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
Growing up in Coney Island and Gravesend in the 1990s and 2000s
Eric Sanchez was born in 1987 when his family lived in Coney Island. He later moved to 2121 Shore Parkway, a building in Gravesend which had a great view of Coney Island, Cropsey and Bay 49th, and Neptune Avenue and West 15th Street. As a teen, ...
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
Professional basketball player and author of a book of poems and stories who grew up in Coney Island
Tymell Murphy, 31, is a professional basketball player and the author of a new book, Poetry in Motion: Poems and Stories. His family moved from Flatbush to Coney Island's Surfside Gardens in 2003. As a 12-year-old, he found that always having a...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Gravesend and going to Coney Island in the 1940s and living there today
Esther Delgado (née Scarlino), 88, recalls living in a bungalow on West Eighth Street in Gravesend when she was a child in the 1940s. In 1929 her maternal grandparents first rented the bungalow for $33 a month because they thought they could walk...
Content type: Oral History Item
Stand-up comedian and founder of the Coney Island Comedy Festival
Irina Ginzburg, who goes by her stage name Upa, has been doing stand-up comedy for 12 years and founded the Coney Island Comedy Festival in 2019. The festival is held at Ruby's Bar and the Coney Island Brewery. "People find their way into stand-up...
Content type: Oral History Item
Film director and screenwriter who grew up in Coney Island in the 1990s
"Coney Island made me who I am," says film director and screenwriter Stefon Bristol, who grew up in the 1990s on West 27th Street. His family moved from East Flatbush to Coney after buying one of the new townhouses built by Astella Development. He...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1940s and going back four times a year
Stanley Shapiro and his family lived at 2841 West 20th Street in Coney Island when he was a boy in the 1940s. "My heart is in Coney Island," says Shapiro, who goes back four times a year to walk the length of the Boardwalk and have a Nathan's hot...
Content type: Oral History Item
Poet and writer from Afghanistan who grew up in Southern Brooklyn
Zohra Saed is a poet, editor and translator who was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and immigrated to Brooklyn with her family as a child in the 1980s. She grew up in the close-knit Uzbek-Turkestani community on Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay and...
Content type: Oral History Item
Singer, musician and composer who lives in Sea Gate
This interview was conducted and recorded in Russian. Read Julia Kanin's transcript and translation below. Интервью проведено и записано на русском языке. Вы можете ознакомиться с траснскриптом и переводом Юлии Ханиной ниже.
Ellina Graypel is a...
Content type: Oral History Item