Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who emigrated from Ukraine to Brighton Beach as a child
Alexander Vindman was born in 1975 in Soviet Ukraine and emigrated at age four with his family to Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach. He shares memories of growing up and going to school in Brighton, being photographed with his twin brother by the...
Content type: Oral History Item
Community Board 13 member and CEO of Apna Brooklyn Community Center
Erum Hanif is a member of Community Board 13 and CEO of Apna Brooklyn Community Center, a not-for-profit social service organization with locations in Brighton Beach and Bath Beach. Apna was founded by Pervez Siddiqui, a local pharmacist and...
Content type: Oral History Item
Mystery artist who carved faces into rocks on the shoreline at Brighton Beach
John Philip Capello is a painter and sculptor who grew up in Bensonhurst in the 1940s and '50s and now lives in Sag Harbor. This oral history is the culmination of the interviewer's 12 year search for the mystery artist who carved faces into rocks...
Content type: Oral History Item
Lifelong Brighton Beach resident shares stories of Brighton Beach then and now
Born in New York City in 1954, Amparo Garcia has lived in Brighton Beach all her life. Her parents emigrated from Spain in 1949 and because her father loved the beaches of his native Cádiz, he decided the place to live in New York was Brighton Beach...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island Houses in the 1950s and early '60s
Alan Kirschenbaum grew up in Coney Island Houses, where he was among the original tenants of Coney’s first superblock high-rise housing project. "Growing up in Coney Island Houses and in Coney Island was a really wonderful experience" he says. "And...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Brighton Beach in the 1950s and '60s
Rena Stutman Rice shares stories of growing up in Brighton Beach in the 1950s and 60s. Born in 1946, she lived on Brightwater Court and later on Ocean Parkway. A clip from her father's home movie of her as a baby appears in the documentary The Boys...
Content type: Oral History Item
Poet and writer from Afghanistan who grew up in Southern Brooklyn
Zohra Saed is a poet, editor and translator who was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and immigrated to Brooklyn with her family as a child in the 1980s. She grew up in the close-knit Uzbek-Turkestani community on Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay and...
Content type: Oral History Item
Brooklyn College history student grew up working in his family's bodega in Brighton Beach
This oral history was recorded in 2021 when Nasim Almantaser was 21-year-old Brooklyn College student. Nasim grew up working in his Yemeni American family's bodega in Brighton Beach and began helping out in the store as a young boy to be with his...
Content type: Oral History Item
Mother of professional boxing star Nikita Ababiy
Olga Martynchuk is the mother of 22-year-old American professional boxing star, Nikita Ababiy, whose nickname is White Chocolate. She talks about raising a boxing champion whose pro record is an amazing 10-0, with 6 KO's. Nikita attended PS 100, IS...
Content type: Oral History Item
Brooklyn artist who emigrated from Russia as a child is drawn to Ocean Parkway and Brighton Beach
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1975, artist Alisa Minyukova immigrated to New York City with her mother and grandmother in 1981 and grew up on the Lower East Side. In a 2016 essay titled "Food Stamps and Caviar: How I moved to Brighton Beach,"...
Content type: Oral History Item