Defunctland: The History of Coney Island

ASPCA: You can’t hang the elephant, that’s too cruel!
Also ASPCA: agrees to a plan that’s at least 10x worse

I think we can agree the only humane way to kill an elephant is to build a brothel inside of it. Like, gentlemen.

Poor Topsy. I read about her. She was actually innocent and a perpetual victim of human cruelty. The human she "killed" was an abusive "Trailer" who fed her lit cigarettes mixed with her peanuts just because he liked her terrified and pained reaction.

i love kevin defunctland because sometimes he'll just say shit like how a dude "died by a polar bear" and then move on with the video like it's totally normal

"Admissions to the burning ruins 10¢"
That's goals, right there

"They got to touch... WOMAN SHOULDER. Or as it was known in 1897: third base." Absolute perfection. I wish I was that clever.

The fact that to this day Czech language calls all amusement parks "lunapark" just shows how much of an impact it had on culture worldwide.

"Bragg wanted him in the Brig, but Boynton began to brag on the suit. Bragg bought the brag and kept Boynton out of the Brig allowing him to attempt his stunt." God those are some great sentences

“Any touching was reserved for the home...”
Well that makes sense for the ti -
“...and the giant elephant brothel a few feet away.”
I’M SORRY WHAT

You can't just skip over a guy getting killed by a polar bear.

Why am I even surprised that the villain is once again Robert Moses.

The premature incubator thing is my favourite historical moment. They were free for the patients and there names weren't shown anywhere for privacy reasons. Not only did they have wet nurses but the wet nurses had special chef's so the babies had the best possible nutrition! They were there for decades and grown up patients would come back as adults and meet the parents of current patients.

Slaps roof of Coney island


This bad boy can fit so many fires in it

“Moses had a complicated relationship with the lower class, in that he did not seem to like them very much, but definitely could not say that out loud”

Kevin, I love you

The dichotomy between this being one of the funniest defunctland episodes and all the animal deaths is insane

Oh!!! The baby incubators! I heard about those on the sawbones podcast. Those were really cool actually. The funds from the attraction were used for to pay for nurses, upkeep of the incubators, and the needs of the infants! This revolutionized care of premature babies. Parents willingly had their babies in that show because, no joke, the infants wouldn’t have survived otherwise! There wasn’t anyone else doing premature baby care as successfully as that show!

"Boobs are ok, if for bible reasons." I'm going to quote that forever.

"He had a complicated relationship with the lower class, in that he did not seem to like them very much but definitely could not say that out loud."
There are so many amazing lines in this one; you have outdone yourself, for the record.

I grew up in Brooklyn, and my Mother and Grandparents lived on Coney Island for most of their lives. My grandfather even worked at Steeplechase Pier and Luna Park as a kid. So I've been told SO many stories.

My Great Grandfather was an orthodox Jewish man who would commonly use a local bathhouse on the boardwalk (it was the Great Depression, and public bathouses were generally cheaper, especially when raising 8 children).

One day, while he was out, they learned that there was a fire and the bathhouse burned down, and were relieved when he came home safe. But he refused to talk about it. In reality, he was there when the fire broke out. He desperately helped people get out of the building, but needed to quickly cover himself before exiting. The only thing on-hand, was a woman's dress he found.

So you can imagine the family's face when a local paper arrived the next day to show my Orthodox Jewish Great Grandfather running out of a bathhouse in a woman's dress on the front page.

(Been looking for a copy of it for years, but it seems to be lost to time, unfortunately)

Grew up in Coney, Its heartbreaking to see how much renovating it has gone through now. Moses' plan of making Coney less of an area for low income families has finally gone through fruition, I had to move out because of gentrification. I would have loved to see Coney Island back in its hayday