After the publication of The Americans, Frank began to feel dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional photography. In 1959, he shifted his focus to film-making. One of his last projects before doing so was a series of photographs taken through the night of the fourth of July, 1958, at Coney Island, the beach resort and amusement park in Brooklyn, New York. These images of Independence Day are wistful and desolate, often depicting drunken merry-makers crashed out on the beach as dawn gradually breaks. Many of the photographs show lone individuals, or couples clinging to each other in an otherwise deserted vista. The party is over.

CONEY ISLAND, 4TH OF JULY 1958
Collection of the artist, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

The series can be seen as a coda to The Americans, touching on themes of racial division as well as patriotic celebration. Coney Island had originally been a popular destination for middle-class New Yorkers, who stayed away after the extension of the subway enabled thousands of working-class holiday-makers to crowd its beaches. In turn, they too had abandoned Coney Island, leaving it to the poorest black residents of the city.