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By early July, when Doug was ready to leave, business was up, but morale was down. The show was ready for its old captain at the helm. On the morning of July 4, Doug hopped into his maroon Cadillac with the EDH plates and headed south down I-95. The same day Joh
KEEP OUT THE CLOWNS, blared the headline in Newsday on Thursday, July 15. ISLIP BARS CIRCUS, CITING COMPLAINTS.
The news from Long Island stu
In most towns along the route the show would pay around fifty dollars for a building permit and maybe twenty-five dollars for a health inspection. Police and fire departments were usually willing to provide complimentary protection just so their members could stand in the wings and watch the show for free. In New York nothing was free. In fact, the circus was forced to pay more than $2,000 a lot in surcharges: $200 for building permits; $100 for food handlers’ permits; $250 for fire guard licenses; and $1,500 for fire permits covering the tent, the welding machines, the generators, the truck repair shop, and the two carbonic drink dispensers. To make sure these rules were followed, an inspector sat in the front of every show taking notes like a court stenographer. “In the past we used to resort to bribery,” Joh
Sometimes, however, they don’t. Early on in the show’s stay in New York one fire marshal was so peeved that he decided to shadow the ringmaster throughout the performance. “It was awful,” Jimmy recalled. “He was standing next to me and between every act he would slap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Make another no-smoking a
Despite occasional breakdowns like this, the aboveboard bribes that the City demanded hardly hurt the circus’s bottom line. As soon as we hit New York the show stopped its policy of giving out discount coupons; it added a third show on Sunday evenings (though salaries were not increased); and it raised ticket prices by a dollar. Still we couldn’t keep people away. In Marine Park the community was so overjoyed that a circus would venture into its isolated neighborhood that families thronged the lot at all hours of the day and we turned back nearly a thousand people every night. All fears that New Yorkers would be hostile and cynical were, for the moment, laid to rest. In fact, several days after we left the City the following letter appeared in the Daily News:
CAN’T (BIG) TOP THIS
Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, I witnessed a miracle in Brooklyn! I saw families sitting together, laughing, having good clean fun—no violence, no nudity, no dirty language. Where was this rare occurrence? At the circus in Marine Park. A
big
thank you to the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus and N.Y.C. Department of Parks and Recreation.
E. Francis
The show was still savoring this unexpected bouquet when the bombshell arrived from Long Island.
“Where does a two-ton elephant sit?” quipped Newsday in the opening line of its article about the circus being ba
By the time the news arrived on the lot the elephant had gotten even bigger and the impact even larger. Joh
“Listen, I’m concerned about animal rights, too,” Joh
At this stage it probably wouldn’t do much good. The debate itself had already become part of the absurd theater of American political life, with each side posturing, sloganeering, and even threatening legal action over the other’s head. In one corner were the protesters. “We welcome the clowns and acrobats,” one mother in Islip had said in the meeting, “but please spare us and our precious children the spectacle of animal torment.” In the other corner was the circus. Joh