Susan Hochtman Creatura

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 people was located right on the beach. "They talked about how Coney Island was a paradise," she recalls. "They had so much fun here, they didn't feel poor." Both sets of grandparents were immigrants. They'd come from Hungary and Russia, and after first living in the Bronx and Williamsburg, settled in Coney Island on West 28th Street and West 32nd Street. After Hochtman Creatura's parents moved to Canarsie, visiting her grandparents in Coney Island remained a weekend custom, and as an adult she continued to visit her mother's mother in Warbasse Houses.  "I feel such a connection to this place," she says on her first visit to Coney Island since her grandmother's death.