Natalie Milbrodt has a Master's in Library and Information Studies with a concentration in Archives and Cultural Heritage from CUNY- Queens College. From 2010-2012, she recorded and edited oral history interviews for the Coney Island History Project and catalogued audio and visual records in our digital archives. Natalie is currently Associate Coordinator of Metadata Services at the Queens Library and director of the library's crowd-sourced digital archives, the Queens Memory Project, which she first developed as a graduate student.
Interviews
Organist and grandson of B&B Carousell organ doctor
Ed Radonic is a professional musician who plays the organ at Our Lady of Grace in Gravesend, just blocks from Coney Island. His grandfather, Dominick Brugnolotti installed and maintained the mechanical organ at the B&B Carousell for decades. Ed...
Visiting Coney Island his whole life
Allen Ashby started coming to Coney Island as a boy in the late 1950's. In the 60's, he came with high school friends and spent most of his time trying to meet girls. Later, he brought his daughters for visits as they grew up in the 70...
Mr. Cyclone hopeful
Robby Corrado is a 2010 Mr. Cyclone contestant. His father brought him to Coney Island to celebrate his seventh birthday and inadvertently sparked a love for the Cyclone that has grown over the years. Robby talks about the inspiration for his...
Coney Island visitor since the 1980's
Olga Guevara visits Coney Island these days with her two children (pictured with her above), but remembers visiting the beach in the 1980's with her girlfriend when they were single. She also remembers coming to Coney Island in the 1990's...
Bringing the 1960's back to Coney Island
Ron recalls going with both friends and family to Coney Island back in the 1960's. His family always took the same spot on the beach in front of the Wonder Wheel. He remembers amusement rides from that time in great detail, but waited until his...
First ride on The Cyclone
Kyle Yapching has long awaited being tall enough to ride The Cyclone. He visits his aunt and uncle every summer and finally in 2010 he was able to go on the historic roller coaster. Check out the video his Uncle Steve took of their ride by clicking...
High school sweethearts from Coney Island
Sherri and Harold Kaufman grew up together in Coney Island and were sweethearts at Lincoln High School. They have been married for forty years now and live in Massachusetts, but they still return occasionally to visit their old home. Harold worked...
Arcade game repairman
Louis Beard grew up in Brooklyn and visited Coney Island with friends as a teenager in the 1980's. He joined the Army right out of high school and worked in immigration where he learned that new citizens had more questions about Coney Island...
Lived through the Great Depression in Coney Island
The History Project returned to an 85-year-old Goldie Durlester in July of 2010. In this interview, Goldie recalls more of the details of her daily life as a child during the Great Depression and as a teenager at the start of the World War II era....
Grew up visiting Coney in the 1950's
Maria recalls visiting Coney Island in the 1950's as a child with her parents. They used to rent all of their beach gear from a bathhouse and then get cleaned up again to take in amusements such as Steeplechase Park. Her mother was too afraid...