Samira Tazari

Samira Tazari is a 2014 graduate of Syracuse University’s SI Newhouse School of Public Communication with a BS in Television-Radio-Film and Russian Language and a 2017 graduate of the Maine College of Art's Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She recorded interviews for the Coney Island History Project from 2015-2018. For her first oral history, with singer Cornel Chan, Samira selected and added clips of his recordings to the edited interview. A lover of podcasts, she has worked as a podcast producer for Slate and Spotify and is currently a freelance producer. 

Interviews

Memories of growing up in the 1940s and '50s in a tight-knit Jewish community in Coney Island
Susan Meyer (a.k.a Dalbir Khalsa) grew up on Sea Breeze Avenue across from Seaside Park, in what she describes as a tight-knit Jewish community of East European origins. She recalls going to Washington Baths and Steeplechase Park every summer with...
A nine-year-old artist whose favorite place is Coney Island paints a mural at Deno's Wonder Wheel Park
Lola Glass, whose artistic name is Lola the Illustrator, talks about her new mural at Coney Island's Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. Called "Coney Wonders,"  the mural depicts a snow globe of the Wonder Wheel flanked by two mermaids. The nine-year-old ...
Jamaican-born artist and Coney Island resident
Courtney King was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and has lived in Coney Island for the past seven years.  An artist since childhood, he began working as a sign painter after training in commercial art and fine art.  He spent 12 years working on an...
Memories of growing up in Coney Island during the Great Depression and 55 years practicing law
Charles Berkman, who was 88 when this interview was recorded and turned 90 on July 2, 2018, grew up on West 29th Street in Coney Island during the Great Depression.  The youngest of nine children of a hard-working orphan immigrant from Poland,...
Actor and playwright whose new play A Lonely Night in Coney Island is set on the Boardwalk
Actor and playwright Mohammed Saad Ali's new play A Lonely Night in Coney Island is being produced by Bensonhurst's Genesis Repertory on April 28 as part of the Rise of the Phoenix Festival in the East Village. Set on the Coney Island Boardwalk and...
Teaching Yoga on the Beach in Coney Island
Yoga and meditation teacher Chia-Ti Chiu has been teaching "Yoga on the Beach" off West 19th Street in Coney Island since 2014.  She talks about her family's Taiwanese heritage, her travels to China and Southeast Asia, where she studied Mandarin...
Artist and Coney Island resident recalls growing up on Mermaid Avenue above Carolina Restaurant
Artist Johanna Gargiulo Sherman grew up in Coney Island, where her family lived on Mermaid Avenue in a cold water flat above Carolina Restaurant. Her father Joe "Carolina" Gargiulo led a musical trio and was one of the partners in this popular ...
Chef and owner of the Vendy Award winning Coney Shack food cart
Located on West 8th Street in Coney Island, next to the Department of Motor Vehicles office, Lawrence Mach's Coney Shack offers a unique menu of Southeast Asian inspired tacos, burritos and hot dogs. First opened in 2013, the sidewalk cart soon...
Coney Island resident and proprietor of Coney Island Hook and Bait Shop
Derrick Batts, 50, has been a resident of Coney Island and an avid fisherman since boyhood. In May, he and his son Derrick Jr. opened Coney Island Hook and Bait Shop on West 24th Street just off Mermaid Avenue. They sell an array of bait and fishing...
Founder and director of Brighton Ballet Theater, founded in 1987
Coney Island resident Irina Roizin emigrated from Ukraine in 1976 and realized her childhood dream of founding a ballet school, Brighton Ballet Theater, in 1987. Roizin recounts first impressions of Brighton Beach and Coney, the challenges of...