Luna Park in Coney Island

This guide to Luna Park in Coney Island turns on January 1903, months before the park's grand opening, when fifteen hundred people gathered on this same lot to watch what would happen to an elephant named Topsy. It traces Topsy's twenty-five years in the American circus, the false claims made about her origins, and the day she killed a man who had burned her with a cigar, leaving her keepers to decide she was too dangerous to keep. Best heard standing near the entrance gates, before the rides and crowds pull your attention elsewhere.