Steeplechase Park, Coney Island

Elephants in all forms were popular Coney Island features early on, from domesticated animals for exotic rides to a hotel in the shape of an elephant built in 1884 to this decorative indoor elephant in Steeplechase’s vast Pavilion of Fun. Eugene Wemlinger’s Wemlinger Studios was another successful commercial practice whose iconic pictures of Coney Island were important for the dissemination of the idea of Coney Island to the rest of the world in the early twentieth century.