Nathan's

[View of Surf Avenue Coney Island.], 1958, V1974.4.1146, John D. Morrell photographs, ARC.005; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Nathan’s Famous has stood at the corner of Stillwell and Surf Avenues in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn for 100 years. Polish immigrant Nathan Handwerker and his wife Ida Handwerker opened the hot dog stand in 1916. A New York Times article reported that the Handwerkers used their life savings of $300 to open the business. Ida Handwerker created the secret spice for the hot dogs, which were sold for five cents each.

The restaurant appealed to the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Coney Island each year. By 1923, the New York City subway extended to Coney Island, with a station right across the street from the restaurant, which aided the growth and success of the business. To date, Nathan’s claims to have sold over 435 million hot dogs to date.

The photo of the week depicts the Surf Avenue side of Nathan’s in 1958. This photograph comes from the John D. Morrell photograph collection which comprises over 2,000 black and white and color photographs depicting nearly every Brooklyn neighborhood from 1957-1974. If you’re interested in housing research, be sure to check out the fully digitized collection here.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org