Running tour · Brooklyn

Coney Island

1.2 mi run

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. Parachute Jump

   Look up at the red steel tower with twelve arms fanning out at the top, like the frame of an umbrella. This is the Parachute Jump, and it didn't start here.

2. Nathan's Famous

   Look for the Nathan's sign. The story starts in 1916, when Nathan Handwerker, an immigrant from Poland, and his wife Ida used $300 to open a hot dog stand at Surf and Stillwell Avenues. It had a two-foot grill. They spiced the hot dogs with Ida's secret recipe and sold them for a nickel.

3. Wonder Wheel

   Look up at the Wonder Wheel, 150 feet tall, about the height of a fifteen-story building. Watch the colored cars. Sixteen of them swing along curved tracks, toward the hub and back out to the rim as the wheel turns. It opened in 1920, and it still stands on the same site.

4. Cyclone

   Look for the white steel frame, the wooden track and the big CYCLONE letters on the lift hill. Listen, too. You can often hear the screaming.

5. New York Aquarium

   Look for the long sculpture wall of sea life along the boardwalk. It's by the artist Toshio Sasaki: 332 feet long, ten feet tall, outside the New York Aquarium. Along its length, the creatures get more and more primitive, suggesting the evolution of marine life.

6. Riegelmann Boardwalk

   Look down. The planks under you make a chevron pattern, broken here and there by bands of grey paving. This is the Riegelmann Boardwalk, 2.7 miles long and 80 feet wide. That's wider than most city streets.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source