Tattoo artist who grew up in Coney Island's West End
Samantha Robles, a tattoo artist who is known as "Cake," shares childhood memories of growing up in Coney Island's West End and describes her artistic influences. Three generations of Robles' extended family have lived in Coney's "Coconuts Building...
Content type: Oral History Item
Teen memories of Coney Island's Polar Express and Breakdance in the 2000s
As a teenager in the 2000s, Alicia Angello lived in Marlboro Houses in Gravesend, which was walking distance to Coney Island. She shares memories of coming here with her friends every Friday night and sometimes every day in the summer. The Polar...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Gravesend and going to Coney Island in the 1960s and living there today
Maria Schwab (née Delgado) grew up in Gravesend in her grandmother's house, where she lives with her family today. She shares stories of growing up in Gravesend in the 1960s, when the neighborhood was predominantly Italian and the streets were quiet...
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
Educator at New York Aquarium and passionate observer of Brooklyn wildlife
Jen Kepler is an educator at the New York Aquarium whose titles are Manager of Volunteers and Visitor Engagement and Live Interpretation Manager. The Brooklyn native recalls aspiring to work there ever since her childhood visits to see the beluga...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up on West 29th Street and meeting her lifeguard husband on Coney Island Beach
Ellen Abrams' earliest memory is sitting in a wicker carriage and being taken for a stroll on the boardwalk by her mother and grandmother. Growing up in Coney Island in the 1940s and '50s, Ellen enjoyed birthday parties every July on the beach and ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of Coney Island in the 1920s and '30s
Born in Harlem, Ida Rosenblum Gambrell, now 94, spent her childhood summers in Coney Island at her aunt's home on Surf Avenue and West 24th Street. Ida recalls her mother giving her and her sister 20 cents to take the train from 103rd Street to 42nd...
Content type: Oral History Item
Brooklynite who was a lifeguard in the 1950s and met his wife of 60 years on Coney Island Beach
Born in 1938 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Martin Abrams learned to swim at Washington Baths pool and worked as a lifeguard for six summers at Coney Island Beach. It was there that he met his wife Ellen. "My first time working at Bay 21, I noticed...
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
"Hot Dog Queen" and Winner of the 1972 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest
For more than 40 years, Melody Andorfer worked as a registered nurse on the front lines at Elmhurst Hospital. She worked in the neo-natal intensive care unit, drug and alcohol rehab, the acute brain trauma unit, and also spent ten years as an...
Content type: Oral History Item