Carol Polcovar

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 was at 2919 West 30th Street, which had two houses and a large yard with a rose garden. "The personalities and the environment of Coney Island was really like no other place," says Polcovar. Her father was a vaudeville entertainer and a furrier who told her stories about Dreamland Park. Polcovar recalls her mother, who was dissatisfied living in Coney Island, saying "you're not always going to feel this way about Coney Island. It's a slum by the sea." "To me it was magical," says Polcovar who is writing a memoir of her family and life in Coney Island. She reads an excerpt, "Fireworks Night," in her oral history.