Literary Brooklyn: A Real Life Tour of 10 Fictional Brooklyn Places
Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
While the parachute jump might not be operational anymore, the structure still stands tall over the beaches and boardwalk and bustling crowds of Coney Island. Most of the rides available (save the Wonder Wheel and Cyclone, of course) now are pretty new and therefore not any real risk to life or limb, and so it’s kind of nice to gaze up at the parachute jump and remember a time when lawsuits didn’t exist and people could just fling themselves off 200-foot structures, with nothing more than a scrap of silk to guide them to the ground. Those were the days.