Coney Island Blog - History

Visit the Coney Island History Project's Oral History Archive to listen online to audio interviews with Coney Island residents, business owners, and visitors - both past and present. Among the additions to our online archive in 2016 are the following interviews recorded in English, Spanish and Russian. Please listen, share, and if you or someone you know would like to record a story, sign up here.

Artist Johanna Gargiulo Sherman shares vivid memories of growing up in Coney Island, where her family lived on Mermaid Avenue above the Carolina Restaurant. Her father Joe "Carolina" Gargiulo led a musical trio and was one of the partners in this popular Italian restaurant from 1947 through the 1980s. 

Ecuadorian-born Julio Sauce is a Gravesend resident who has been running in the Coney Island 5K, Brooklyn Half Marathon and New York Marathon since 1998 and is among the fastest local runners in his age category. The interview was recorded in Spanish and includes Spanish and English transcripts.

Shirley Aikens, president of the Carey Gardens Tenants Association and a member of Community Board 13, recounts moving to Carey Gardens with her one-year-old daughter in the 1970s, her first impressions of Coney Island, and how the community has changed over the years.

Antoinette Balzano, a granddaughter of Anthony "Totonno" Pero, the founder of Totonno's Pizzeria Napolitana, tells her family's story. Pizzas have been made in the same way at the Neptune Avenue restaurant since 1924.

Cultural Research Divers' founder Gene Ritter is a Coney Island native, environmental advocate, commercial diver and educator who grew up on West 16th Street. He shares his knowledge of oceans, estuaries, and Coney Island Creek.

Alfie Davis, who has lived in Coney Island for nearly 40 years and is the Tenant Association Leader of the Sea Rise I complex in Coney's West End, tells the story of three generations of her family.

Coney Island resident Derrick Batts opened Coney Island Hook and Bait Shop on West 24th Street off Mermaid Avenue in May. He recounts learning about life from fishing and gardening, both of which he was introduced to as a boy by older members of the community, and passing on that knowledge to young people.

Candi Rafael, whose family operates games on Coney Island's Bowery, grew up here and started helping out as an eight-year-old. Now 22, she demonstrates the spiel that she uses to call people in to play the games and describes what it's like to work in Coney Island. 

On her first day back in Coney Island since 1959, Kathy Duke O'Melia shares memories of joyful summers spent with her family at a bungalow colony located on West 31st Street near Coney Island Creek. 

Commendatore Aldo Mancusi, the founder of the Enrico Caruso Museum of America, recalls visiting Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s and growing up in Brooklyn in an Italian family.

Historian Eric K. Washington delves into the life of E.J. Perry, an African-American silhouette artist who worked in the early 20th century at Luna Park, where it was said "he is there with a nice spiel and and he cuts your picture with the scissors in a minute."

Coney Island resident Zinovy Pritsker emigrated from Leningrad to Southern Brooklyn in 1978. His jazz big band, founded 20 years ago, consists of 18 Russian musicians and singers plus a few Americans. The interview was recorded in Russian and includes Russian and English transcripts.

On Thursday, May 26, Coney Island History Project director Charles Denson will give a slide talk called "Immigrants Who Made Coney Island Famous" at the Coney Island Library, 1901 Mermaid Avenue at West 19th Street. The talk begins at 6:30pm and is free to the public.

"My talk tells the story of several immigrant families who started small in Coney Island and then went on to become enormously successful due to hard work and perseverance," says Mr. Denson. "Immigrants like Nathan Handwerker of Nathan's Famous and Denos Vourderis of the Wonder Wheel started with nothing, built successful businesses, and helped to shape Coney Island. Immigrant artisans Marcus Illions and William Mangels brought craftsmanship and artistic experience from their native countries and built factories in Coney Island that produced great works of folk art in the form of carousels and other amusements. Recent immigrants continue to play an important role in the community." 

Among the recent additions to the Coney Island History Project's online Oral History Archive are the following interviews. Please listen, share, and if you or someone you know would like to record a story, either in person or on the phone, sign up here. 

What better place than Coney Island for a man who floated down the Amazon River in a rubber suit and was the first to swim the English Channel. Craig Boyton Dudley talks about his great-grandfather, Paul Boyton, who built Sea Lion Park, Coney Island's first enclosed amusement park, in 1895. Boyton's Shoot the Chutes was incorporated into Luna Park and operated until 1944. 

Economic development specialist Georganna Deas is a Coney Island resident and advocate who has lived in the Gravesend Houses on Kaiser Park for 40 years. Among the issues she talks about was getting rid of the smokestacks along Coney Island Creek, challenging the Transit Authority to make Coney Island a one-fare zone, and organizing against the privatization of Coney Island Hospital.

Louise Milano shares memories of her mother, Carolina, who operated Carolina Restaurant on Mermaid Avenue for 60 years, and of growing up in a restaurant family. Carrie prepared traditional home style cooking such as breaded baked clams, fried zucchini flowers, and stuffed artichokes with garlic that remains memorable to generations of Coney Island residents.

Taty Alicea and her son Ralph Alicea share fond memories of Coney Island's famous Laughing Lady, a popular mechanical attraction that was part of the Magic Carpet Fun House and is greatly missed. 

Federico Ausbury and Maira Vergara are a husband-and-wife music duo whose band is called A Flying Dodo Society. Last summer, they busked on the Q train and in Coney Island on the boardwalk and the pier. They talk about their journey from Argentina, where Maira is from and they first met, and Puerto Rico, where Federico grew up, to Brooklyn and Coney Island. Ausbury sings one of his new songs, "Coney Island (Shake Your Shoes)," accompanying himself on kalimba.

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 U.S. with her family, who sought political asylum and settled first in Bensonhurst and then in Coney Island. 

David Head is a retired NYC Transit worker and former chairman of the Black History Committee for TWU Local 100. He talks about the accomplishments of Granville T. Woods (1856-1910), an African-American inventor whom he has championed. Among Woods' many electrical patents was one for the world's first electric roller coaster, which was located in Coney Island a century ago. Head was instrumental in having a Coney Island street across from Stillwell Terminal renamed Granville T. Woods Way and wrote a book about Woods' career.

Gabriel Valencia lives in Coney Island and has worked at Gregory & Paul's eatery, now called Paul's Daughter, for 20 years. He came to New York from Mexico to join his brother and learned English little by little, by talking with the customers at the counter. Paul Georgoulakos and his family are good people who treat him "like family," says Valencia. He tends the bar at the popular restaurant, which was founded at this location in 1962 and is the oldest on the Boardwalk. 

Basil Jones is the chef at Footprints Cafe in Coney Island, which specializes in Caribbean cuisine, and is the originator of their famed Rasta Pasta. Born in Jamaica, Jones learned to cook as a boy helping out in his grandmother's kitchen. He talks about his culinary career, from his first job at a hotel restaurant to creating unique dishes for Jamaica's 25th anniversary. A scholarship to culinary school brought Jones to the U.S, where he settled in Brooklyn and developed the original menu for Footprints.

Misha Mokretsov, head coach and owner of the New York Fencing Academy in Coney Island, has trained nationally top-ranked fencers in every age group. He says that fencing is an intellectual as well as a physical sport, making it a popular choice of parents and one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. Among his fencing academy's first students were the children of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who had fenced in their youth. When weather permits, the students do physical conditioning on Coney Island's beach.

Jimmy McCullough, former owner of the B&B Carousell, poses with his wife and daughters in front of the historic ride before its sale to the City in 2005. Photo ©  Charles Denson.

Last week, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced the good news that Coney Island's B&B Carousell was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places. In January, Gillibrand wrote to the National Park Service explaining that although the current location at Steeplechase Plaza is new, the site was formerly Steeplechase Park and is historically symbolic and appropriate.
    
History owes a debt of gratitude to Bishoff and Brienstein, the carousel's namesakes, who brought the ride back from New Jersey in 1932, and Jimmy McCullough who bought it from his cousin Willy Bishoff in 1973, and his partner Mike Saltzstein, who kept the carousel spinning year-round on Surf Avenue until his death in 2001.

In this 2009 interview for the Coney Island History Project's Oral History Archive, Charles Denson talks with Jimmy McCullough, who passed away in 2013. Jimmy McCullough learned the carousel business from his father, James McCullough, who began his career working on the Steeplechase and Stubbman carousels. Working in Coney Island was a family business going back generations for Jimmy who was a descendent of both the Tilyou and the Stubbman families. 

Jimmy and his family owned and operated numerous small amusement parks and carousels in Coney Island, including the historic carousels that are now in Prospect Park and Flushing Meadows Park, as well as Coney's B&B. Built in 1919 at the Coney Island factory of William Mangels, the B&B Carousell was the last remaining ride on the north side of Surf Avenue and the last of Coney Island's historic carousels when it was acquired by New York City in 2005. The resplendently restored carousel was installed in a new pavilion next to the Parachute Jump in Steeplechase Plaza in 2013.