Coney Island resident and proprietor of Coney Island Hook and Bait Shop
Derrick Batts, 50, has been a resident of Coney Island and an avid fisherman since boyhood. In May, he and his son Derrick Jr. opened Coney Island Hook and Bait Shop on West 24th Street just off Mermaid Avenue. They sell an array of bait and fishing...
Content type: Oral History Item
Visiting scholar whose research interests include theme park studies
A professor of American Studies at the University of Mainz in Germany, Florian Freitag recently spent a year as a visiting scholar at the New York City College of Technology. Officially here to do research on 19th-century magazines, his other main...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island carny kid and water race game operator on the Bowery
Candi Rafael, whose family operates games on Coney Island's Bowery, grew up here and started helping out as an eight-year-old. Now 22, she says "I have to say it's made me stronger." She says working here has taught her the value of hard work as...
Content type: Oral History Item
Founder and director of Brighton Ballet Theater, founded in 1987
Coney Island resident Irina Roizin emigrated from Ukraine in 1976 and realized her childhood dream of founding a ballet school, Brighton Ballet Theater, in 1987. Roizin recounts first impressions of Brighton Beach and Coney, the challenges of...
Content type: Oral History Item
Revisiting the Spook-A-Rama and Wonder Wheel of his boyhood
Michael Borruto shared his memories of riding Spook-A-Rama and the Wonder Wheel as a 10-year-old. On an August 2016 visit to Coney Island with his wife and friends, he wanted to revisit and ride Spook-A-Rama. "I didn't even know it was still there...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island resident since the 1970s, community gardener and musician
Santos Torres has lived in Coney Island since 1973, tends the Santos White Community Garden, and plays music on the Boardwalk during the summer. Located on Mermaid Avenue, the garden was founded in 1995 and is part of the City's GreenThumb network...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s and growing up in Brooklyn in an Italian family
Commendatore Aldo Mancusi, the founder of the Enrico Caruso Museum of America, brings his Hofbauer street organ from the museum to our annual Coney Island History Day celebrations. Born in 1929, Mancusi shares his memories of coming to Coney Island...
Content type: Oral History Item
Teacher and community advocate at Public School 188 in Coney Island
Scott Krivitsky grew up in Brighton Beach and is a teacher and community advocate at P.S. 188 in Coney Island. He talks about the Brooklyn Marine STEM Alliance of over 30 schools to give students a "real life education" in science, technology,...
Content type: Oral History Item
Science teacher at John Dewey High School and advisor for the Robotics Team
Filippo Dispenza is a science teacher at John Dewey High School in the Gravesend neighborhood of Southern Brooklyn. He teaches and advises Dewey's award-winning Robotics Team, which recently placed 7th out of 75 teams in a competition. Dispenza...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island handball champions Albert Apuzzi and Dori Ten on the mecca of handball
Husband and wife Albert Apuzzi and Dori Ten are one-wall handball champions who have long played at Coney Island's famed Seaside Courts, known as the mecca of handball. Apuzzi tells how he started playing handball in kindergarten when the game was...
Content type: Oral History Item