Facts about Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade

The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island draws hundreds of thousands of people each year to a seashore extravaganza of wild costumes, nudity and flamboyant artistic spectacle.

The parade has become so well known across the world that it has even inspired the Dutch to throw their own version in a seaside Hague district.

Yet the parade’s roots go back to the early 1980s, when Coney Island was a frayed neighborhood of beatdown Brooklyn.

Here are a few little-known facts about the parade that have made it the summertime celebration it is today.