Vibrant color photos of 1960s Coney Island in transition, taken by a man who lived in obscurity

Otto C. Dreschmeyer lived what appears to be a small, provincial kind of life. Born in New York in 1896 to German immigrant parents, he attended P.S. 81 on Cypress Avenue near the Brooklyn-Queens border. His father served as president of the Cigar Makers Union, and the family resided at 20-14 Stanhope Street in today’s Ridgewood. What little is known about Dreschmeyer comes mostly from a handful of newspaper articles. His name appeared in his father’s 1935 obituary, and he served as executor of his $9000 estate. While working as a timekeeper a year later, Dreschmeyer was identified as the driver who plowed into a man on a Glendale street corner, killing him. (He was acquitted of criminal negligence in 1938). And in 1958, when he served as a manager at Krug’s Baking Company in Jamaica, three robbers broke into his office, held him up, and made off with the $3000 collected by the day’s delivery drivers. A blog post from the Brooklyn Public Library fills in some blanks about his personal…