Mary Loretta Hood

95-year-old Mary Hood (a.k.a. Mary Fish) was a regular at the bar at Peggy O'Neill's. She was either working long hours as a ticket taker at the Eldorado Skooter or she was drinking into the wee hours. It was hard to pin her down or to keep up with her. Mary worked all the sideshows in Coney Island during the 1930s to 1950s and would also substitute for Madam Tirza at the Wine Baths when Tirza was missing in action. Charles Denson talked on the phone with her during the off season, usually in the morning when she was sober. Denson recorded several interviews a few years before she died in 2013. This is the first of the conversations recorded about her life in Coney Island. She was one of a kind . . .