Stefanie says:
Remnants of Wonder: Photographs of a Fading Coney Island, 2008 captures the last moments before a period of transformation of one of America's most iconic entertainment destinations.
In early 2008, I read that Coney Island was about to undergo major redevelopment. My heart sank. Though I grew up in Ohio and then California, I'd long been drawn to Coney Island's mythos—and had photographed it since moving to New York in the late 1990s. What began as a series of vibrant street portraits shifted as I felt compelled to document what was about to disappear.
Coney Island has held a very special place in the hearts of millions since the mid-1800s when ferries and trains paved the way to its sandy beaches and amusement parks. The combination of technological development, urbanization, new ideas about leisure, and the influx of immigrants into America fueled its development into an entertainment capital, bringing together people from diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds and transcending social boundaries. This unleashed democratic spirit has, over the years, offered a seductively liberating environment and a muse for artists.
I chose to shoot in early spring, when the crowds were gone, and the fog and rain mirrored my sense of loss. I used a Diana plastic film camera—manual, imperfect, and often unpredictable. The resulting soft-focus medium format black-and-white images captured the place's raw beauty and fading glory. The process slowed me down. Each frame became a way to honor what was vanishing.
While Coney Island lost landmarks like Astroland during this time, it remains beloved and uncontested. The Wonder Wheel still turns, but new developments loom, including a proposed $3 billion casino complex. As history repeats itself, this series stands as a visual elegy for a version of Coney Island that once was—and will never be again.