The next section of the essay...
The day after Christmas, Whitey started drinking early again. After making his way around the Bowery, and finally slipping a flask in his pocket, and drinking himself to the point where distances didn’t make sense, he saw one of the Italians make a gesture he was sure was an insult. Topsy didn’t deserve to be hauling wood for these wops.
“Sic ‘em,” he told Topsy in the language he had developed to train her.
Topsy obliged. She dropped her load and tore after the group of workers, trumpeting and sending debris in all directions as she went. Terrified of this behemoth bearing down on them, they did the only thing sensible: they climbed the scaffolding.
Whitey yelled at her to keep on going and Topsy stood on her hind legs. She roared and started to push at the structure with her front legs. After a minute, she stood on all fours, lumbered around to another side, and continued her assault. Thompson and Dundy came to the door of their office which opened out on the central part of the park, and several workers and Carl Goliath came running out to see what the ruckus was. Dundy called on Whitey to call her off, but Whitey ignored the command. Several of the men were summoned to get Whitey to cooperate and Carl Goliath went to the yard to try to get Topsy’s attention.
She ignored him and continued as Whitey egged her on, in spite of the larger men who were now holding him and telling him he had to make her stop. When their entreaties didn’t work, they resorted to beating Whitey until he was lying bruised and bloodied on the ground. Finally, he stood up and called her off with a simple whistle. Carl Goliath, who had been working as an elephant keeper for a number of years at Hackenbeck’s and could handle most animals, had never seen another handler with such control over his elephant. He helped harness her up again and walked behind Whitey as he limped her back to her stable.
Already word was spreading around the streets that the killer elephant had gone on a rampage again. Thompson and Dundy both knew that they could not afford this kind of publicity. The question was how they could turn the event—and their six-ton problem—into good publicity.
Clearly she needed to be gotten rid of, but how? A six-ton elephant can’t exactly be put down the way a dog might be euthanised. Furthermore, Thompson realized that this was a golden opportunity. Thinking about spectacle first and logistics later, he came up with the plan that Topsy would be hanged in the center of the Luna Park construction site. To give plenty of time for publicity, he set the date for the Sunday a little over a week later.
Posters went up and word that Topsy, the killer elephant, would be hanged traveled quickly. One place it traveled was to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The SPCA immediately protested that it was inhumane to euthanise an elephant—or any animal—by hanging. A scaffold was built—a stout structure that should have been able to handle an elephant ten feet tall, nineteen feet long, and fourteen feet around her belly, or so the builder thought—but two days before the execution was set to happen, the protest bore fruit and a Coney Island judge informed the businessmen that they would have to find another way to execute Topsy.
In the meantime, Thomas Edison had learned of the execution and asked to film it. Fred Thompson agreed without reservation. When the hanging was stalled and they had to look for another option, it was finally Edison who came to the rescue.
He suggested electrocution. It was very convenient; the Consolidated Edison plant that supplied electricity to Coney Island was two blocks from the park and wires could certainly be run over that would provide a direct current. Furthermore, it was in keeping with a number of experiments he had been conducting to develop an electric chair for prisons, and finally it might give him a leg up on his main competitor, Westinghouse.
Thompson and Dundy agreed that this would certainly work; the SPCA seemed to think that electrocution was more humane than hanging and so did not protest the new plan; Edison ordered two of his employees to set up the lines to the park and figure out how best to attach electrodes to the elephant so that current would run from one end to the other.
While all of this was happening, Whitey laid low. He had been suspended from his duties at Luna Park and heard the rumors of what was to happen. He drank until he couldn’t drink any more and paid two of the people set to keep an eye on the elephant stables to turn the other way when he stole in at night. Topsy, he was sure, had figured out what was going on and he talked to her for hours about figuring out a way to get her out of there. She nuzzled him with her trunk—they had chained her in as best they could—and happily took the carrots he brought for her. The last visit he made was that last Saturday night, stealing past the scaffold and shivering at the thought of what would happen. As drunk as he was, he fell asleep next to her stall until he was rousted by one of the men who turned the other way. Get out of here before anyone finds you, he told Whitey.
After stumbling home, he locked the door and fell asleep until someone banged on the door early that afternoon.
Showing posts with label luna park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luna park. Show all posts
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Topsy, the beginning - more editions of recycling old writing
This is part 1 of the essay I wrote in 2000 at the beginning of my work on the story of Luna Park and Topsy the Elephant.
This is a true story.
Topsy and Whitey Alt, her handler, were relative newcomers to Brooklyn. They had traveled with the circus for a number of years—in fact Topsy had been a popular attraction ever since she had been as Adam Forepaugh’s original baby elephant in 1875—but circumstances had recently changed. First Topsy killed a keeper in a bizarre accident in 1900. Later that year she was responsible for another keeper’s death. In May of 1902, however, the incident that gained her the most notoriety was the killing of J. Fielding Blount, a tourist from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Blount had tried to feed Topsy a lit cigarette. Perhaps it was meant as a little gag, but it freaked Topsy out. She picked him up with her trunk and beat him to death against the ground. Whitey understood that Blount had hurt her and that she was simply defending herself, and he argued these facts with the owners of the circus. They were not to be swayed, however; a killer elephant was not good for business. Better that they sell her and she be part of a side show.
At this time, Fred Thompson and Skip Dundy were in the process of building what would be the largest and most spectacular amusement park in Coney Island: Luna Park. They were also running out of money and living very much on credit. Bargains like a cheap elephant and a devoted handler did not come along often—particularly in a place like Coney Island where elephants were becoming a regular amusement. The fact that Topsy had earned this reputation was of little consequence to them at the time.
Unfortunately, Luna Park was far from being completed and Thompson and Dundy were far from needing an elephant as amusement. What they did need was the extra help a six-ton elephant could provide in moving large pieces of lumber across Surf Avenue. Topsy had performed tricks and delighted crowds, but immediately upon arriving at Luna Park she was pressed into service as part of the construction effort.
Whitey assisted as best he could, and he was happy with the turn of events. Coney Island, with its bars and brothels, suited him. Before, he had simply preferred the company of his elephant, but now he had landed in Sodom-by-the-Sea. No more was he traveling around to places that might or might not appreciate his carousing; here he was in a place that practically reveled in it. When he wasn’t caring for Topsy, he haunted the Bowery—a seedy strip of gambling joints, bars, and brothels. He got into fights and often found himself in trouble with the police.
None of this was unusual for the time or the place. Coney Island was rife with official corruption and undesirable elements. What stood out about Whitey was the fact that he seemed a little off; he was hopelessly devoted to Topsy and would fly into a rage whenever anyone made fun of his job or his elephant—particularly her reputation.
Topsy, though, had her first real chance to make a stir when Whitey’s carousing and love for her collided. On October 30, 1902, Whitey began drinking early in the day and by early afternoon, he was quite drunk and had decided that hauling lumber for Thompson, Dundy, and their amusement park was beneath Topsy. Instead of returning to get another load of lumber, he led the elephant away from the site.
First, they made their way to Feltman’s on Surf Avenue—Whitey leading Topsy along by her harness—where Whitey, much to the chagrin of management and customers, stood outside and ordered hot dogs and beer. After this, the two walked down the street to the nearby German restaurant where Whitey sat in the beer garden while Topsy stood a tether-length away outside. By this time the police were getting wind of Whitey Alt and his elephant—the killer elephant—taking a tour of drinking establishments. The two of them, meanwhile, left Surf Avenue and went a block over to the Bowery, home to many brothels, and many of the worst bars and gambling houses. Topsy’s feet kicked up dust on the hard-packed streets and well-dressed people slumming it and down-and-out drinkers alike stared at them and pointed. Topsy was quite well-behaved through all of this; in fact over the years, there had never been a problem as long as she was under Whitey’s control. By this time, however, Whitey was getting quite drunk and making a stink about how he wanted respect and this noble animal should never have been hauling lumber in the first place. It was all a mistake, all a stupid mistake made by someone who should have known better than to feed an elephant a lit cigarette.
On down the Bowery, Whitey would leave Topsy outside and go in to get a quick drink. Some establishments—often the better ones—would toss him out immediately, which gave him more fuel or the indignities he felt they were suffering. Other establishments, the seedier ones such as O’Shea’s would humor him and give him a whiskey or two until the bartender thought there was the possibility of a fight and sent him off with one for the elephant. As the walk went on, enough people reported to the police that Whitey and his killer elephant were terrorizing the neighborhood. A few cops were finally sent to arrest him and bring him to the station.
The possible charges ranged from public drunkenness to disturbing the peace to possession of stolen property. Whitey was handcuffed and led a couple of blocks to the small police station and Topsy obediently followed along. One of the police officers left for Thompson and Dundy’s offices to report that they needed to do something about their elephant. No solution was found before they reached the police station, however, and Topsy tried to follow her keeper into the station.
When she pushed her head through, the damage to the front of the wood structure was severe. Another keeper, Carl Goliath, arrived with the police officer to find pandemonium. Whitey stood back in a happy stupor as Goliath tried to lead Topsy out of the doorway and back to the building site and her stable. Topsy, however, would listen to none of Goliath’s commands. Finally, after Thompson and Dundy arrived, the police decided to let Whitey go—provided the partners insure that he would be kept under control, and that he wouldn’t stroll from bar to bar with the elephant again. He was, after all, the only one who could remove the elephant from the front of the station, even as drunk as he was.
Once they had returned to the Luna Park site, they threatened to let Whitey go if anything else happened, but both parties were in a bind—they needed him to take care of Topsy and he needed them to be able to eat. With his reputation, there certainly wouldn’t be much work for him if he was let go.
This stalemate worked for the next two months. Topsy continued to haul lumber and Whitey guided her, as well as occasionally helping out himself. He continued to carouse, but enough establishments had banned him that he had to stick to the more dangerous taverns and the brothels—and in most of those places, no one gave a damn whether he was an elephant keeper or a dwarf trainer; his money was good.
As time wore on, though, he could swear he saw a dip in Topsy’s spirit. She certainly wasn’t enjoying the menial labor, and in particular there was a group of recent immigrants from Italy working on the central tower—a fantastic structure according to Thompson’s drawings—who were clearly making fun of Topsy, and him. Though he couldn’t understand a word they were saying, it was clear from their gestures and the ways in which they looked at Topsy that they didn’t like her.
This is a true story.
Topsy and Whitey Alt, her handler, were relative newcomers to Brooklyn. They had traveled with the circus for a number of years—in fact Topsy had been a popular attraction ever since she had been as Adam Forepaugh’s original baby elephant in 1875—but circumstances had recently changed. First Topsy killed a keeper in a bizarre accident in 1900. Later that year she was responsible for another keeper’s death. In May of 1902, however, the incident that gained her the most notoriety was the killing of J. Fielding Blount, a tourist from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Blount had tried to feed Topsy a lit cigarette. Perhaps it was meant as a little gag, but it freaked Topsy out. She picked him up with her trunk and beat him to death against the ground. Whitey understood that Blount had hurt her and that she was simply defending herself, and he argued these facts with the owners of the circus. They were not to be swayed, however; a killer elephant was not good for business. Better that they sell her and she be part of a side show.
At this time, Fred Thompson and Skip Dundy were in the process of building what would be the largest and most spectacular amusement park in Coney Island: Luna Park. They were also running out of money and living very much on credit. Bargains like a cheap elephant and a devoted handler did not come along often—particularly in a place like Coney Island where elephants were becoming a regular amusement. The fact that Topsy had earned this reputation was of little consequence to them at the time.
Unfortunately, Luna Park was far from being completed and Thompson and Dundy were far from needing an elephant as amusement. What they did need was the extra help a six-ton elephant could provide in moving large pieces of lumber across Surf Avenue. Topsy had performed tricks and delighted crowds, but immediately upon arriving at Luna Park she was pressed into service as part of the construction effort.
Whitey assisted as best he could, and he was happy with the turn of events. Coney Island, with its bars and brothels, suited him. Before, he had simply preferred the company of his elephant, but now he had landed in Sodom-by-the-Sea. No more was he traveling around to places that might or might not appreciate his carousing; here he was in a place that practically reveled in it. When he wasn’t caring for Topsy, he haunted the Bowery—a seedy strip of gambling joints, bars, and brothels. He got into fights and often found himself in trouble with the police.
None of this was unusual for the time or the place. Coney Island was rife with official corruption and undesirable elements. What stood out about Whitey was the fact that he seemed a little off; he was hopelessly devoted to Topsy and would fly into a rage whenever anyone made fun of his job or his elephant—particularly her reputation.
Topsy, though, had her first real chance to make a stir when Whitey’s carousing and love for her collided. On October 30, 1902, Whitey began drinking early in the day and by early afternoon, he was quite drunk and had decided that hauling lumber for Thompson, Dundy, and their amusement park was beneath Topsy. Instead of returning to get another load of lumber, he led the elephant away from the site.
First, they made their way to Feltman’s on Surf Avenue—Whitey leading Topsy along by her harness—where Whitey, much to the chagrin of management and customers, stood outside and ordered hot dogs and beer. After this, the two walked down the street to the nearby German restaurant where Whitey sat in the beer garden while Topsy stood a tether-length away outside. By this time the police were getting wind of Whitey Alt and his elephant—the killer elephant—taking a tour of drinking establishments. The two of them, meanwhile, left Surf Avenue and went a block over to the Bowery, home to many brothels, and many of the worst bars and gambling houses. Topsy’s feet kicked up dust on the hard-packed streets and well-dressed people slumming it and down-and-out drinkers alike stared at them and pointed. Topsy was quite well-behaved through all of this; in fact over the years, there had never been a problem as long as she was under Whitey’s control. By this time, however, Whitey was getting quite drunk and making a stink about how he wanted respect and this noble animal should never have been hauling lumber in the first place. It was all a mistake, all a stupid mistake made by someone who should have known better than to feed an elephant a lit cigarette.
On down the Bowery, Whitey would leave Topsy outside and go in to get a quick drink. Some establishments—often the better ones—would toss him out immediately, which gave him more fuel or the indignities he felt they were suffering. Other establishments, the seedier ones such as O’Shea’s would humor him and give him a whiskey or two until the bartender thought there was the possibility of a fight and sent him off with one for the elephant. As the walk went on, enough people reported to the police that Whitey and his killer elephant were terrorizing the neighborhood. A few cops were finally sent to arrest him and bring him to the station.
The possible charges ranged from public drunkenness to disturbing the peace to possession of stolen property. Whitey was handcuffed and led a couple of blocks to the small police station and Topsy obediently followed along. One of the police officers left for Thompson and Dundy’s offices to report that they needed to do something about their elephant. No solution was found before they reached the police station, however, and Topsy tried to follow her keeper into the station.
When she pushed her head through, the damage to the front of the wood structure was severe. Another keeper, Carl Goliath, arrived with the police officer to find pandemonium. Whitey stood back in a happy stupor as Goliath tried to lead Topsy out of the doorway and back to the building site and her stable. Topsy, however, would listen to none of Goliath’s commands. Finally, after Thompson and Dundy arrived, the police decided to let Whitey go—provided the partners insure that he would be kept under control, and that he wouldn’t stroll from bar to bar with the elephant again. He was, after all, the only one who could remove the elephant from the front of the station, even as drunk as he was.
Once they had returned to the Luna Park site, they threatened to let Whitey go if anything else happened, but both parties were in a bind—they needed him to take care of Topsy and he needed them to be able to eat. With his reputation, there certainly wouldn’t be much work for him if he was let go.
This stalemate worked for the next two months. Topsy continued to haul lumber and Whitey guided her, as well as occasionally helping out himself. He continued to carouse, but enough establishments had banned him that he had to stick to the more dangerous taverns and the brothels—and in most of those places, no one gave a damn whether he was an elephant keeper or a dwarf trainer; his money was good.
As time wore on, though, he could swear he saw a dip in Topsy’s spirit. She certainly wasn’t enjoying the menial labor, and in particular there was a group of recent immigrants from Italy working on the central tower—a fantastic structure according to Thompson’s drawings—who were clearly making fun of Topsy, and him. Though he couldn’t understand a word they were saying, it was clear from their gestures and the ways in which they looked at Topsy that they didn’t like her.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
recycling old writing, ed. 43
This was one of two pieces solicited for The Believer. In the end, neither ever ran, and I never got an explanation. Such is life.
LIGHT: Amusement Parks
Luna Park, Coney Island
Cost (Advertised): $1,500,000
Cost (Real): $750,000
Number of individual incandescent lightbulbs according to advertisements: 200,000
Number according to the New York Times: 122,000
Highest point (central tower): 200 feet
Cost of admission: 10¢
The park opened May 16, 1903, at eight in the evening. In the first five hours, forty-five thousand people came through the gates to see the “Delirium of Something Doing” Thompson and Dundy had promised in their newspaper ads. So much money, so much hype for the moment when all the lights came on. Forget the Pan-American Exposition, this topped it by a mile, even the newspapers thought so. There were curves and arches, dancing like a 3,000,000 candle-power, oriental hallucination, and at the center of it all the grand tower that Fred Thompson cribbed from Buffalo. But he’d made it better, more colorful, the centerpiece of his “Realm of Fairy Romance,” a spire crusted with handblown glass and carbon filaments drawing the populus to a new age like moths to a bare lightbulb.
No question about it, the reputation of Fred Thompson and his partner Skip Dundy was already built on electricity. They’d been successful in Buffalo, and Luna Park would outlive them by 26 years. But what legacy overshadowed all else? The execution of Topsy the elephant. Most people think she killed a keeper (but her days as a killer came before she moved to Coney Island), that she went on a mad rampage (but her keeper put her up to it), and that they had to put her down no better than you would a feral dog. But the truth is that Thompson and Dundy were running out of money. They needed good publicity and Topsy and her keeper Whitey Alt weren’t exactly doing them any favors by touring Coney Island and chasing Italian workers up the tower.
But Thompson and Dundy came up with the perfect way to turn horror into fascination: they would hang the six-ton elephant. When the SPCA and a judge blocked the hanging, they agreed to let Edison electrocute her—his business needed the competitive boost—and make a movie of the event. When all was said and done and her feet had been made into umbrella stands, posterity had its ultimate say: one hundred years later, the Average Person might know that an elephant was electrocuted in Coney Island, but how many remember Luna Park?
Say what you want. Fred Thompson and Skip Dundy deserve better. You could see the glow from Luna Park (“The Heart of Coney Island”) thirty miles away when they turned the lights on. Steeplechase had nothing on it. Nothing in Coney Island ever did, not the Elephant Hotel, not Sea Lion Park, not the Parachute Jump, not the Cyclone, not even the hotel built under the Thunderbolt. (25,000 people on the beach one hot summer night, maybe.) Dreamland? Reynolds built it with an eye to what Thompson and Dundy had already accomplished. When Dreamland joined Luna Park and Steeplechase, you had the trifecta of American entertainment—innovation and incandescent light shooting up into the stratosphere, probably still hanging around in an atom or two up there—never to be duplicated. We’ve tried, and we keep trying to outdo that distant flicker, but nothing can really compete with that moment when more electricity than anyone had thought possible was harnessed and the lights were turned on at Luna Park.
One other fact that usually misses the historical record: there was a fifteen-minute blackout on opening night. Seems Edison’s company had underestimated just how great the demand would be.
LIGHT: Amusement Parks
Luna Park, Coney Island
Cost (Advertised): $1,500,000
Cost (Real): $750,000
Number of individual incandescent lightbulbs according to advertisements: 200,000
Number according to the New York Times: 122,000
Highest point (central tower): 200 feet
Cost of admission: 10¢
The park opened May 16, 1903, at eight in the evening. In the first five hours, forty-five thousand people came through the gates to see the “Delirium of Something Doing” Thompson and Dundy had promised in their newspaper ads. So much money, so much hype for the moment when all the lights came on. Forget the Pan-American Exposition, this topped it by a mile, even the newspapers thought so. There were curves and arches, dancing like a 3,000,000 candle-power, oriental hallucination, and at the center of it all the grand tower that Fred Thompson cribbed from Buffalo. But he’d made it better, more colorful, the centerpiece of his “Realm of Fairy Romance,” a spire crusted with handblown glass and carbon filaments drawing the populus to a new age like moths to a bare lightbulb.
No question about it, the reputation of Fred Thompson and his partner Skip Dundy was already built on electricity. They’d been successful in Buffalo, and Luna Park would outlive them by 26 years. But what legacy overshadowed all else? The execution of Topsy the elephant. Most people think she killed a keeper (but her days as a killer came before she moved to Coney Island), that she went on a mad rampage (but her keeper put her up to it), and that they had to put her down no better than you would a feral dog. But the truth is that Thompson and Dundy were running out of money. They needed good publicity and Topsy and her keeper Whitey Alt weren’t exactly doing them any favors by touring Coney Island and chasing Italian workers up the tower.
But Thompson and Dundy came up with the perfect way to turn horror into fascination: they would hang the six-ton elephant. When the SPCA and a judge blocked the hanging, they agreed to let Edison electrocute her—his business needed the competitive boost—and make a movie of the event. When all was said and done and her feet had been made into umbrella stands, posterity had its ultimate say: one hundred years later, the Average Person might know that an elephant was electrocuted in Coney Island, but how many remember Luna Park?
Say what you want. Fred Thompson and Skip Dundy deserve better. You could see the glow from Luna Park (“The Heart of Coney Island”) thirty miles away when they turned the lights on. Steeplechase had nothing on it. Nothing in Coney Island ever did, not the Elephant Hotel, not Sea Lion Park, not the Parachute Jump, not the Cyclone, not even the hotel built under the Thunderbolt. (25,000 people on the beach one hot summer night, maybe.) Dreamland? Reynolds built it with an eye to what Thompson and Dundy had already accomplished. When Dreamland joined Luna Park and Steeplechase, you had the trifecta of American entertainment—innovation and incandescent light shooting up into the stratosphere, probably still hanging around in an atom or two up there—never to be duplicated. We’ve tried, and we keep trying to outdo that distant flicker, but nothing can really compete with that moment when more electricity than anyone had thought possible was harnessed and the lights were turned on at Luna Park.
One other fact that usually misses the historical record: there was a fifteen-minute blackout on opening night. Seems Edison’s company had underestimated just how great the demand would be.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
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