Coney Island, with its beach, amusement parks, and numerous other attractions, became emblematic of nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century urban condition while at the same time providing relief from the enormous risks of living in a huge metropolis. On Coney Island, both morals and taste could be transgressed. This was the place where the debate between official and popular culture was first rehearsed, a debate which would characterize the twentieth century in America.

Discovered just one day before Manhattan in 1609 by explorer Henry Hudson, Coney Island is a strip of sand at the mouth of New York's natural harbor. The Canarsie Indians, its original inhabitants, had named it "Place without Shadows." In 1654 the Indian Guilaouch, who claimed to be the owner of the peninsula, traded it for guns, gunpowder, and beads, similar to the more famous sale of Manhattan. The peninsula was known under many names, but none stuck...