Director of United Chinese Association of Brooklyn in Bensonhurt, Dyker Heights, and Sheepshead Bay
This interview was conducted and recorded in Cantonese Chinese. Read Xiao Yu Li's transcript and translation below.
本采访以粤语进行并记录。阅读下面的Xiao Yu Li的笔录和翻译。
Ansen Tang is Executive Director of the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn (UCAOB) with...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of living in Coney Island from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s
Born in 1940, Jerry Omanoff lived in Coney Island from the late 1940s to the mid-60s. His family lived first in a bungalow on West 32nd Street, then in an apartment in a three-story house on West 33rd Street, and finally in Sea Gate. He shares...
Content type: Oral History Item
Writer and playwright who grew up in Coney Island from 1943 to 1956
Carol Polcovar is a writer and playwright who grew up in Coney Island from age three through sixteen. Her family moved from Brighton Beach to West 35th Street next to P.S. 188, where she longed to go to kindergarten. The home that she remembers best...
Content type: Oral History Item
Record producer and audio engineer who produces live shows at Coney Island Brewery
"The" Jerry Farley is a record producer and audio engineer who has produced shows in Coney Island at Peggy O'Neills and now at Coney Island Brewery, where he stages a monthly punk/metal night and other live events. Born in Dyker Heights in 1978, as...
Content type: Oral History Item
Mystery artist who carved faces into rocks on the shoreline at Brighton Beach
John Philip Capello is a painter and sculptor who grew up in Bensonhurst in the 1940s and '50s and now lives in Sag Harbor. This oral history is the culmination of the interviewer's 12 year search for the mystery artist who carved faces into rocks...
Content type: Oral History Item
Rachel Simon recalls her family's Deli Restaurant on Mermaid Avenue
Rachel Rosenberg Simon's grandparents owned and operated Rosenberg's Kosher Deli Restaurant on Mermaid Avenue from 1917 to 1975. It was considered the finest deli on the Avenue as all the food in the restaurant was homemade. Rachel's entire family...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of living in Luna Park Houses in the 1960s and again in the late 1970s
Eric Schwelke's maternal and paternal grandparents settled in Coney Island in the first decades of the 20th century and his mother Frieda Schwelke grew up on West 29th and West 32nd Street. Born in 1952, Schwelke's earliest memories of Coney Island...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s and moving to Luna Park Houses in 1962
Born in 1930 in Coney Island, Frieda Schwelke and her family lived on West 36th, West 29th, and West 32nd Streets. In February 1962, she moved with her husband and son to Luna Park Houses when it first opened and lived there through 1970. Schwelke...
Content type: Oral History Item
Bus driver for 35 years on the B36 route and the shuttle bus inside Sea Gate
Born in 1953, Fred Stern recalls growing up on West 32nd Street in Coney Island, in a house next to Sam's Knishes, and going to the beach and spookhouses in the amusement area. In 1964, his family moved to neighboring Bath Beach, where he still...
Content type: Oral History Item
Tales of unusual dark rides, riots, the Tornado, and the Bowery
Jeff Brooks has worked in Coney Island for more than 50 years and still has a game on the Bowery, just outside Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. Jeff tells the story of Coney Island in the 70s, when it was reminiscent of the Wild West and owners could rent...
Content type: Oral History Item