Jamaican-born artist and Coney Island resident
Courtney King was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and has lived in Coney Island for the past seven years. An artist since childhood, he began working as a sign painter after training in commercial art and fine art. He spent 12 years working on an...
Content type: Oral History Item
A five-year-old describes her visit to Coney Island
At 63 seconds, this is the shortest oral history in our archive and one of the youngest narrators. Five-year-old Rebecca Diamond, who was visiting with her family, including her grandmother Rosalie Diamond, tells us her favorite rides in Coney...
Content type: Oral History Item
Actor and playwright whose new play A Lonely Night in Coney Island is set on the Boardwalk
Actor and playwright Mohammed Saad Ali's new play A Lonely Night in Coney Island is being produced by Bensonhurst's Genesis Repertory on April 28 as part of the Rise of the Phoenix Festival in the East Village. Set on the Coney Island Boardwalk and...
Content type: Oral History Item
The founder of the Dark Ride Project on documenting Spook-A-Rama and other historic dark rides
Joel Zika is a multimedia artist, a lecturer in Creative Arts at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, and the creator of the Dark Ride Project. Using a Virtual Reality 360- degree video camera, his mission is to document the dwindling number...
Content type: Oral History Item
Owner of Octopus Garden in Gravesend
Vincent Cutrone owns and operates Octopus Garden, which sells tenderized octopus and cuttlefish to restaurants in New York City and distributes the product across the country. Located on Avenue U in Gravesend, the shop was originally a mom-and-pop...
Content type: Oral History Item
Teaching Yoga on the Beach in Coney Island
Yoga and meditation teacher Chia-Ti Chiu has been teaching "Yoga on the Beach" off West 19th Street in Coney Island since 2014. She talks about her family's Taiwanese heritage, her travels to China and Southeast Asia, where she studied Mandarin...
Content type: Oral History Item
A Coney Island native's memories of running amusement games
Eliot Wofse grew up in Luna Park Houses across the street from the amusement area, which he calls his playground. His elder brothers worked as game agents and regularly sent him off to play, for free, at Steeplechase Park and Playland Arcade. At...
Content type: Oral History Item
Lifelong Coney Island resident and author of Living Life Like It's Golden
Dionne Brown, who has lived in Coney Island all her life, also works here. She grew up in Surfside Gardens and attended Surfside School (PS 329), Bay Academy, Lincoln High School, and Kingsborough Community College. A love of reading was instilled...
Content type: Oral History Item
Growing up in Coney Island in the 1970s and '80s and coming back to photograph it
Barry Yanowitz grew up in Coney Island where he could see the Cyclone and hear the screams of riders from his window. "The Cyclone was it," he recalls. "The secret thing that me and friends of mine had who lived in the area that I felt like the rest...
Content type: Oral History Item
Storyteller, cartoonist and designer whose graphic novel Prince of Cats is partly set in 1980's Coney Island
Brooklyn resident Ronald Wimberly is a storyteller, cartoonist and designer whose graphic novel Prince of Cats is partly set in Coney Island. His retelling of Romeo and Juliet mixes comics, hip-hop and Shakespearian poetry. Wimberly describes the...
Content type: Oral History Item