With Memorial Day kicking off the unofficial start of summer, let’s take a trip down to Coney Island. What once was America’s largest amusement park has a fascinating history. There are multiple theories on where its name came from, the most popular is that it comes from the Dutch word for rabbit “konijn” however even that is disputed. The island was a part of Gravesend and didn’t really begin development until the 1820s. For the middle of the 19th Century it became a high end get away for Manhattan’s wealthy residents, with multiple luxury hotels and later race tracks. The horse racing attracted a different crowd which caused the island’s reputation to suffer, couple that with multiple fires destroying some of the hotels and it was in need of a rebranding.

Enter George C. Tilyou, who decided to open Stepplechase Park in 1897 which unified a bunch of attractions on the boardwalk. His sons would purchase this tower, the parachute jump, from the 1939 World’s fair in Queens. The ride literally had parachutes that would be guided up and down from the top of the tower, it’s a miracle people survived this thing. Steeplechase Park closed in 1964 and the tower went inactive. It was landmarked on May 23rd, 1989.