Memories of World War II in Ukraine and immigrating to Southern Brooklyn
This interview was conducted and recorded in Russian. Read Julia Kanin's Russian transcript and English translation below. Интервью проведено и записано на русском языке. Вы можете ознакомиться с траснскриптом и переводом Юлии Ханиной ниже.
Betya...
Content type: Oral History Item
Filmmaker and archivist whose parents collaborated on the film Little Fugitive in Coney Island
Mary Engel is an award winning filmmaker and runs the Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive. She is the daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, who co-wrote and directed Little Fugitive, which was filmed in Coney Island and released in 1953. The...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island and Sea Gate in the late 1940s and 1950s
Judith Densky's family moved to Coney Island in 1947, just after World War 2, when apartments were hard to come by. Luckily, her Uncle Bill happened to own property on West 31st Street. After living in the house on West 31st Street until she was 7-...
Content type: Oral History Item
At age 103, Coney Island resident shares her memories and secrets to a long and happy life
Born in 1920, Jeanette Bigelson grew up at 62 Cannon Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan when it was a neighborhood of working-class immigrants. She shares memories of her mother's homemade challah and noodles; friendly neighbors who kept...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island and the family business, Shatzkin's Famous Knishes
Mort Shatzkin’s family owned one of Coney Island’s most beloved eateries, Shatzkin’s Famous Knishes. They operated stores at various locations in Coney Island from the 1940s through the 1970s, and Shatzkin's Coney Island Knishes at Kings Plaza ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up at Villanova Court, a bungalow resort in Coney Island, in the 1950s and '60s
Born in 1952, Ben Roubin shares memories of growing up at Villanova Court, a summer bungalow colony between the Boardwalk and Surf Avenue in Coney Island next to Sea Gate. From the mid-1950s through 1968, his family co-owned and operated the resort...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Coney Island and being elected to Leon Friend's Art Squad at Lincoln High School
Born in Coney Island in 1942, Tina Mednicoff Smokler grew up on Nass Walk, a narrow street which was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Trump Village apartment complex. Her maternal grandmother ran a rooming house on West 35th Street that...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Coney Island and how learning French at Lincoln High School influenced his life
Irwin Temkin shares stories of growing up in the West End of Coney Island in the 1950s and '60s. His family lived on Polar Street, later moved to his grandmother's house on West 31st Street, and finally to an apartment in O'Dwyer Gardens on West...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Sea Gate and Coney Island in the 1940s and '50s and moving back in the mid-1960s
Diana Wiener shares memories of growing up in Sea Gate and Coney Island in the 1940s and '50s, where she first learned to swim as a "water baby" on Beach 2 AKA "The Lagoon." Wiener remembers World War II blackouts, lookout towers for U-boats,...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1940s and '50s and fun summer jobs
Born in 1941, Stuart Waldman grew up in Coney Island on West 32nd Street and Neptune Avenue. He shares memories of school days - PS 188, Mark Twain, Lincoln High School, and Brooklyn College - and vividly describes a series of fun summer jobs he had...
Content type: Oral History Item