Opera House

Surf Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11224

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Luna Park was the Disneyland of its day when opened by Lamar Thompson and Skip Dundy on Surf Avenue in Brooklyn’s Coney Island in the summer of 1904. Its biggest attractions were Thompson’s Scenic Railway and the Shoot the Chutes water ride. It had an Opera House where various live events were performed.

Forty years later the Park was run down and the Opera House showed movies. On August 13, 1944 most of the Park was destroyed by fire, including the Opera House. The feature playing thay day was "Hitler at the End of a Rope"

Contributed by JF Lundy

Recent comments (view all 2 comments)

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on August 13, 2007 at 12:14 pm

I saw a documentary on Luna Park when I was in college. It was quite a place. Included was a short film by Thomas Edison which showed the electrocution of an elephant, for reasons I can’t recall. That was kind of depressing.

jflundy
jflundy on August 14, 2007 at 11:44 am

The elephant was killed because it attacked a couple of sports. They had thought it great fun to give the animal a lighted cigarette in lieu of peanuts. The “beast” was adjudged dangerous. The elephant was electrocuted to make a buck on the public spectacle. It was a novelty to be savored by aficionados of the new technology. A grand time was had by the cultural high life as the elephant fried under high voltage for their diversion.

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