Hello all,

I grew up in Canarsie in the 1970s, and now all these years laters I’m doing some CUNY-attached sociological research on life in the boroughs between the 1930s and the end of the 20th century. As we all know, the city has changed a lot since the gentrification era of the 1990s, and I’m interested in interviewing people who grew up in a time when we still had neighborhoods instead of luxury high-rises. Tell us where your family came from, what games you used to play, what school was like. We’d like to hear about everything from the grandeur of the local movie house to the restaurants you went to on dates. In fact, should you choose, the interview will be archived in a CUNY digital database so that future generations can learn about and understand what NYC life was really like during our time.

Interviews last about an hour, and as noted, they are purely for academic and sociological research. To learn more about this opportunity to leave your record for future researchers and historians, please contact me at gcastronovo@gradcenter.cuny.edu. The only requirement we have for participation is that you must have lived somewhere within the five boroughs between the ages of 2 and 15, so it’s perfectly okay if you lived in Queens for a few years and then moved somewhere else in the city.

Thanks for reading, and please pass this on to anyone you believe may be interested in telling their story. I look forward to talking to everyone about the good old days of New York.

Reference ID: QU63604

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