Constance Lesold

Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Constance Lesold

Constance "Connie" Lesold was born in North Carolina in 1938. She first visited the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights in 1966 and had an apartment with her husband, Helmuth Lesold, by 1967. The couple had one son, Benjamin, who was born in 1970. She is a social worker, who was president of the Parkway Independent Democrats and an official of Community Board Eight. Along with her husband, several Brooklyn community boards, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and a public coalition, she opposed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's move to end service on the Franklin Avenue Shuttle in the mid-1990s. A widow since 1994, she volunteered with the Brooklyn Mental Hygiene Court Monitors Project and became a member of Disabled in Action. In 2004, she joined a group occupying a firehouse that shut down service in Williamsburg. Lesold joined lawmakers and citizens at the Capitol in Albany to protest rent control regulations in 2015 and she remains an active participant in MTA Board hearings.

Constance Lesold begins the interview by talking about her first memories of the Crown Heights neighborhood in 1966. She talks about her late husband, Helmuth Lesold, and the early years of their marriage in an apartment building on Eastern Parkway. Along with other residents, they petitioned their landlord to integrate their building. She remembers the dramatic change in the fall of 1967, when Whites became the minority in the diversifying community. Lesold refers to the multicultural school her son attended. She focuses on the battle to save the Franklin Avenue Shuttle from permanent closure and names the pivotal activists involved: her husband, Sybil Holmes, Community Boards Three, Eight and Nine, Borough Presidents Howard Golden and Marty Markowitz, Councilwoman Mary Pinkett, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Lesold makes the point that there is still work to do in subway accessibility, and discusses the garden above the Franklin Avenue Shuttle that was vandalized by Transit Police. The Atlantic Yards Project, the Daily News' departure, and past efforts to get federal funding for neighborhoods are the other concerns for Lesold. She concludes with advice for young activists. Interview conducted by Alex Kelly.

Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History includes interview audio and summaries created and collected within the context of a community project undertaken by project director Alex Kelly and Paul J. Robeson High School interns Treverlyn Dehaarte, Ansie Montilus, Monica Parfait, Quanaisha Phillips and Floyya Richardson. These interviewers recorded conversations with forty-three narrators. In addition to the educational experience for the student interns, the oral histories were conducted as life history and community anthropology interviews. Topics of discussion include family and parenting, migration, cultural and racial relations, occupations and business, education and religion, housing and gentrification, civil unrest and reconciliation, and community activism.

Citation

Lesold, Constance, Oral history interview conducted by Alex Kelly, April 07, 2010, Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History collection, 2010.020.025; Brooklyn Historical Society.