Coney Island Stories

Season Two’s theme is “Growing Up in Coney Island” through the decades, from the 1930s to the 21st century. In Episode Six, Narrators who grew up here in the 1980s, or grew up coming to Coney Island from nearby neighborhoods, share their stories. They remember living in Gravesend Houses and O’Dwyer Gardens, high-rises overseen by the New York City Housing Authority, as well as apartments on West 19th Street and in Brightwater Towers. Astroland Park, Fabers Fascination Arcade, and Ruby’s Bar and Grill were their playgrounds.

Coney Island during the 1980s is best symbolized by Greek immigrant Denos Vourderis’s purchase of the 1920 Wonder Wheel, the amusement area’s oldest continuously operating ride and the founding of Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. Another ray of hope in 1980’s Coney Island was the Astella Development Corporation’s plan to build low-rise attached homes on vacant lots slated for high-rise projects that were abandoned when the city went broke in the 1970s. Astella developed or renovated nearly one thousand single-family, owner-occupied homes on city-owned land in the 1980s.

The oral histories in Episode Six are with Alito Hernandez, Shavon Meyers, Zohra Saed, Eric Safyan, and Jeffrey L. Wilson. The interviews were conducted by Kaara Baptiste, Charles Denson, Leila Goldstein, and Tricia Vita between 2017 and 2021. This episode was produced by Charles Denson, Ali Lemer and Tricia Vita. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

©2022 The Coney Island History Project. All Rights Reserved. This program is sponsored in part by an Action Grant from Humanities New York with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Season Two’s theme is “Growing Up in Coney Island” through the decades, from the 1930s to the 21st century. In Episode Eight, the final episode of this season, we’re sharing the stories of narrators who grew up in Coney Island or came here from nearby neighborhoods, in the first decade of the 2000s.

The new millennium began with the opening of a thirty million dollar ballpark for a Mets farm team on the site of Steeplechase Park. A contest was held to name the new team and the Brooklyn Cyclones was the winning name. Whenever the Cyclones won a home game, Astroland’s Cyclone roller coaster enjoyed a surge of business.

Soon after Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002, he set his sights on Coney Island. He envisioned world-class attractions and hotels surrounded by high-rise residential development on vacant amusement land. A year later, the city formed the Coney Island Development Corporation to devise what was called “the Coney Island Strategic Plan.” The objective was to make Coney Island into a year-round recreational oceanfront destination by rezoning it. The ensuing zoning battle kept Coney in the headlines for the next six years, as speculators bought and sold land, and preservationists and stakeholders offered alternative visions for the future of the “People’s Playground.”

The oral histories in Episode Seven are with Ahmed Hussain, Abby Jordan, Bonnie Kong, Candi Rafael, and Eric Sanchez. The interviews were conducted by Kaara Baptiste, Allison Corbett, Amanda Deutch, Samira Tazari, and Lauren Vespoli between 2015 and 2022. This episode was produced by Charles Denson, Ali Lemer and Tricia Vita. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

©2022 The Coney Island History Project. All Rights Reserved. This program is sponsored in part by an Action Grant from Humanities New York with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Season Two’s theme is “Growing Up in Coney Island” through the decades, from the 1930s to the 21st century. In Episode Seven, narrators who grew up here in the 1990s share stories of loss and change. They remember living in Gravesend Houses and Sea Rise apartments as well as on West 5th, West 8th and West 19th Streets. The Boardwalk, the Beach, Astroland, the Cyclone Roller Coaster and the Wonder Wheel were their playgrounds.

The decade began with the Cyclone winning a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The same year, a fire gutted the wooden house under Coney’s other surviving roller coaster from the 1920s, the still standing but nonoperational Thunderbolt. The house was known to film lovers as Woody Allen’s boyhood home in the movie Annie Hall, but it was originally built as the Kensington Hotel in the late 1800s. It was the last remaining structure from Coney’s original waterfront, since the shoreline at that time was much farther inland than it is now. The 1925 coaster was caught between an owner who neglected it, and City officials who considered it an eyesore. Some viewed the Thunderbolt as a symbol of Coney’s decline, but to many, it served as a monument to survival.

The oral histories in Episode Seven are with Tiana Camacho, Emmanuel Elpenord, Theresa Giovinni, Allen James, and Marina Rubin The interviews were conducted by Amanda Deutch, Katya Kumkova, Ali Lemer, Samira Tazari, and Tricia Vita between 2014 and 2020. This episode was produced by Charles Denson, Ali Lemer and Tricia Vita. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

This program is sponsored in part by an Action Grant from Humanities New York with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Episode 2 features the oral histories of Coney Island food businesses owned or operated by immigrants from Greece, Mexico, Jamaica and Russia. Interviews with Steve Arniotes (Lido Bar & Grill), Gregory Bitetzakis and Paul Georgoulakos (Gregory & Paul's), Dalia Vazquez and Raymundo Bardominao (Tacos Doña Zita), Basil Jones (Footprints Cafe), and Viktor Vassiliev (New York Bread) are part of the Coney Island History Project Oral History Archive. Stephen Gaffney, an artist and bartender at Paul's Daughter, is interviewed about Paul. The oral histories were conducted by Charles Denson, Leslee Dean, Kaara Baptiste, and Samira Tazari between 2009-2017.

You can search and listen online to over 375 oral history interviews, including the ones featured in this podcast, at https://www.coneyislandhistory.org/oral-history-archive.

Episode 2 was produced by Charles Denson, Ali Lemer and Tricia Vita. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Spanish translations by Leslee Dean and Mary Conlon. Voice overs by Dave Stork and Ali Lemer.

This program is part of the Cultural Immigrant Initiative supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York City Councilman Mark Treyger.

©2020 The Coney Island History Project. All Rights Reserved.

Episode 1 features the oral histories of Coney Island restaurants and food stands founded by immigrants in the first part of the 20th century as told by their mom-and-pop owners and family members. Interviews with Morris Egert, Josephine Gargiulo Cassata (Gargiulo's Restaurant), Antoinette Balzano (Totonno's), Sol Handwerker (Nathan's Famous) and Peter Agrapides (Williams Candy and Pete's Clam Stop) are part of the Coney Island History Project Oral History Archive and were conducted by Charles Denson between 2007-2017.

You can search and listen online to over 375 oral history interviews in our archive: https://www.coneyislandhistory.org/oral-history-archive

Episode 1 was produced by Charles Denson, Ali Lemer and Tricia Vita. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

This program is part of the Cultural Immigrant Initiative supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York City Councilman Mark Treyger.

©2020 The Coney Island History Project. All Rights Reserved.