Charles Feltman

Charles Feltman was born in 1841 in Germany. He was familiar with the frankfurter, named for Frankfurt-am-Main in his native land. In an effort to improve his Brooklyn business, Feltman came up with a better idea: insert a frankfurter in a specially-made elongated roll which could conveniently be held and eaten on the street or at the beach. Feltman called his 1869 creation the Coney Island red hot, and it was soon the eating rage.

Henry Collins Brown, a New York historian, explained its attraction: "It could be carried on the march, eaten on the sands between baths, consumed on a carousel, used as a baby's nipple to quiet an obstreperous infant, and had other economic appeals to the summer pleasure seeker".

However, it took some time for the public to decide what to call Feltman's creation. Frankfurter, sausage, Coney Island red hot; none of them really captured the public's imagination. Coney Island chicken and weenie (from the Austrian wienerwurst) both had their proponents. But it was popular uncertainty about exactly what kind of meat was in these casings that ultimately determined that it would be called "hot dog".

In 2015 Coney Island Tours founder Michael Quinn brought back the Feltman's name and legacy by selling Feltman's hot dogs. Quinn is planning on bringing the Feltman's Restaurant back to Coney Island.

Feltman died in 1910. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.^[1]

References

1. Richman, Jeffrey I. Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery: New York's Buried Treasure. Second ed. Concord, New Hampshire: Capital Offset, 2008. 104-05. Print.