Paulette Foglio and Jordan Holtzman

Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Paulette Foglio and Jordan Holtzman
Paulette (Giarusso) Foglio was born in Brooklyn in 1953 to Italian parents. Her family was the first to move into the Linden Houses in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn when it opened in 1956, and they lived there until 1969. She attended PS 190, George Gershwin Junior High School, Thomas Jefferson High School, and St. John's University. She is the principal of PS 99 in Kew Gardens, Queens, and currently lives on Long Island, New York.

Jordan Holtzman was born in Brooklyn in 1946 to Jewish parents. His family moved to the Linden Houses in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1950s, where they remained until the 1970s. He attended PS 190, George Gershwin Junior High School, Thomas Jefferson High School, New York City Community College, and Baruch College. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He worked as a stock trader on Wall Street for 25 years, and now works as a Parent Coordinator at PS 99 in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. He lives in Forest Hills, Queens, New York.

In the interview, Paulette Foglio and Jordan Holtzman describe growing up in the Linden Houses in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1950s and 1960s, their experiences in neighborhood schools (especially George Gershwin Junior High School and Thomas Jefferson High School), neighborhood businesses, White flight from the neighborhood and public housing, the rise in crime in the neighborhood, integration and race relations, and their feelings about the neighborhood today. The interview was conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel at PS 99 in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York.

The collection consists of twenty oral history interviews (with nineteen narrators) conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel with residents (past and present) of the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. The interviews were conducted between January 2014 and February 2015. The project was designed to capture the experiences of East New York residents who lived in the neighborhood during the period when families of color (African American, West Indian, and Puerto Rican) moved in and White families moved out, and the resulting decline of services and quality of life that followed. This process began as early as the 1950s and continued through the rest of the twentieth century. Sarita Daftary-Steel is a community organizer who worked for United Community Centers from 2003 to 2013, most of those years as the East New York Farms! Project Director.

Citation

Foglio, Paulette and Jordan Holtzman, Oral history interview conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel, July 17, 2014, Sarita Daftary-Steel collection of East New York oral histories, 2015.011.07; Brooklyn Historical Society.