An elephant dies at Coney Island

No one denied that Topsy was one temperamental elephant.

A resident of Luna Park, one of the spectacular Coney Island amusement parks of the early 1900s, the 28-year-old pachyderm had already killed three trainers.

[Well, one did kind of ask for it by trying to feed her a lit cigarette.]

Luna Park’s boss wanted her put to sleep. This being Coney Island, he made a show of it.

More than a thousand people came to an arena to watch Topsy eat cyanide-laced carrots.

She didn’t die though. After considering hanging, Luna Park officials decided to electrocute her. Enter Thomas Edison, who sought a venue to prove that his direct current was safer than alternating current.

Luna Park gave Edison the go-ahead. On January 5, 1903, more than 1,500 people watched three-ton Topsy take 10 seconds of alternating current. Her grisly end was soundless and instant.

Edison filmed Topsy’s death and called the footage “Electrocuting an Elephant.”

Elephants have a long history entertaining New Yorkers. Read more about it here and here.

Building Stuyvesant Town in the 1940s

In early 1945, more than 3,000 families moved out of the 600 or so old tenement buildings (such as these at left) between East 14th and 23rd Streets.

Everything on those blocks—including the tenements, two schools, three churches, and two theaters—was razed.

Within a few years they were replaced by the 9,000-apartment Stuyvesant Town, opened in 1947. 

Village writer Dawn Powell chronicles the former Gas House District and the building of Stuy Town (looking like legos in the NYPL photo below) in her diary:

“October 19 [1947]: Walking over to the East River Drive with Joe at night in rainy mist, seeing new houses of Stuyvesant Village rear up against old tenements, new stylish drive cutting through old streets, then the huge power plant—dark, oppressive, like a medieval forge—on to East River Park Drive. Silent boats and tugs gliding along, a body of man in doorway.”

What pizza place is Lou Reed posing beside?

The August 1984 edition of monthly downtown arts newspaper the East Village Eye featured a cover story on Lou Reed timed to the release of his New Sensations LP.

The article includes this photo of a cool-looking Reed taken in front of an anonymous pizza shop somewhere in New York City, with a great chalkboard menu beside him (“veal and peppers parm $4.75″). 

A very close look reveals a phone number under “Free Delivery.” And that number turns out to still belong to . . . Big Nick’s Burger and Pizza Joint at Broadway and 77th Street.