Rachel Simon recalls her family's Deli Restaurant on Mermaid Avenue
Rachel Rosenberg Simon's grandparents owned and operated Rosenberg's Kosher Deli Restaurant on Mermaid Avenue from 1917 to 1975. It was considered the finest deli on the Avenue as all the food in the restaurant was homemade. Rachel's entire family...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of living in Luna Park Houses in the 1960s and again in the late 1970s
Eric Schwelke's maternal and paternal grandparents settled in Coney Island in the first decades of the 20th century and his mother Frieda Schwelke grew up on West 29th and West 32nd Street. Born in 1952, Schwelke's earliest memories of Coney Island...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s and moving to Luna Park Houses in 1962
Born in 1930 in Coney Island, Frieda Schwelke and her family lived on West 36th, West 29th, and West 32nd Streets. In February 1962, she moved with her husband and son to Luna Park Houses when it first opened, and lived there through 1970. Schwelke...
Content type: Oral History Item
Bus driver for 35 years on the B36 route and the shuttle bus inside Sea Gate
Born in 1953, Fred Stern recalls growing up on West 32nd Street in Coney Island, in a house next to Sam's Knishes, and going to the beach and spookhouses in the amusement area. In 1964, his family moved to neighboring Bath Beach, where he still...
Content type: Oral History Item
Tales of unusual dark rides, riots, the Tornado, and the Bowery
Jeff Brooks has worked in Coney Island for more than 50 years and still has a game on the Bowery, just outside Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. Jeff tells the story of Coney Island in the 70s, when it was reminiscent of the Wild West and owners could rent...
Content type: Oral History Item
Lifelong Brighton Beach resident shares stories of Brighton Beach then and now
Born in New York City in 1954, Amparo Garcia has lived in Brighton Beach all her life. Her parents emigrated from Spain in 1949 and because her father loved the beaches of his native Cádiz, he decided the place to live in New York was Brighton Beach...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up Japanese American in Coney Island in the 1950s and '60s
Roy Omori grew up in the 1950s and '60s in Coney Island where he could see the Parachute Jump from his window and Steeplechase Park was his playground. Omori's Japanese-American parents moved to Coney from California in the 1940s, during World War...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Coney Island in the 1970s and being the third generation of his family to live here today
Orlando Mendez moved from Hell’s Kitchen to Coney Island as a toddler and lived with his extended family in a series of apartments on West 16th, West 20th, and West 29th Streets. In 1969, Mendez and his father and brother moved into Carey Gardens, a...
Content type: Oral History Item
Community activist and reformed gang member
Community activist Keith Suber grew up in Coney Island as part of a large extended family that lived in the West End. His earliest memories include playing in Kaiser Park across the street from Gravesend Houses, where he lived with his grandmother. ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Luna Park Houses in the 1960s and 1970s
Alison Cintorrino and her family were original tenants of Luna Park Houses. Born in 1962, she was brought to Luna Park from the hospital as a newborn and lived there for 25 years. Her 86-year-old mother still lives in Luna Park Houses today....
Content type: Oral History Item