Homeowner and community activist in Coney Island's West End for almost 30 years
Grace Lo and her family moved from Chinatown to Coney Island's West 35th Street in 1989 when they bought one of the homes built by Astella Development. Lo was elected Vice President of the West End Residents Association, which covers West 32nd to ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of working at a Coney Island beach chair and umbrella rental company as a teen in the 1970s
Steve Larkin's family lived in Coney Island and Brighton Beach from the time his Latvian-born grandfather David Latzkin immigrated here in 1903 until they moved in 1978. The family resided at 55 Railroad Avenue and later on Brighton 7th Street....
Content type: Oral History Item
Husband-and-wife music duo Federico Ausbury and Maira Vergara of A Flying Dodo Society
Federico Ausbury and Maira Vergara are a husband-and-wife music and animation duo whose band is called A Flying Dodo Society. During the summer of 2015, they busked on the Q train and in Coney Island on the boardwalk and the pier. They talk about...
Content type: Oral History Item
Twenty years as part of the family at Gregory & Paul's and Paul's Daughter on the Coney Island Boardwalk
Gabriel Valencia has worked on the Coney Island Boardwalk at Gregory & Paul's eatery, now called Paul's Daughter, for 20 years. He came to New York from Puebla, Mexico when he was just 18 to join his brother. Valencia learned English little by...
Content type: Oral History Item
Ukrainian emigre writer and author of Stealing Cherries, a collection of flash fiction
Marina Rubin, the author of Stealing Cherries (2013), reads excerpts from her book of flash fiction, and talks about storytelling, poetry and the Russian Jewish immigrant experience. Born in the small town of Vinnitsa, Ukraine, she immigrated to the...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island sunset
A dramatic sunset in October 2012, shortly before Hurricane Sandy struck Coney Island.
Photograph © 2012 by Charles Denson
Content type: Collection Item
Memories of family picnics under the Boardwalk and making new memories at Spook-A-Rama
For Carmen Arcendiga, a trip to Coney Island with her granddaughter Zoe evokes memories of family picnics under the boardwalk, riding the Cyclone, and the Laughing Lady. They came to Coney Island after Carmen won an essay contest for a behind-the-...
Content type: Oral History Item
Looking north east from Boardwalk to the newly built Half Moon Hotel. In the foreground McLochlin's West End baths (a bathhouse).
"The one structure that defined the New Coney Island more than anything elese was the Half Moon Hotel... Described as...
Content type: Collection Item
Collection type: Documentary photograph
In the early 1920's the Boardwalk was constructed and the beach expanded through filling. Many structures along the beach were torn down, and other formerly beach-front properties now found themselves several hundred feet inland. A few years after...
Content type: Collection Item
Collection type: B/W photograph