The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

by Claire Prentice

  Though many of the Igorrotes in Truman’s group had known each other before, others had never met. Now, forced together by circumstance, they formed new bonds. Minor quibbles were quickly quashed and Julio and the tribal elder, Falino,4 worked hard to ensure disagreements were speedily resolved. The group would be living in close quarters for the next year and, as Julio pointed out, they could ill afford to make enemies among themselves.

  As they sailed across the ocean, the men delighted the boys with vivid tales of their head-hunting expeditions from long ago. They were led by Falino, who, as the oldest, had more heads to his credit than all of the others. Falino had thought it strange when Truman asked him his age. Igorrotes didn’t regard ages or dates as important. Their calendar revolved around the crop cycle and was divided into ten, not twelve, months. They used numbers in an impressionistic, rather than precise, fashion. If something was large or took a long time, then a big number was used to describe it. Their crossing of the Pacific, a journey of less than a month, was described among the Igorrotes as a voyage of “a thousand nights.”5

  Some of the Igorrotes were afraid of the vast ocean and didn’t dare venture outside. Others went up on deck to survey the horizon. “I would never have believed there was so much water. For many days we saw no land, yet we kept on night and day. Even in dark nights when there was no moon or star we went on just as fast,” marveled Fomoaley.6 Friday was mesmerized by the seemingly infinite ocean and would willingly have stayed up on deck for the entire journey if he had been permitted. He spent many a happy hour with the menfolk, listening to the waves crashing against the hull, throwing bits of whatever he could find overboard and watching as they were quickly gobbled up by the sea. His favorite time was when he would sneak up alone after nightfall and stare up at the sky. He imagined he could see his mother between the stars, watching over him and his new life. Sometimes he took out his mirror and held the reflective side up toward the night sky, as if trying to catch the glow.

  Life had settled into familiar rhythms belowdecks. The industrious Igorrotes took pleasure in the jobs they could find, like mending their musical instruments and darning holes in their blankets. When Julio called the tribe together one evening to announce that they would arrive in Vancouver the next day, the Igorrotes found the news unsettling. They had just grown used to life at sea and now another, much bigger challenge awaited them.

  On Tuesday, April 18, 1905, the Empress reached port. It had been a largely uneventful crossing, which Captain Archibald put down to favorable weather conditions. In the early 1900s, Vancouver was one of the busiest ports on the northwest Pacific coast, receiving a massive daily traffic of goods, mail, and passengers. Without delay the Empress of China began to disgorge its nineteen hundred tons of cargo. Bales of Oriental silk bound for New York, burlap bags of rice, crates of tea, and packing cases were passed hand to hand by longshoremen onto the quayside as the first-class passengers began to descend the gangplank. The passenger lists were always scrutinized by the local press: when film stars or royalty were known to be on board, the crowds on the port could be dozens deep. That day Lord Hawke was the most famous man aboard and the cricketer happily signed autographs on the quayside. The Viscount and Viscountess Castlereagh disembarked without occasioning much excitement.

  In steerage, the Filipinos were getting a pep talk from Julio. Callahan stood watching. He’d be glad to get off this stinking ship. It was claustrophobic and had made him yearn for life on land again. Julio knew that Truman was eager to get them across the city quickly and with a minimum of fuss; the interpreter instructed the Igorrotes to put on their American clothes. When a few of the tribespeople grumbled, Julio reminded them that they were working for Truman now and he was paying them to obey his orders. They were to stay together as a group. Anyone caught wandering off would be severely reprimanded. They would be fined, their first American wage withheld.

  Truman pulled on his coat and left his cabin. He closed the door behind him and instructed the cabin boy to have his trunk delivered onto the quayside, where he would arrange for it, along with the steamer trunks filled with spears, shields, and strips of bamboo, to be taken to Vancouver’s main train station. Then Truman and Moody descended the narrow companionway leading to steerage. Truman tried not to gag as the stale smell emanating from below deck pricked his nostrils. He surveyed the ragtag tribal group, who were still pulling on their new clothes. Behind them, Truman noticed Falino was leaning heavily against a bunk with his eyes closed. He approached Julio, who informed him that the old man was feeling unwell. It was just a cold, nothing to worry about. Truman told Julio not to leave the sick man’s side in port. Then he instructed the interpreter and Callahan to begin herding the tribe up onto the deck. Feloa lent Falino a steadying arm.

  On deck, quarantine officers inspected the new arrivals. Julio stood next to Falino and whispered to the old man to stand up straight. All immigrants were subject to a medical check, and could be refused entry or their guardian could be required to pay a three-hundred-dollar bond if they were discovered to be infirm, lunatic, idiotic, deaf, dumb, or blind, to ensure they did not become dependent on the Canadian state. Truman could not afford to throw three hundred dollars away like that. When it was Falino’s turn to be examined, the medical inspector peered at him for what felt to Julio like a long time, asking him to show his gums and cough. A fine sweat broke out on Falino’s brow. Finally the inspector nodded brusquely and moved on to the next man. When the medical inspectors were satisfied that the Filipinos were not carrying any infectious diseases, they signaled to Truman that he could take them off the ship.

  After three weeks spent living in an enclosed space with minimal fresh air and little natural light, the Igorrotes emerged blinking into the chill of an early-spring day in Vancouver. The tips of their fingers tingled, and the cool air caught in their throats. The port pulsated with life. The tribespeople stood for a moment, silently taking in the sights and sounds of the unfamiliar new land. Truman shouted at them to keep walking. The Igorrotes obeyed, their eyes darting all around as they followed Julio, and took their first tentative steps toward their new lives in the Land of Opportunity.

  4

  The Money Men

  MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, APRIL 12, 1905

  Frederic Thompson and Elmer “Skip” Dundy opened the Hippodrome in April 1905.

  LONG BEFORE THE doors opened at seven o’clock, a crowd began to gather on the sidewalk. Women in furs and men in tuxedos spilled out of motorcars. A seemingly endless line of carriages ran as far as the eye could see along Sixth Avenue and round the corner, choking Forty-Third and Forty-Fourth Streets. Roundsman Fogarty, the police officer in charge of the patrol and a veteran of the theater squad, declared that he had never seen a longer line of carriages drawn up before any New York amusement enterprise in his entire career.1

  Six thousand people turned out for the opening night of the Hippodrome Theater, affectionately dubbed “the Hippo” on account of its vast girth. Five thousand more came in the hope of buying tickets, but were turned away empty-handed.2 Every seat in the house was taken. The expectant crowd milled around on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open. They were illuminated by twenty-five thousand tiny white lights, which studded the towers at either end of the Hippodrome, shining out over neighboring Broadway. New Yorkers knew how to dress up for an occasion, but this was something special. They’d pulled out all the stops. The ladies wore evening dresses in pastel blues, greens, pinks, and peaches, made of the finest silks, velvet, and delicate chiffon layered over lace, embroidered with pearls, diamanté, and beads. They carried fans and evening bags in their gloved hands. The men wore top hats and tails. Their shoes were highly polished and their sideburns neatly trimmed.

  The doors were unlocked and the audience surged inside. People chatted animatedly to strangers standing next to them in the line as they waited to have their tickets torn by men dressed in long red coats and black trousers with gold stripes down the sides. Nobody kn
ew quite what to expect but with the Luna Park creators Frederic Thompson and Elmer “Skip” Dundy running the show, one thing was certain: they were in for a stunning night’s entertainment. In the bar, the hum of conversation mingled with the sounds of corks popping and glasses clinking. There were rumors of swimming horses, lions in glass cases, and an epic battle scene. Just then the Vanderbilts entered the room. A hush descended as heads turned and necks craned. Other VIPs in attendance included the Guggenheims, the socialite Harry Payne Whitney, and Chauncey Depew, the New York senator and former president of the New York Central Railroad System. The millionaire showman James A. Bailey of Barnum and Bailey fame was overheard telling his party that it was the first time in thirty years he had visited a playhouse.3 This was a night not to be missed; it was history in the making.

  Standing in the plush lobby of the Hippodrome surrounded by bejeweled ladies, and gents in white bow ties and stiff collars, was a clean-shaven man in a striped brown suit with a black derby hat and a pair of muddy shoes. He stood out only for his ordinariness, dare anyone say it, even his scruffiness. “How are you, Fred?” shouted the millionaire John W. Gates, breaking away from his friends, and going over to shake the man’s hand.4 The young man he addressed was none other than Frederic Thompson, the creative genius behind Luna Park and the Hippodrome and a man, despite appearances, famed for his extravagant tastes. The two men stood chatting for a moment before someone else recognized Thompson and stopped to wish him luck.

  At just thirty-three years of age, Thompson had a lot riding on that night. Not only had he put together the program, he and Dundy had spent $1.5 million5 ($40 million in today’s money) of their own and backers’ money building the Hippodrome, swallowing up their savings and all their profits from Luna Park. Thompson himself designed the Hippodrome, along with the architect Jay H. Morgan, and together the two men had created a lavish theater that boasted a stage twelve times the size of the average Broadway stage. In short, the venture was the biggest gamble of Thompson and Dundy’s professional lives. Thompson would be glad when the curtain went up and the show got underway. He was relieved to see Dundy striding toward him with a drink in each hand. Thompson excused himself from the group of well-wishers who had gathered around and walked over to greet his business partner.

  Thompson and Dundy had a genius for the entertainment business. Their partnership was magical, with each egging the other on to greater triumphs of inventiveness.

  Dundy had a broad frame, pleasant features, and was a gifted political operator. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1862, the son of a federal judge, and grew up in a large, comfortable house where the famous showman Buffalo Bill Cody was a regular guest of his parents. Under pressure from his father to enter the legal profession, Dundy started his career as a clerk of the court. But the law was not for him; Buffalo Bill’s stories of life in the show ring had awakened in the young Dundy a fascination with the world of midways and fairs.

  Though he was born into privilege, Dundy’s early life was not without personal challenges. He had a stutter that he had to work hard to overcome, developing a system of “running” at his words that gave his speech a sense of urgency. This came in handy when he got his first job as a pitchman at a fair, ensuring that Dundy’s pitches stood out from all the rest. Dundy had also gone prematurely bald and was very sensitive about his hair loss. But he turned this imperfection into a business advantage: whenever he was losing an argument, without saying a word, he would remove his center-parted toupee and put it in his pocket, in a bid to distract his opponents. It was a tactic he used on Thompson whenever his business partner’s imagination and spending were getting out of hand.

  Thompson was of slender build and had a long face and heavy-lidded eyes. High-strung, prodigiously energetic, and outgoing, he was one of the most popular men in the New York entertainment business. He had an unrivaled passion for his work and “tried to do four times as much work as most men would be satisfied to pass to their credit.”6 Thompson was born in Irontown, Ohio, and was a decade younger than Dundy, though he didn’t look it. But what Thompson lacked in looks he more than made up for with charm. Thompson had begun his career as an office clerk and planned to start his own brokerage company, but a trip to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair changed that. At the fair he took a job as a janitor and, after impressing his bosses, was put in charge of an exhibit. From that moment on, he was hooked. He saw the enormous possibilities that the amusement business offered, both for generating profits and as an outlet for his pent-up creativity.

  He wound up in Nashville, Tennessee, where he took a job as a draftsman. A competition to design buildings and pavilions for a local fair gave Thompson the break he needed. He won twenty-five hundred dollars for his entry, no small sum in 1896 (worth around sixty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars today). When the Nashville fair opened, Thompson’s uncle turned a failing attraction over to him to see if he could make a go of it. It was called the Blue Grotto and Thompson didn’t have to look hard to see why the damp and leaky papier-mâché exhibit was failing. While he didn’t have money to dramatically alter the structure of the attraction, he could tinker at the edges and spend what little he had on causing a stir. He replaced the barker outside the grotto with an Edison cylinder phonograph, which, he reasoned, was so novel it was sure to attract the attention of passersby whom he could talk into buying a ticket. He wound it up and stood back. Within minutes a huge crowd had gathered around to discover where the crackling disembodied voice was coming from. The novelty paid off, the attraction turned a profit, and Thompson’s career as a showman was launched.

  Thompson and Dundy’s first meeting, in 1898, was hardly auspicious. It took place at the Trans-Centennial Exposition in Omaha, where the two men were running rival—and coincidentally, remarkably similar—attractions. Thompson was there with a cyclorama called Darkness and Dawn, while Dundy was running The Mystic Garden. Both gave viewers a glimpse into what heaven and hell might look like. But, to Dundy’s great annoyance, his attraction was inferior to and much less popular than Thompson’s.

  Their paths crossed again at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, three years later and they immediately recognized each other. Thompson had created a groundbreaking new attraction for Buffalo, called A Trip to the Moon (it predated the 1902 Georges Méliès film of the same name), which captivated the imagination of an audience eager for new experiences. At ten-minute intervals, would-be astronauts were invited, for a dime, to journey beyond the bounds of Earth, via a “combination of electrical mechanism and scenic and lighting effects . . . [which] produce the sensation of leaving Earth and flying through space amid stars, comets and planets to the Moon.”7 Unlike previous attractions that moved around the audience, this one took them on a journey using innovative electrical devices to lift them off the ground.

  Dundy asked Thompson for a demonstration. Smiling, Thompson invited Dundy and his fellow passengers to board a cigar-shaped spacecraft. A gong sounded. The spacecraft’s huge wings began to beat, slowly at first, then gathering speed, and the craft lurched forward with a whooshing sound. The “airship” was operated by a complicated system of gimbal bearings under the deck, which imparted a rocking motion, while the wings and large propellers were operated by powerful dynamos. Through the windows, images of the fairground receded into the distance to be replaced by clouds and the tiny lights of the earth below. Moments later the spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface. There the fairgoers were greeted by miniature moon men, singing “My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon,” and handing out chunks of green cheese. The moon dwellers led the visitors through a cavernous papier-mâché lunar landscape pocked with craters painted red, yellow, and green, and across a drawbridge that led into a castle. There the moon king and queen reclined on huge velvet thrones, dressed in robes and crowns, flanked by bronze griffins.

  Astounding, was Dundy’s verdict. He immediately asked his rival to go into business with him. Thompson said yes: if Dundy co
uld learn from Thompson’s creativity, then he could surely benefit from Dundy’s focus and financial expertise.

  A Trip to the Moon was the standout success of the Pan-American Exposition. After it closed, Thompson and Dundy were inundated with offers from amusement park owners across America who were eager to get their hands on the moneymaking attraction. They struck a deal with George Tilyou, the owner of Steeplechase Park at Coney Island, on the condition that they would continue to manage the attraction at Steeplechase and the three of them would split the profits. Tilyou agreed. Thompson and Dundy quickly made an impression at Coney. They staged a number of headline-grabbing publicity stunts, most famously the public electrocution of Topsy, a six-ton Indian elephant, who had killed her trainer (it later transpired that the trainer treated her cruelly and had put a lit cigar to the end of Topsy’s trunk). Edison power company workers hooked up electrodes to her feet, then turned on the current. Smoke rose from the great beast’s hide. She convulsed, then seconds later she toppled over, dead. Thompson preserved Topsy’s feet and part of her hide for an office chair.

  When Tilyou offered Thompson and Dundy a reduced share of the profits the following season, Thompson and Dundy ditched their business partner, taking A Trip to the Moon with them. The enterprising duo bought up the neighboring Sea Lion Park, where they set about creating a theme park to beat them all. They would name it after Dundy’s sister, Luna.

  While Dundy took care of the finances, wining and dining potential investors from Wall Street and the Coney Island racing crowd, Thompson lived on-site at Luna Park, sacrificing sleep and surviving on little but adrenaline and creative inspiration as he drew up plans for thrilling and outlandish attractions. Luna Park opened on May 16, 1903, and was an immediate success. Top attractions included a replica of Venice, complete with gondolas paddling along the Grand Canal; the War of the Worlds, a spectacle in which miniature versions of the navies of the allied European powers attacked New York Harbor; and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, a submarine ride to the polar regions.