Queer Coney Island
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Description
A collection of places and spaces that have shaped Coney Island as a queer destination for over a century.
1. Alice Austen House and Museum
This establishment was the house of Alice Austen, but is now a museum that is part of the Historic House Trust. The house sits in a beautiful park that boasts a panoramic view that stretches from the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn and, on a clear day, Coney Island. The museum includes a permanent exhibition of Alice Austen's work, changing exhibitions of contemporary art, and period rooms. There is also a beautiful Victorian Garden at the museum. This is one of the best views in and of New York City. Staffs and volunteers are always happy to give private tours of the museum.
2. Tirza's Wine Bath: Queer Performance Out of an Apartment
Madam Tirza was the stage name of Leona Duval, a performer who became famous in Coney Island in the early 1940s for performing burlesque in 40 gallons of a liquid that was dyed to look like wine (Ryan, 2019). 2905 W. 15th St. is the location of an apartment where Tirza was performing her "Wine Bath" in 1949 after her show had been shut down numerous times by a growing wave of censorship targeting burlesque and other "transgressive" performance acts after World War II. In 1946, Tirza's act, along with two other Coney Island burlesque shows, were temporarily shut down by the City License commissioner, Ben Fielding (ibid). This was part of a larger wave of censorship sweeping NYC and the nation after World War II, when government agencies shut down performance venues and police ticketed individuals across NYC that they identified as transgressing normative values. Madam Tirza was well-known as bisexual and resisted conforming to conventional gender roles ; she became a unionized plumber and a licensed truck driver, which helped her maintain independence when her burlesque show went on tour.
