Artist whose Coney Island-themed work includes solo and community murals at Coney Art Walls
Brooklyn-born Chris "Daze" Ellis is an internationally known artist who began his career painting subway trains as a high school student and successfully transitioned to canvas in the early 1980s. His series of Coney Island-themed paintings created...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island native Adam RealMan Rinn bends steel with his bare hands!
Strongman Adam "RealMan" Rinn grew up in Coney Island, swims with the Polar Bears on New Year's Day, and teaches at the Coney Island Sideshow School.
Content type: Oral History Item
Reflections on the history of horse racing in Coney Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
A resident of Brooklyn and a high school English teacher, Teresa Genaro grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, where her family raced horses and going to the racetrack was an intrinsic part of her childhood. The interview was recorded on the ten...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island Houses and on Mermaid Avenue in the 1950s and '60s
Musician Andy Fuhrman grew up in Coney Island Houses and on Mermaid Avenue and remembers every store in the neighborhood. Andy was on the football team at Lincoln High School in the 1960s, worked games on the Bowery, and was a pioneering surfer at...
Content type: Oral History Item
Sea Gate resident on her girlhood memories of Coney Island and passing them on to her daughter
Currently a resident of Sea Gate, Irene Karas was born in Belgium and grew up in Bensonhurst and on Ocean Parkway. She recalls excursions to Coney Island beach with her family. As a young girl, Irene would "roam all of the nooks and crannies of...
Content type: Oral History Item
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...
Content type: Oral History Item
Jazz musician and bandleader of the Afro-Peruvian Sextet has lived in Coney Island for the past decade
Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Gabriel Alegría has lived on Coney Island's Mermaid Avenue since 2007. The trumpet player, composer, and bandleader of the Afro-Peruvian Sextet talks about what drew him to Coney Island, Afro-Peruvian jazz music and...
Content type: Oral History Item
Architect who grew up in Coney Island in the 1980s and designed the renovated Ruby's Bar & Grill
Eric Safyan grew up in Coney Island's Brightwater Towers overlooking the Aquarium. His parents were political refugees who emigrated from Odessa in Ukraine when he was 3-1/2 years old. After graduating from Brooklyn Tech and architecture school in...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up on Mermaid Avenue and working games in Coney Island from age twelve
Michael Goldstein, known as "Looch," worked games in Coney Island for over half a century. He started out in 1954 at age twelve, earning 75 cents an hour, and by his fourth year was a partner in the game. "It was a different era, a different...
Content type: Oral History Item
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 ...
Content type: Oral History Item