Nathan's Famous

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
Memories of living in the newly opened Luna Park Houses in the 1960s
Randy Kasper and her family were original tenants of Luna Park Houses' Building 5, Apartment 19K. They lived in the newly opened high-rise housing complex from 1962, when she was five, until 1968.  She shares memories of windows facing the ocean and...
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
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 who grew up in Coney Island and was one of Dr. Couney's incubator babies
Poet Norman Stock grew up on West 24th Street in Coney Island. Born in 1940, he spent the first 1-1/2 months of his life as an incubator baby in Dr. Martin Couney's exhibit, which by that time had moved from Coney's Luna Park to the New York World's...
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
Artist who grew up in Coney Island and whose artwork celebrates his Mohawk iron worker ancestry
Born in 1942 and raised in Coney Island, Native American artist Richard Glazer-Danay is of Kahnawake (Caughnawaga) Mohawk and Jewish descent. His family first came to Coney Island with circuses and Wild West shows in the late 1800's and early 1900's...
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
Memories of going to Steeplechase Park as a teenager in the 1950s
Visiting the Coney Island History Project and seeing an original Steeplechase horse brings back vivid memories for Rosalie Diamond of coming to Coney Island as a teen in the 1950s. She recalls the clowns at Steeplechase, riding the Parachute Jump,...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in a Jewish household in Coney Island
Born in Coney Island, Susan Hochtman Creatura lived in Coney Island Houses when it was new and she was a little girl who enjoyed the novelty of riding the elevators. Her parents marveled that this New York City housing complex for working class...
Content type: Oral History Item