“Coney Island’s week of fun, the Coney Island Mardi Gras, which has become an established custom and brings to an end to each Coney season, began last night in a blaze of color and with much music and confetti,” wrote The New York Times on September 10, 1912.
It must have been crazy fun: thousands of spectators cheering dozens of parade floats along Surf Avenue on a late September night.
Revelers in costume marching along the floats, and a king and a queen were crowned every year.
The Mardi Gras started in 1903 as a fund-raising vehicle for the Coney Island Rescue Mission, which served “wayward” young women, according to John H. Kasson’s Amusing the Million.
[Photos: Bain News Service, 1910 or 1915 (top) and 1908]
It lasted until 1953—just about when Coney Island began losing its appeal as the city’s summer playground.
In its place we have the fabulous Mermaid Parade—itself inspired by the anything-goes craziness of the early 20th century Coney carnival.
Tags: Bain News Service, Brooklyn in 1910, Coney Island 1910, Coney Island history, Coney Island Mardi Gras, Mermaid Parade Coney Island
Ephemeral New York 
October 20, 2010 at 7:20 pm |
Coney Island’s Mardi Gras was not actually on Mardi Gras . .kinda lame, but I guess no one wants to go to the beach in March up here.
October 21, 2010 at 3:53 am |
The top photo of the Coney Island “Mardi Gras” was taken in September, 1913, and is part of the Bain Agency’s September 1913 photostream, which has been posted on Flickr by the Library of Congress.
March 7, 2011 at 4:13 pm |
So with Mardi Gras (literally Fat Tuesday in French or Shrove Tuesday in English tradition) only a day away and the Mardi Gras season hours from starting, I decided it would be a great idea to write a little bit about the season and the events, where it all comes from and what the meaning of the whole thing is.
Read More: http://www.shawnmichaeladamsonline.com/2011/03/mardi-gras-carnival-fat-tuesday-shrove.html
March 4, 2012 at 3:26 am |
[…] Island had a Mardi Gras celebration every September until 1954, but ATZ had no idea that Popeye the Sailor Man and his […]
September 5, 2016 at 8:40 am |
[…] Beach season is almost over, so a postcard reminder of this pleasure paradise will have to suffice until next year. Of course, there’s always Coney Island’s Mardi Gras festival. […]
February 13, 2018 at 10:19 pm |
[…] For more on the Coney Island Mardi Gras parade see this terrific article in the Daily News as well as this one by the Bowery Boys and this one on Ephemeral New York. […]