Girlhood memories of visiting Coney Island in the 1930s and '40s
Toby Deligdish, 92, grew up in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. She shares memories of going to Coney Island at around age 10, when her family rented a room in a home for the summer, and returning as a teenager with friends from school....
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of living in Coney Island from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s
Born in 1940, Jerry Omanoff lived in Coney Island from the late 1940s to the mid-60s. His family lived first in a bungalow on West 32nd Street, then in an apartment in a three-story house on West 33rd Street, and finally in Sea Gate. He shares...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up Japanese American in Coney Island in the 1950s and '60s
Roy Omori grew up in the 1950s and '60s in Coney Island where he could see the Parachute Jump from his window and Steeplechase Park was his playground. Omori's Japanese-American parents moved to Coney from California in the 1940s, during World War...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of placing the Puerto Rican flag atop the Parachute Jump and driving the Mermaid Avenue bus
Carlos Quinones, 72, is a longtime Coney Island resident who’s well known for his collection of classic cars. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired MTA employee who drove the Mermaid Avenue bus for many years. In this interview he clears up the...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of working on the Coney Island Parachute Jump's operation crew at age 16
Ralph Avella was the youngest member of the Coney Island Parachute Jump's operation crew. Bensonhurst native Avella was sixteen years old when he began working on the landmark ride in 1961 after graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School. This...
Content type: Oral History Item
Horace and Ita Bullard's attempt to transform Coney Island
Artist Ita Bullard worked for years with her husband Horace to build a world-class amusement park in Coney Island, only to have the project destroyed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Horace Bullard obtained a 99-year lease on the Steeplechase site and...
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
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
Brooklynite who posed for a now iconic 1950's NY Daily News pin-up photo on Coney Island Beach
In 1954, Lois McLohon posed for a Daily News photographer as a bathing beauty against the backdrop of Coney Island beach and its famous skyline. When the photo appeared as a "cheesecake photo" in the paper's centerfold, she and her friends thought...
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