Signs for "Miss Olga Hess, the headless girl-how long can science keep her alive?" and "The kid with two bodies and one head" beckon the curious on Coney Island. Your correspondent paid $1 to gawk at the "Little Lady from Haiti, the world's smallest woman". The cheap-thrill sideshows have an audience (though the queue for "Shoot the Freak-Live Human Target" was thankfully non-existent) but it is things like the Wonder Wheel, a landmarked Ferris wheel, and the Cyclone, an 82-year-old rickety, wooden rollercoaster, that draw enormous crowds. The main attraction is Coney Island's famous boardwalk, packed on most summer days with strolling tourists and jogging locals. George Tilyou, a 19th-century developer, said "If Paris is France; Coney Island, between June and September, is the world."
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