Founder and principal of Coney Island's Liberation Diploma Plus High School
April Leong is the award-winning founder and principal of Coney Island's Liberation Diploma Plus High School. The small alternative high school on West 19th Street serves 200 transfer students, many of whom describe it as their home or family. They...
Content type: Oral History Item
Community activist and resident of Coney Island for more than 50 years
When this interview was recorded in 2007, Ron Stewart had lived in Coney Island for exactly half a century. He has worked as the director of a youth program and a parole officer, owned a local bookstore and barber shop, and is active in the...
Content type: Oral History Item
Calligrapher recounts his artistic journey from China's Guangdong Province to Brooklyn's Bensonhurst
This interview was conducted and recorded in Cantonese Chinese by (Sylvia) Ching Man Wong. Transcription by Ching Man Wong and Keenan Yutai Chen with English translation by Keenan Yutai Chen. Read the transcript and translation below:...
Content type: Oral History Item
Community Board 13 member and Brightwater Towers homeowner and board member
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.
Lolita Divilova lives...
Content type: Oral History Item
Bilingual educator and founder of Chinese American Social Services Center in Bensonhurst
This interview was conducted and recorded in Mandarin Chinese by Yolanda Zhang. Read Keenan Yutai Chen's transcript and translation below:
本采访以国语进行并记录下来。以下请阅读张月恒的笔录和翻译。
Dr. Tim Law came to the U.S. from Hong Kong in 1968 as an international...
Content type: Oral History Item
Model builder of roller coasters and amusement rides including the Cyclone and Deno's Wonder Wheel
Roller coaster enthusiast John Hunt has been building scale models of coasters and amusement park attractions since he was a boy and has turned his hobby into a business. More than 50 different custom-built rides are on view and may be ordered via...
Content type: Oral History Item
Longtime Sea Gate resident and watercolor artist who teaches at Seaside Innovative Senior Center
Jeffrey Berman, 77, is a Coney Island native who has lived in Sea Gate since establishing his first artist's studio here when he was in his 30s. He recounts how he got interested in art and studied drawing at the Art Students League for 2-1/2 years...
Content type: Oral History Item
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
Brooklyn artist who emigrated from Russia as a child is drawn to Ocean Parkway and Brighton Beach
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1975, artist Alisa Minyukova immigrated to New York City with her mother and grandmother in 1981 and grew up on the Lower East Side. In a 2016 essay titled "Food Stamps and Caviar: How I moved to Brighton Beach,"...
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