Tai chi teacher at Coney Island's Seaside Innovative Senior Center shares her life story
This interview was conducted and recorded in Cantonese Chinese. Read Keenan Chen's transcript and translation below:
Juanhua Zhao, 82, has taught Tai Chi at the Coney Island Seaside Innovative Senior Center on 37th Street and Surf Avenue in Coney...
Content type: Oral History Item
Greg Birbil's father, Paul, was a candy maker who owned the Paradise Ice Cream Parlor on Surf Avenue
Founded in 1928, the Paradise Ice Cream Parlor, also known as the Paradise Luncheonette, was a fixture at 1605 Surf Avenue across from Steeplechase Park for more than 30 years. Greg Birbil, who was born in 1937, shares memories of growing up in "Pop...
Content type: Oral History Item
Her father, Anthony Cosmo Pomaro, owned Cosmo Topper's Beauty Parlor on Mermaid Avenue
Carole Scheer grew up in Coney Island and tells the story of her father, Anthony Cosmo Pomaro, who owned and operated Cosmo Topper's Beauty Parlor on Mermaid Avenue. After serving in the Air Force during WW II, he attended beauty school and opened...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of being one of the first families to move into Gravesend Houses in 1954 and growing up there
Born in Brooklyn in 1949, Barbara Unterman Jones remembers moving to Coney Island's Gravesend Houses with her family in 1954 when the public housing project was brand new. Her first memory is of the road still being under construction and resembling...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of working at the Tornado roller coaster and other Coney Island rides and games in the 1970s
Michael Liff recalls growing up in Coney Island across the street from the New York Aquarium and working in the amusement area as a teen in the 1970's. His first job was taking plush animals by handcart from the Surf Avenue warehouse of Harry ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up on West 29th Street in Coney Island in the 1940s and '50s
Sheldon Krimsky and his family lived in an apartment at 2995 West 29th Street from the time he was 4 until he graduated from college. He shares memories of growing up in the 1940s and '50s: playing stickball and street games like Ringolevio;...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of bus trips to Coney Island with the Good Will Family Club from the 1940's through 1961
From the 1940s through the 1970s, bus trips to Coney Island were so popular that concessionaires recall 50 to 100 buses arriving on Saturday mornings and staying till 6 or 7 at night. Growing up in a close-knit family in Philadelphia, Alonzo...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up at Bensonhurst's Termini's Bakery and riding Coney Island's Astroland Rocket
Richard Termini's earliest memories are of playing under the El on New Utrecht Avenue in Bensonhurst, where his family operated Termini's Bakery. Founded by his grandfather Giuseppe 'Joe' Termini in Manhattan in the early years of the 20th century,...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of operating Steeplechase Park's Sports Car ride in 1963-1964 and fighting the Ravenhall fire
Born in 1946, Jim Lucarelli grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He describes "the opportunity and the privilege" of working at Coney Island's Steeplechase Park in 1963 and 1964, the last two summers before the park closed. As a 16-year-old ride...
Content type: Oral History Item
Asleep on the beach, 1969
Young people still asleep on the beach at dawn after spending the night at Coney Island.
Content type: Collection Item