This interview was conducted and recorded in Mandarin Chinese. Read Ruonan Zheng's transcript and translation below:
该采访是用普通话中文进行并录制的。请阅读以下郑若楠的采访原文及翻译:
Xin Song is the creator of Tree of Life, a public art piece installed in the mezzanine window...
Content type: Oral History Item
Allen James grew up on West 5th Street in Coney Island, which he describes as near the border of Brighton Beach and "the best of both worlds," noting that "it was the perfect place to grow up as a kid in Brooklyn." He still lives in the neighborhood...
Content type: Oral History Item
Crystal Isley recalls the excitement of moving to Coney Island Houses from Williamsburg with her family on the day before her fifth birthday. With her bedroom window overlooking the beach and the sounds of the ocean lulling her to sleep, "I felt it...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island native Robert Whitney has lived here all his life and worked in the amusement area for decades. He recalls doing electrical work starting in the 1980s for amusement operators Norman Kaufman, Ronnie Guerrero, "The Twins," and Jeff Brooks...
Content type: Oral History Item
Natasha Lvovich is a Coney Island resident, a writer of creative nonfiction and fiction, and a Professor of English at CUNY Kingsborough. Originally from Moscow, her family of Refuseniks experienced what she describes as "the very hard path" to...
Content type: Oral History Item
In August 2018, on the occasion of the 35th Anniversary Coney Island Break Dancers Reunion, Alito Hernandez shares memories of learning to breakdance as a young boy in the 1980s and the history of Fresh Kids crew in Coney Island. "My parents moved...
Content type: Oral History Item
When Ciro Conte founded Bensonhurst's SAS Italian Records in 1967, he named it after his children: Silvana, Adrianne and Silverio Conte. Fifty-one years later, the siblings share vivid memories of growing up in the store, which they still operate...
Content type: Oral History Item
Jewel Hough lives in Brighton Beach and has been working at Coney Island's Deno's Wonder Wheel Park for the past 18 years. She started out operating rides in Deno's Kiddie Park and currently works in Deno's Sweet Shoppe. Jewel describes her favorite...
Content type: Oral History Item
Ahmed Hussain, 24, has spent every summer since he was eight in Coney Island helping out in his family's stores in the amusement area. What he enjoyed most about growing up in Coney was his friendship with the operators of Faber's Fascination...
Content type: Oral History Item
Born in 1986, Brooklynite Sam Shlivko grew up in the Russian community in Coney Island and has lived here ever since. His parents met in Brighton Beach after emigrating from Ukraine and Belarus in the late '70s and Russian was his first language. ...
Content type: Oral History Item