Oral History Archive

Filtering by 1930 - 1939 back to all

Frank Gurrera

Machinist at MTA's Coney Island Overhaul and Repair Shop and oldest active TWU Local 100 member

Josephine Gargiulo Cassata

Daughter of Gargiulo's founder was born in an apartment above Coney Island's famous restaurant

Ida Rosenblum Gambrell

Memories of Coney Island in the 1920s and '30s

Juanhua Zhao

Tai chi teacher at Coney Island's Seaside Innovative Senior Center shares her life story

Nancy Gabriel

Memories of visiting Uncle Pete, who ran a food concession at Steeplechase Pool in the 1930s-50s

Greg Birbil

Greg Birbil's father, Paul, was a candy maker who owned the Paradise Ice Cream Parlor on Surf Avenue

Steven Feinstein

Reflections on running Wilensky Hardware, a 100-year-old family business on Mermaid Avenue

Anne Green

Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s

Yeva Novik

A 90-year-old Coney Island resident recounts her journey from Moscow to Southern Brooklyn

Connie Scacciaferro

Memories of going to Coney Island Beach as a child in the 1930's and a teenager in the '40s

Frieda Schwelke

Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s and moving to Luna Park Houses in 1962

Esther Delgado

Growing up in Gravesend and going to Coney Island in the 1940s and living there today

Janet Rubino

One of Dr. Couney's incubator babies

Joyce Chopra

Groundbreaking filmmaker grew up in Sea Gate and on Mermaid Avenue

George Ancona

The art of growing up Mexican American in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s

Edith Storch

Memories of growing up on West 36th Street in Coney Island's West End

Van Milana

Grandson of sword swallower Joseph "Ajax" Milana and DeWise Purdin "The Handless Sharpshooter"

Deena Metzger

Writer, poet and healer who grew up in a Yiddish literary family in Sea Gate during World War II