Ask the Experts: Thomas Santelli. Author of “Coney Island Ink: Portraits of the Coney Island Tattoo Festival”

In the late 1980s, in the midst of New York City’s infamous tattoo ban, Sideshows by the Seashore on the legendary Coney Island Boardwalk began hosting an event distinct from its usual fare of sword-swallowers, snake charmers, and other marvels: the annual Coney Island Tattoo Festival. With New York’s tattoo artists driven underground and the art form publicly condemned as part of a dangerous fringe culture, this gathering in “the People’s Playground” served as a safe haven, drawing in tattoo enthusiasts from across the city and beyond. It also drew in a photographer from the Bronx who was fascinated by this world and the people who inhabited it. While not tattooed himself, for seven years Thomas Santelli served as the Festival’s designated “official photographer,” documenting this colorful event and the remarkable people who attended it with care and veneration.

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