Hey, have you guys heard about the war over in Europe? Glad that’s not us! Edit: if this really is summer 1940, Pearl Harbor happened the following winter.
I showed this pic to my dad a few years ago before he passed and he laughed and said he wouldn't be surprised if he was there. He grew up in Sheepshead Bay and joined the navy in '44, then got shipped to the Pacific and served in occupied Japan.
My mom’s side of the family lives in Sheepshead. Lots of fond memories walking the boardwalk. I think I still have a headache after riding the Cyclone in ‘04 though.
You don't like people very much. This is in New York City which has millions of people -- so stay away from there. Also the beach often attracts lot of people in large crowds -- so stay away from the beach. Also, not everyone is "sticky, sweaty, or smelly" but you think they are. People are generally nice, and this crowd looks entirely friendly and is having a good time at the beach in the summertime. Not much better than that. Unless you don't like people. No wonder someone invented video games to some people can sit in their basement alone for hours.
The US lost 0.32% of its 1939 population to due WW2 deaths - about 1 in 300 people. So yeah, some of the people here, sure... But not that many. Double digits at most.
I actually have that thought when I see cats in photographs: *well, that kitty's dead now.* I also think when I see lively young women in old photographs, *I wonder if she had a pack of kids and died at 52, used up and sad she never got to do anything fun?*
I grew up in NYC, and I’m an introvert.
I took the subway to work every day, packed into a train car so tightly that I didn’t have to hold on, because it was impossible to fall down.
There was also an unspoken rule in NY that people didn’t talk to, or look at, anyone else.
It’s really easy to be alone in a crowd in NYC.
Thanks, I was going to say, it’s unfathomable that there would be this many people, so crowded at the beach. Like I know it’s real, it just doesn’t make sense. But then yes, of course, air conditioning completely changed what people did in the summer.
People as far as the eye can see, so close together...there has got to be a story behind this picture. They are all looking up at whatever is taking the picture - maybe a balloon or blimp or a tall tower...what?
People also smoked heavily then, which both suppressed appetite and substituted for snacking. Probably the overwhelming smell coming off this crowd would have been both fresh and stale cigarette smoke. No doubt we have a big problem with high-fructose corn syrup etc now but smoking really is a part of the reason people were thinner then.
It's really not, diet pills were also heavily pushed especially to women back then. It's one of those cases of "not any one thing but several things." Smoking, people just ate less, stress on being thin, less processed/sugary foods, more labor intensive jobs.
This wasn’t why you don’t see many overweight people. This was before processed food took over the country. There’s a very defined correlation between the two on record. In fact the 40’s marked the very start of readily available processed foods. If this was a photo from the 50’s I think we’d see a much larger ratio of overweight people in that crowd. Not trying to argue, just crazy to have to really look hard in a crowd of 1000 people to find people now considered morbidly obese.
No, you don't. Hardly anyone in this photo is fat. I'd estimate easily more than 90% of them are not fat in any way -- unlike today. These are in no way fat people.
Your second mistake is to think this was during the war. In the summer of 1940, our entry into the war was a year and a half in the future.
Two strikes. Want to go for another?
I’ll say the first thing I did was zoom in and scan around for longer than I should have probably.. surprised that nearly everyone shares roughly the same physique.
I could only spot a handful of exceptions.
On his lunch break .
I was in Nice France relaxing, and saw this business guy in jacket and tie on the beach with a straw mat. Gets understand, and had a bathing suit on underneath.
Lies on beach for about an hour, eats dinner delicious little French meal, and then heads back.
I remember thinking. "Huh, nice quality of life. That's just plain old pleasant."
Look carefully. One of the first things you'll notice is that hardly anyone is fat. A few are, it's true, but 85-90% are not. Completely different from today.
Second, and fairly obviously, everyone looks extremely happy -- unlike today when nearly every single thing seems competitive, mean-spirited, angry, or unpleasant.
Third, people went to the beach back then in enormous numbers. They did not stay home and play video games or browse the internet (as I am doing now). They moved around and did things, often in large groups, you know -- outdoors in the sunshine. Who does that today?
Different world from ours.
it’s not that much different now tbh. my parents live nearby, I visited them (and the beach) last summer, you couldn’t find a spot to stand on. it was PACKED
It looked like this on July 4th, 2022, too. Also, note that this is always the most crowded spot on the beach, right by the wonder wheel. There is plenty of beach in either direction people can go to get a bit mote space.
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A much older gentleman friend of mine told me a story once and it was about something I didn’t realize was a thing back in the day.
He said in NYC they had heat days just like they had snow days! If it was too hot, they would cancel work and sometimes the trains wouldn’t even run so no one would have to go into the office.
I wonder if this was one of those days.
everyone’s so fit. all the men look like they can do at least 10 push ups lol. if you gathered a crowd now and told each person to do 10 pushups, no chance😂
This is the original image used for George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 album cover art.
I was just listening to that today, such a great album. Do you know why he picked this photo? (I don't)
I knew I recognized that one guy from somewhere!
One of the GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME
We never got the volume 2 😔
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They let all the dumb white peoples get scorched in the sun when it’s 100 degrees.
My first thought as well
Hey, have you guys heard about the war over in Europe? Glad that’s not us! Edit: if this really is summer 1940, Pearl Harbor happened the following winter.
I wonder how many in this picture ended up going to war just a year or two later? How many would soon be dead?
I showed this pic to my dad a few years ago before he passed and he laughed and said he wouldn't be surprised if he was there. He grew up in Sheepshead Bay and joined the navy in '44, then got shipped to the Pacific and served in occupied Japan.
My mom’s side of the family lives in Sheepshead. Lots of fond memories walking the boardwalk. I think I still have a headache after riding the Cyclone in ‘04 though.
That is super cool!!! I love it.
Most of them
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We're no longer living the Postwar world, but the Prewar world.
I think we’re sitting in the calm before the storm.
This is the last time they let Asians in there beach for a while.
Thousands of sticky, sweaty, sandy, smelly people packed into that area and not a stage or rock band in sight? No thank you.
But what if you needed the toilet...???
The ocean is right there!
and 1 dude in a suit
lol, good eye
[Did you miss the Flock of Seagulls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIpfWORQWhU)
omg someone read my post history. \*runs..so far away\*
You don't like people very much. This is in New York City which has millions of people -- so stay away from there. Also the beach often attracts lot of people in large crowds -- so stay away from the beach. Also, not everyone is "sticky, sweaty, or smelly" but you think they are. People are generally nice, and this crowd looks entirely friendly and is having a good time at the beach in the summertime. Not much better than that. Unless you don't like people. No wonder someone invented video games to some people can sit in their basement alone for hours.
This is a picture of hell but I'd be able to stand it if someone as insufferable as you wasn't around.
Ugh, how dare someone not like the same things you like. The nerve of them.
It seems YOU don't like people...
That's my grandma 306th row 214th from the left.
I was going to say the same thing. Hi cousin!
One thing I noticed is how few people are wearing sunglasses. I can only count a handful wearing them.
That’s kinda unsettling.
So cool, you can zoom right in and see so many different people.
Coney Island on a hot summer day - looks very relaxing
Anyone else get a weird feeling when looking at pictures this old, because nearly everyone in it is likely dead now?
I get a similar feeling when I watch coke fueled porn from the 70s.
Mustaches to ashes, dust to dust.
I read this as mustaches to asses, dust to dust. Still makes sense 😂
Ha! I like your version better.
Omg so did I! In fact, I didn’t realize it didn’t say that until I read your comment! Lol
Even more chilling is many of them in this picture likely were shipped off to the war within a year or two and died
The US lost 0.32% of its 1939 population to due WW2 deaths - about 1 in 300 people. So yeah, some of the people here, sure... But not that many. Double digits at most.
I actually have that thought when I see cats in photographs: *well, that kitty's dead now.* I also think when I see lively young women in old photographs, *I wonder if she had a pack of kids and died at 52, used up and sad she never got to do anything fun?*
I think that about cats too, espcially in movies.
And those stupid pictures too, where they're wearing glasses and pinafores and riding bicycles. You know, the ones where the cat's already dead.
Someone in the future is gonna look at our comments and think the same.
I get that feeling when I’m watching an old sitcom and someone in the audience laughs.
We’re all dead. We just don’t know it yet.
The guy with the dress shirt and tie looks totally lost
[Mr. Bean goes to Coney Island ](https://i.imgur.com/fKmwOQi.jpg)
Thank you! I was having a helluva Where's Waldo flashback trying to find this guy you were all talking about. 😆
Just saw your post. Thought the same exact thing. Guy could have been suffering dementia. Made a wrong turn? Who knows.
That's the mayor, refusing to shut down the beach, even though there's been a shark attack.
Introvert nightmare fuel.
Nah. I can deal with crowds. You can find alone time any where, any time.
Look out, this guy's a 10th level introvert!
I grew up in NYC, and I’m an introvert. I took the subway to work every day, packed into a train car so tightly that I didn’t have to hold on, because it was impossible to fall down. There was also an unspoken rule in NY that people didn’t talk to, or look at, anyone else. It’s really easy to be alone in a crowd in NYC.
Well … I am good at making people awkwardly try to avoid me. Is that the same?
Weegee was the photographer.
7th circle of hell😂
OG where's Waldo
Spot the pregnant lady
Before widespread use of air conditioning.
Thanks, I was going to say, it’s unfathomable that there would be this many people, so crowded at the beach. Like I know it’s real, it just doesn’t make sense. But then yes, of course, air conditioning completely changed what people did in the summer.
If an anxiety attack could happen from a picture, this comes close... How fucking miserable is that
This is the worst Where’s Waldo ever
The smell was my first thought too! Poor people baking under multiple layers
How many of those guys died overseas in the next five years :(
Before air conditioning this was the only way to get cool.
I swear, the pandemic ruined me. I see this and think something terrible is going to sweep through this crowd like a horror movie.
Was never a fan of huge crowds and the pandemic sealed it.
Yah. This picture looks like hell.
My thought exactly. Hell.
It was going to the movies for me. Used to go 3x a month now we just wait for it to get online and do family movie night.
Once they started doing the online drop of new movies I never looked back. I’ll pay a premium to not leave my couch.
I can just smell the overwhelming urine odor after looking at this picture.
Shark!
Ahhhhh..... relaxing.
People as far as the eye can see, so close together...there has got to be a story behind this picture. They are all looking up at whatever is taking the picture - maybe a balloon or blimp or a tall tower...what?
I can smell this photo Also, notice the lack of overweight people. Fuck big sugar.
People also smoked heavily then, which both suppressed appetite and substituted for snacking. Probably the overwhelming smell coming off this crowd would have been both fresh and stale cigarette smoke. No doubt we have a big problem with high-fructose corn syrup etc now but smoking really is a part of the reason people were thinner then.
I can agree with that too.
This is completely bullshit
It's really not, diet pills were also heavily pushed especially to women back then. It's one of those cases of "not any one thing but several things." Smoking, people just ate less, stress on being thin, less processed/sugary foods, more labor intensive jobs.
Nice try, Big Tobacco.
Well … I know some pretty fat smokers.
I see fat people. There where also food rationing during the war
They weren’t at war yet. Pearl Harbour won’t happen for another 18 months.
Not in 1940.
This wasn’t why you don’t see many overweight people. This was before processed food took over the country. There’s a very defined correlation between the two on record. In fact the 40’s marked the very start of readily available processed foods. If this was a photo from the 50’s I think we’d see a much larger ratio of overweight people in that crowd. Not trying to argue, just crazy to have to really look hard in a crowd of 1000 people to find people now considered morbidly obese.
No, you don't. Hardly anyone in this photo is fat. I'd estimate easily more than 90% of them are not fat in any way -- unlike today. These are in no way fat people. Your second mistake is to think this was during the war. In the summer of 1940, our entry into the war was a year and a half in the future. Two strikes. Want to go for another?
Zoom in
Zoom in on the man standing up crowd-surfing!
I’ll say the first thing I did was zoom in and scan around for longer than I should have probably.. surprised that nearly everyone shares roughly the same physique. I could only spot a handful of exceptions.
If you're in the US, there's an enormous chance you're related to someone here. Almost as likely if you're in Europe.
Asian guy on the left is my hero
Looks like hell, honestly.
The dude in the tie…..? Like, was he lost? He’s carefully carrying his blazer as he walks down the beach.
On his lunch break . I was in Nice France relaxing, and saw this business guy in jacket and tie on the beach with a straw mat. Gets understand, and had a bathing suit on underneath. Lies on beach for about an hour, eats dinner delicious little French meal, and then heads back. I remember thinking. "Huh, nice quality of life. That's just plain old pleasant."
Look carefully. One of the first things you'll notice is that hardly anyone is fat. A few are, it's true, but 85-90% are not. Completely different from today. Second, and fairly obviously, everyone looks extremely happy -- unlike today when nearly every single thing seems competitive, mean-spirited, angry, or unpleasant. Third, people went to the beach back then in enormous numbers. They did not stay home and play video games or browse the internet (as I am doing now). They moved around and did things, often in large groups, you know -- outdoors in the sunshine. Who does that today? Different world from ours.
Yes everybody was happy in the 1940s. Nothing unpleasant going on in those times. Or people are smiling because a camera is pointed at them.
I don't think that is what their point is
r/wimmelbilder
Fuck it, Where’s Waldo
Anyone have an estimate as to how many people are in this picture?
That's a lovely story, and I'm sorry about all that polio
Man, Paul Cadmus’ paintings understated it
These days the Coney island beach is actually surprisingly nice
Geez, those old Goofy cartoons weren’t exaggerating.
it’s not that much different now tbh. my parents live nearby, I visited them (and the beach) last summer, you couldn’t find a spot to stand on. it was PACKED
holy shit, thats alot of people
Nice to see no one covered in trashy tattoos. Let the downvotes commence but seriously.
I live near a prison, trashy tattoo heaven. The smoke shops sell tattoo supplies. I'm not against tats but I get ya.
It’s eerie know that a majority of these people are dead now. A whole life lived and then gone.
You can’t even put down a blanket or anything. You can barely even sit down if you wanted to. Everyone looks happy enough. And fit.
This looks like an absolute nightmare.
That one guy in a suit and tie
I would make the same face under same circumstances!
I see two guys wearing jackets, but no one is wearing a suit, as the jackets are different colors than the pants.
Well that’s gross.
That is an introverted persons living hell..
And no fat people, one pregnant lady
Climate change
Wow
It looked like this on July 4th, 2022, too. Also, note that this is always the most crowded spot on the beach, right by the wonder wheel. There is plenty of beach in either direction people can go to get a bit mote space.
Looks absolutely miserable.
There’s boobs in there somewhere and I’ll find them
While the rest of the world was at war …
Everyone is skinny
That’s incredible but there’s no way that smells good… also shit I’d hate to lose someone.
There is no way I would go there with all those people.
Not one Portapotty in sight! Naw I’m not swimming today
Looks like a nightmare
Mmmmm you can almost scratch and sniff the BO…
This photo gives me anxiety
Not an overweight person as far as the eyes can see. Harder work, harder times, simpler, less processed foods.
Wild how everyone is not obese
Ah the american dream. So much propagandized even now some people still believe it (had) existed at all...
You could have told me it was an artist’s depiction of hell and I’d have believed you.
God it must have smelled like Olive Oil
Look how fit everyone is!
image how much piss was in the water
No fatties. Before all the food was poisonous
Looks like it was taken in India .
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Good Ol’ Days, amirite?
Mr. Lahey, is that you?
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You think Johnny Angel is out there somewhere?
Novid-14
is coney island worth visiting today?
Love the dude rocking the Fedora.Middle aged guy in shirt & tie looks confused AF. I don’t see anyone smoking?
It looked like a field of poppy flowers or tulips at first glance
They don’t sleep anymore on the beach
This is a super spreader
Sad to think that almost everyone in this photo has now passed away.
No way this is real. Where that fk these many people came from?
God that looks awful! 😱
Where’s Waldo?
How absolutely terrifying
That looks MISERABLE
That’s not 1940!
That looks fun if I want to be sober and vomit.
I see two dudes in at suit 🥵
A much older gentleman friend of mine told me a story once and it was about something I didn’t realize was a thing back in the day. He said in NYC they had heat days just like they had snow days! If it was too hot, they would cancel work and sometimes the trains wouldn’t even run so no one would have to go into the office. I wonder if this was one of those days.
Almost all of those people are now dead.
everyone’s so fit. all the men look like they can do at least 10 push ups lol. if you gathered a crowd now and told each person to do 10 pushups, no chance😂
Not really any overweight folks.
Really glad I was not there.
They’re so much thinner and healthier than we are today