Oral History Archive

Filtering by 1980 - 1989 back to all

Jeanette Bigelson

At age 103, Coney Island resident shares her memories and secrets to a long and happy life

Jeff Brooks

Tales of unusual dark rides, riots, the Tornado, and the Bowery

Keith Suber

Community activist and reformed gang member

Zohra Saed

Poet and writer from Afghanistan who grew up in Southern Brooklyn

Khonya Epstein

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

Frank Gurrera

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

Anthony Wang

Resident of senior housing in Coney Island was born in Shanghai and survived the Cultural Revolution

Josephine Gargiulo Cassata

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

Shavon Meyers

A poet and storyteller on growing up in Coney Island at Gravesend Houses, the beach and Astroland

Gabriel Valencia

Twenty-five years at Gregory & Paul's and Paul's Daughter on the Coney Island Boardwalk

Lorraine Ross

Resident of Coney Island for 47 years and retired transit cleaner at Stillwell Terminal

Lu Zhao

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

Tim Law

Bilingual educator and founder of Chinese American Social Services Center in Bensonhurst

John Hunt

Model builder of roller coasters and amusement rides including the Cyclone and Deno's Wonder Wheel

Juanhua Zhao

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

Alisa Minyukova

Brooklyn artist who emigrated from Russia as a child is drawn to Ocean Parkway and Brighton Beach

Steven Feinstein

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

Steve Campanella

Collector of 1950's and '60s memorabilia whose Bensonhurst home is known as the Statue House