America had ever seen.”

On May 27, 1911, Dreamland Park was destroyed by a huge fire and was never rebuilt (the New York Aquarium, founded in 1896 at Castle Garden in Battery Park, has occupied that site since 1957). The fire also damaged the carousel but not much. It was purchased and repaired by Steeplechase Park’s owner George C. Tilyou, who moved it indoors to his fireproof building the Pavilion of Fun. The carousel’s sheet zinc sculptural façade was then relocated as the corner entrance to Steeplechase on Surf Avenue for the next decade. When the façade was demolished in 1923, the three lions were removed and reused elsewhere in the park.

In 1965, Tilyou’s descendants sold the park to developer Fred Trump (Donald’s father), who demolished the park before it could gain landmark status. In 1968, unable to build his apartment complexes because of zoning regulations, Trump sold the land to the city. Since 2001 it has been the site of MCU Park (formerly Keyspan Park), the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team.

What happened to the carousel and lions? When the park was demolished, most of the amusement rides were put in storage and eventually sold. The El Dorado carousel was purchased for the 1970 Osaka World's Fair, and is currently in use at the Toshimaen Amusement Park in Tokyo. The El Dorado lions were purchased by private collectors, including Frederick Fried, who donated this lion to the Brooklyn Museum in 1966.



Brooklyn Iron Foundry. Lamp Post, one of two, from Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, Brooklyn, ca. 1900. Cast iron, 140 in. (355.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, 66.254.2. Creative Commons-BY-NC

The museum also purchased a pair of lampposts from Steeplechase Park, which are now installed in the Sculpture Garden. These two street lights, manufactured by the Brooklyn Iron Foundry around 1900, are designed with a central globe encircled by four hanging globes. In 1984 the city used the museum’s historic lampposts to cast reproduction street lights (models BB12 and BB14) for use in a renovation of Union Square.

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Architectural Fragments in the Brooklyn Museum Collection

Terry Carbone on May 14, 2010

We understand that you may have questions about the recent article in The Atlantic Monthly about the Museum's Architectural Fragment collection. To begin,

The Brooklyn Museum regrets that the author's comments do not reflect the substantive content of his hours of conversation with Museum staff, or of the extensive and detailed information subsequently provided in response to his questions. The Brooklyn Museum always investigates a range of possibilities for public disposition of works that have entered the deaccession process (the first step in releasing objects from a Museum's collection), but currently has no agreement with any sales venue regarding the sale of recently deaccessioned architectural fragments. The Museum looks forward to continuing our plans for the full installation of the architectural sculpture collection, in consultation with specialists in the field who in recent years have contributed to the first qualitative assessment of these holdings.

Let us know what your questions are, and we will do our best to respond.

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The First Harvest in the Wilderness

Karen Sherry on February 3, 2010

Valerie Hegarty's evocation of Asher B. Durand's 1855 painting The First Harvest in the Wilderness in her benefit print for the 1stfans program adds another chapter to the painting's already illustrious history.  Its story begins in 1855, when the Brooklyn Institute—the predecessor to the Brooklyn Museum—commissioned a work from Durand to add to its newly conceived Gallery of Fine Arts.  The money for this painting, as well as the idea for a permanent gallery, came from the late Augustus Graham (1775-1851).  A prominent local businessman and philanthropist, Graham had been actively involved in charitable institutions devoted to the edification of Brooklyn's citizenry, including the Institute (established 1843) and its forerunner, the Apprentices' Library Association (founded 1824).  Upon his death in 1851, he bequeathed a large sum to the Brooklyn Institute with the stipulation that a portion of the money be used for the purchase of art by living American artists for the Institute's picture gallery.  This stipulation was progressive and prescient at a time when few civic institutions had art collections and many patrons viewed American art as inferior to European art.

Asher B. Durand (American, 1796-1886). The First Harvest in the Wilderness, 1855. Oil on canvas, 31 5/8 x 48 1/16 in. (80.3 x 122 cm) Frame: 43 1/2 x 59 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. (110.5 x 151.1 x 12.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Transferred from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to the Brooklyn Museum, 97.12

For its inaugural purchase with the Graham bequest, the Brooklyn Institute sought out one of the nation's leading artists Asher B. Durand (1796-1886).  At this time, Durand was the dean of American landscape painters known as the Hudson River School and president of the National Academy of Design in New York.  As a sign of support for the Institute, he agreed to accept the Brooklyn commission for $175, a sum far smaller than his usual asking price. 

At first glance, The First Harvest in the Wilderness, which was hanging on the Institute's walls by September of 1856, is an allegory of the nineteenth-century concept of Manifest Destiny.  This belief held that the United States was destined to expand across the entire continent.  (Many Americans viewed westward expansion as the inevitable progress of a divinely favored and culturally superior nation, although it resulted in the exploitation of natural resources and the often violent subjugation of native peoples.)  Durand's picture depicts the softer side of Manifest Destiny in the form of a pioneer family domesticating the frontier through settlement and agriculture.  We see their homestead in the center of the painting in the midst of a rugged landscape of forests and mountains-the bright light that shines upon this clearing not only draws the viewer's attention to the homestead, but also symbolizes divine approbation.  While a man harvests a field of wheat (dotted with the stumps of trees he has felled), his wife stands before their snug log cabin (built from felled trees) and cows and horses graze in their pens.  Durand suggests that the pioneers enjoy the fruits of their labor-an idyllic and bountiful existence on the frontier full of promise of future rewards.

Asher B. Durand (American, 1796-1886). The First Harvest in the Wilderness (detail), 1855. Oil on canvas, 31 5/8 x 48 1/16 in. (80.3 x 122 cm) Frame: 43 1/2 x 59 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. (110.5 x 151.1 x 12.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Transferred from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to the Brooklyn Museum, 97.12

A closer examination of The First Harvest in the Wilderness reveals that this vision of national progress also had particular, local significance for Brooklyn.  The large rock in the right foreground of the painting is inscribed with the name "GRAHAM," a clear reference to Augustus Graham, the Brooklyn Institute's benefactor whose bequest funded this commission. This rock serves as a rustic gravestone memorializing the man.  In addition, its prominence in the composition symbolizes Graham's important role in advancing civilized pursuits in another kind of wilderness-the American art scene.  One reporter for the art journal The Crayon was quick to pick up on the painting's analogy between progress on the frontier and progress in the arts.  He wrote:

The sentiment of the picture is also in keeping with the circumstances belonging to its production.  The field of Art is, in the country, but just emerging into the reality of a clearing, upon which the sun of encouragement does shine, if it gleams from clouds and is surrounded by shadows.  As an illustration, Mr. Graham may be considered the pioneer in the wilderness, and all honor be to his memory for being the first to make a clearing.[1]

In other words, just as the settler transforms the inhospitable frontier into farmland, so too did Augustus Graham cultivate the arts in the cultural fields of America.  Although Graham's vision for the Brooklyn Institute took decades to accomplish-shifting administrative priorities and declining financial fortunes hampered the plans for a permanent gallery in the nineteenth century-his support helped to make American art one of the finest and foundational collections of the Brooklyn Museum.

Valerie Hegarty. First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker, 2010. 10 x 8 in., ed. of 200. © Valerie Hegarty. Image courtesy of the artist and 20×200 | Jen Bekman Projects

Given Graham's commitment to living American artists, it seems only fitting that Valerie Hegarty, an American artist of today, pays tribute to Durand's The First Harvest in the Wilderness—the first painting funded by the Graham bequest.

 

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[1] "Domestic Art Gossip," The Crayon 3, no. 1 (January 1856): 30.

 

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