Alfie Davis

Alfie Davis has lived in Coney Island for nearly 40 years and is the Tenant Association Leader of the Sea Rise I complex in Coney Island's West End. Part I of her family's story illuminates an incredible chapter of African-American history. The patriarchs of the family were the Reverend Augustus U. Frierson, a minister and teacher of Greek and Latin, and Alfred Joseph Prince, a real estate broker and developer. Originally from South Carolina and Florida, the family migrated north to New York City in the 1930s and lived together on West 108th Street and later in Queens. When Davis first moved to Coney Island in 1980, her friends in Park Slope asked "Are you going to live on top of a roller coaster?" She says they had no idea Coney Island was a neighborhood and not just an amusement park. 

Alfie Davis passed away on November 1, 2020 at the age of 76.