Writer and playwright who grew up in Coney Island from 1943 to 1956
Carol Polcovar is a writer and playwright who grew up in Coney Island from age three through sixteen. Her family moved from Brighton Beach to West 35th Street next to P.S. 188, where she longed to go to kindergarten. The home that she remembers best...
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
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
Australian circus historian whose family performed at Coney Island's Luna Park in the early 1900s
Mark St Leon is an Australian circus historian whose family performed in Coney Island at Thompson and Dundy's Luna Park in the early 1900s. The St Leon troupe of bareback riders, acrobats and tightwire artists who came to the U.S. was led by his...
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
Memories of growing up in Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s
Anne Green, 89, grew up in Coney Island and currently lives in Brighton Beach. Her family first moved to West 20th Street in Coney Island after a fire in their Harlem apartment. She shares childhood memories of finding a $10 bill on the beach, ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Composer and lyricist of Luna Park, a musical, on chronicling the partnership of Thompson and Dundy
Lyricist Michael Cooper and composer Hyeyoung Kim met as students at NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and began working collaboratively in 2005. They talk about researching and writing Luna Park, a musical which chronicles the...
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
Historian delves into the life of E.J. Perry, African-American silhouette artist at Luna Park
Historian Eric K. Washington's 2013 essay "E.J. Perry, African-American Silhouette Cutter of America's Leisure Circuit" brought the long forgotten Perry into the public eye once again. Called "America's most famous silhouette cutter" by The...
Content type: Oral History Item
A Coney Island resident describes her Steeplechase memories
Remembering Coney's carousels, the Steeplechase horses, Luna Park fires, riding the Parachute Jump, and her father, who worked at Dreamland.
Content type: Oral History Item