When Coney Island reigned supreme and bathing suits grazed your knee: Photos of New York beachgoers from 1880 to 1940s capture incredible change of fashions and timeless love of the sand -
Blast from the past photos show how modest bathing suits morphed into the bikinis and trunks we know today -
Pics also capture Coney Island's once massive popularity when it was the biggest amusement park in the country -
Cuddling couples, girlfriends running out of the water, and a nun on a roller coaster also seen in sweet snaps
Knee-length bathing suits instead of bikinis, television sets with antennas instead of iPads, and lovers canoodling in the sands. These blast from the past black and white pictures of beachgoers in New York show how the fashions and attractions that make up our summers have changed, even as our love for being under the sun has stayed exactly the same. The pictures date from as far back as 1880, to a family portrait where a mother's hoop skirt grazes the sand as they pose on a boat, to 1948, where a couple sporting swim trunks and a bikini top enjoy a show on the tiny screen of a portable TV. 
+18 An 1880 family portrait shows one mother's hoop skirt graze the sand and her fashionable children sporting sunhats 
+18 This 1901 photo shows five women sporting short-sleeved ankle-length dresses as they sit in the sand at Sea Gate, a gated community surrounded by private beaches in Brooklyn where wealthy dynasty families such as the Morgans and Vanderbilts had addresses 
+18 The hemlines of bathing suits got considerably shorter only 10 years later, as seen in this couple dancing the tango at Brighton Beach 
+18 Here a crowd watches as Olympian Champion Diver Aileen Riggin twist dives at a special diving contest in Brighton Beach 
+18 This group of girlfriends running out of the cold October sea in 1925 are sporting the now-sleeveless bathing suits popular with the time One 1901 photo shows five women sporting short-sleeved ankle-length dresses as they sit in the sand at Sea Gate, a gated community surrounded by private beaches in Brooklyn where wealthy dynasty families such as the Morgans and Vanderbilts had addresses. By 1914 the hemline gets considerably shorter as seen in the picture of a couple dancing the tango in their bathing suits in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, with the woman's dress reaching her still stocking-covered knee. Pictures from the 1920s and 1940s feature women in sleeveless suits that now graze their thighs, such as in one photograh of a group of girfriends playfully running out of the cold October water in Brooklyn in 1925. The suits length stay the same but their fit gets tighter a decade later as two young girls at the Playland amusement park in Rye pose in front of a sign called the 'Tan-O-Meter', whose caption reads ‘choose the color you want to be’ and lists how long beachgoers need to stay out in the sun to reach their desired complexion. 
+18 Two young women at the Playland amusement park in Rye pose in front of the Tan-O-Meter, whose caption reads ‘choose the color you want to be’ and lists how long beachgoers need to stay out in the sun to reach their desired complexion 
+18 A couple watch a show from a tiny television screen on the sand in Brooklyn in 1948, sporting now modern swim trunks and bikini 
+18 A couple share a passionate kiss in the sand on Coney Island in 1949, three years before a similar scene would become famous in the Burt Lancaster film From Here To Eternity 
+18 Two pairs of couples cuddle in 1942 Coney Island during a 'dim-out', when the park had to cut the lights due to WII gasonline rationing - which created the perfect environment for sandy canoodling that would earn this pier spot the nickname Necker's Neck 
+18 Navymen aboard the USS Sandpiper celebrate their return from Hawaii with grass skirts and some hulu dancing 
+18 Aviation troops fill Long Beach in Long Island with dancing in this photograph from 1922 It's not just changing fashions that are showcased in these relics of the past. Romance is on full display in one steamy 1949 photo of a couple locked in a passionate kiss on Coney Island. Another picture shows two pairs of couples cuddling during the beach's 'dim-out', when Coney Island had to cut the park's lights during WWII gasoline rationing - which just happened to create the perfect environment for a canoodling spot that would sport the nickname Necker's Neck. The massive popularity of Atlantic City and Coney Island are on full-display in these photographs for their heyday. One breathaking aerial picture of Coney Island, once the largest amusement park in the country, shows the boardwalk and beach almost completely covered with people, while another photo shows people lining up at Nathan's Famous, the hot dog restaurant that still stands today. Perhaps most wonderfully though, are the human moments captured in these snapshots of time. There is a quick snap from a roller coaster ride, a nun in the front cart with the blind boys and girls she took for a day at the park. One snap shows a musician entertaining beachgoers on top a piano planted right there in the sand, while another shows a group of friends enjoying each other's company during a birthday celebration at a beach house right by the waves. 
+18 People in bathing suits and business suits could be seen taking in the sights and sun in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1911 
+18 This breathtaking snap of Coney Island in 1950 shows the amusement park, once the biggest in the country, in its full glory as crowds almost completely cover the boardwalk and sand 
+18 A crowd of people wait in line for hot dogs at Nathan's Famous, a Coney Island restaurant that still stands today 
+18 This heartwarming snapshot captures a moment of joy for a nun and the blind boys and girls she took out for a day at Rockaway Beach 
+18 Here musician Dorothy Jardon and members of Bennie Kruger's Brunswick Orchestra gave beachgoers a performance right there on the sand in Brooklyn circa 1922 
+18 Here a group of friends enjoy what seems to be a birthday party celebration on a beach house in New York in 1927 
+18 Beachgoers dine and tan outside a Boardwalk restraurant in Jones Beach State Park in Long Island circa 1931 | | -
Pier 55 will be a 2.7-acre park built on an undulating platform jutting about 180-feet into the Hudson at West 14th St -
Look more like an island than a pier and will sit atop 341 mushroom-shaped concrete columns that will range in height from 70 feet above the water to 15 feet above - roughly the minimum required post-Hurricane Sandy -
The park's three venues will host free and low-cost arts events and performances under the direction of Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin -
It will replace the narrow and crumbling Pier 54, which is where the steamship Carpathia brought survivors of the sunken Titanic 102 years ago -
The majority of the funding, some $140 million will be provided by billionaire Barry Diller and his fashion designer wife Diane von Furstenberg
New York’s latest spectacular riverfront attraction looks set to be a $170 million island park and open-air performance space on the Hudson River. The grand scheme, called Pier 55, was announced on Monday and the majority of the funding for the project will be provided by billionaire Barry Diller and his fashion designer wife Diane von Furstenberg. The 2.7-acre park will be built on an undulating platform jutting about 180-feet into the Hudson at West 14th Street, not far from the lower end of the highly popular High Line urban park. 
+9 An artist's rendering shows the proposed park and performance space to be known as Pier 55, in the Hudson River on the lower west side of New York. The park will be built on an undulating platform jutting about 180-feet into the river 
+9 Pier 55 will look more like an island than a pier and will sit atop 341 concrete columns that will range in height from 70 feet above the water to 15 feet above - roughly the minimum required post-Hurricane Sandy Pier 55 will look more like an island than a pier and will sit atop 341 mushroom-shaped concrete columns that will range in height from 70 feet above the water to 15 feet above, roughly the minimum required post-Hurricane Sandy. The undulating form is also an attempt to address environmental issues. It will allow more sunlight to come through for fish in an area that has been designated a marine sanctuary. Two pedestrian walkways from a widened West Street esplanade will take visitors to the free-to-all park which has been designed by British firm Heatherwick Studio and landscape architect Mathews Nielsen. The park will replace the narrow and crumbling, flat-topped structure of Pier 54. That is where the steamship Carpathia brought survivors of the sunken Titanic 102 years ago and the rusty Cunard arch that stands at the foot of the pier will be restored to maintain a link with the past. Diller, chairman of the New York-based media company IAC/Inter-ActiveCorp, and the Hudson River Trust made the announcement on Monday. He and von Furstenberg, have agreed to provide $140 million to build and maintain the attraction through their family foundation. The city will provide $17 million for the project while the state will offer $18 million for an adjacent esplanade. 
+9 As well as grass and trees, the park will have three venues to play host to arts events and performances under the direction of a team headed by Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin 
| Two pedestrian walkways from a widened West Street esplanade will take visitors to the free-to-all park which has been designed by British firm Heatherwick Studio and landscape architect Mathews Nielsen 
|  | Pier 55, was announced on Monday and the majority of the funding for the project will be provided by billionaire Barry Diller and his fashion designer wife Diane von Furstenberg. The rusty Cunard arch that stands at the foot of the existing Pier 54 will be restored to maintain a link with the past ‘We are deeply appreciative of the generosity of great New Yorkers like Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg without whom this visionary project would not have been possible,’ said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. 'I have always loved public spaces,' said Diller. 'It’s entirely my fault that this has become so ambitious. We will fail in our ambition, outsized or whatever it may be, if this doesn’t feel completely like a park and completely like a performance space.' 'New York has always reminded me of Venice, so I am happy the time has come to properly honor its waterways,' added Von Furstenberg, 67. The park's three venues will host arts events and performances under the direction of a team headed by Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin, whose screen credits include The Social Network and Moonrise Kingdom. Most entertainment events will be free or low cost. No city approval is needed for work to begin on the park and the Hudson River Park Trust will now undertake a 60-day public review and comment period. The trust board is expected to green-light the plan in early 2015. Esplanade construction is to start in 2015 and on the pier in 2015, with completion in late 2018 or early 2019. Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg are also the single largest private donor to the High Line, the elevated park that has spurred residential development and international interest in the meatpacking district. The couple have both also built architecturally distinctive corporate headquarters in the area. 
+9 The 2.7-acre park will be built on an undulating platform jutting about 180-feet into the Hudson at West 14th Street, not far from the lower end of the highly popular High Line urban park 
+9 
+9 The park will replace the narrow and crumbling, flat-topped structure of Pier 54, left, which is where the steamship Carpathia brought survivors of the sunken Titanic 102 years ago, right | | |
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