Oral History Archive

Filtering by 1940 - 1949 back to all

Steven Feinstein

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

Chris Cuomo

Memories of riding the Steeplechase Horses, Human Roulette Wheel and Parachute Jump 70 years ago

Lu Zhao

Calligrapher recounts his artistic journey from China's Guangdong Province to Brooklyn's Bensonhurst

Anne Green

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

Steve Burke

Memories of working at Coney Island's pony track as a boy in the 1940s for "no pay, just tips"

Yeva Novik

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

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Memories of growing up a block from the ocean and being head of Lincoln High School's Art Squad

Frank Gurrera

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

Khonya Epstein

Author and leader of the Holocaust Survivors Group at Marks JCH of Bensonhurst

George Ancona

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

Connie Scacciaferro

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

Carmela

Growing up on West 16th Street between Mermaid and Neptune in a cold water flat in the 1940s and '50s

Edith Storch

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

Gloria Nicholson

Memories of growing up in a Jones Walk rooming house in 1940s Coney Island

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

Susan Meyer

Memories of growing up in the 1940s and '50s in a tight-knit Jewish community in Coney Island

Father Eugene Pappas

On growing up in Coney Island in the 1940s and the history of Greek-American businesses in the area