I have two websites pertaining to Coney Island if you go to my main website portraitsofnewyork.com scroll down to the bottom and hit Coney Island days I also have a website just dedicated to Coney Island Topneeyork.com

Sal was born 1911 in Elizabeth New Jersey when he was five and six years old he would make mud little sculptures of people having sex it was actually sculptures of his father an the live in made when Sal turned 14 years old he made a devil mask and costume and dressed up as the devil at the time Saint Anthony’s Church were he was going to school had a lot of scaffolding around the church steeple he climbed it at 9 o’clock at night starting screaming an acting crazy like the devil the fire department police department big giant spotlights They got him down they got him down it’s a published story 1925 Elizabeth daily journal the church took him under their wing while he was helping in the church he learned to play the piano started reading books on hypnotism and reading peoples minds at the age of 17 he served Some time for armed robbery of course he was innocent after he got out of jail he went directly to Chicago to work for his father’s cousin Frank Costello in to nightclubs the Otis beer tunnel and the Peacock lounge this was during prohibition and the Al Capone days check out all the original ads on this site After sales aventures in Chicago his life really took off that’s why there’s a book coming out the masked man photographer mind reading hypnotist

Every year they throw this big birthday party on August 10 at my grandfather’s bar, Captain Tony’s saloon in Key West, he would’ve been 104 this year he lived to the ripe old age of 93 gambling partying smoking two packs of unfiltered lucky strikes a day he quit 10 years before he passed away I took this photo at his party last year Lisa and I flew down from Orlando there were at least 20 relatives there and about another 200 people stopped in for drinks to toast The old pirate it was a hell of a party Great entertainment a bunch of strippers running around the bar topless I got suspended on Facebook that night for a week Because I posted some of the pictures my grandfather would’ve been proud I really miss that old salty dog I got to work for him for seven years of my life back in the 70s and early 80s it was an education of a lifetime

You will never see ninth Avenue like this anywhere else, I was on the fifth floor of Port Authority bus station in New York, I climbed over a barrier where it said no trespassing then I climbed up on a ledge and reached my hand out with my camera and took the shot August 1997

I have so many favorite photos of my uncle Sals works, this is one of them right here, in 1968 when I was 12 years old my dad took me into Manhattan to see the Empire State Building and Times Square and then to great uncle Sals studio on 36 Street and seventh Avenue a bazaar place it was also where he lived four giant rooms masks everywhere when we got there he was doing some ballerina portfolios for the New York school of ballet some of the girls were very young like me and then there were older ones but they all looked amazing I was at the age where I started looking at women we hung out for a while it was great the masks always freaked me out because we had one in our basement since I was six years old, at one point I was scared to go down to the basement anyway if you see the mask directly in the back of Sals head that’s the mask that Lisa and I have in our dining room we also have a mask room here in our house in Florida 16 of them hanging on the walls we also have mask hanging in different rooms, when I inherited Sals a state in 2002 there were 110 masks I have 60 of them now The mask I’m talking about was created by Sal 1937 sal named her the bitch she was suppose to be in the worlds fair with five other masks that Sal made something happen it didn’t work out she has been pissed off ever since what’s unique about her and a bunch of The other masks is there ingredients In the papier-mâché mix Haitian voodoo dust, pyramid scrapings in the from Egypt, Cambodian opium, secret potions from around the world, and then of course there is Sals secret ingredients that will be discussed in the book most of the big masks assisted Sal in his mind reading acts and hypnotizing people in the 40s and 50s you have no idea of the energy flying through this house through these masks besides Sal using his mask in his acts they were also in a bunch of Broadway plays and amusement parks Sal always had photography studios as far back as the late 20s if he wasn’t taking pictures he was making masks I inherited this state in 2002 and I did over 60 portfolios with the mask in the background they do hypnotize the models