Terms of Use
Oral histories are intimate conversations between and among people who have generously agreed to share these recordings with BHS’s archives and researchers. Please listen in the spirit with which these were shared. BHS abides by the General Principles & Best Practices for Oral History as agreed upon by the Oral History Association and expects that use of this material will be done with respect for these professional ethics.
Every oral history relies on the memories, views, and opinions of the narrator. Because of the personal nature of oral history, listeners may find some viewpoints or language of the recorded participants to be objectionable. In keeping with its mission of preservation and unfettered access whenever possible, BHS presents these views as recorded.
The audio recording should be considered the primary source for each interview. Where provided, transcripts created prior to 2008 or commissioned by a third party other than BHS, serve as a guide to the interview and are not considered verbatim. More recent transcripts commissioned by BHS are nearly verbatim copies of the recorded interview, and as such may contain the natural false starts, verbal stumbles, misspeaks, and repetitions that are common in conversation. The decision for their inclusion was made because BHS gives primacy to the audible voice and also because some researchers do find useful information in these verbal patterns. Unless these verbal patterns are germane to your scholarly work, when quoting from this material researchers are encouraged to correct the grammar and make other modifications maintaining the flavor of the narrator’s speech while editing the material for the standards of print.
All citations must be attributed to Brooklyn Historical Society:
[Last name, First name], Oral history interview conducted by [Interviewer’s First name Last name], [Month DD, YYYY], [Title of Collection], [Call #]; Brooklyn Historical Society.
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Adolph Morciglio
Oral history interview conducted by Robert Rosenberg
June 01, 1992
Call number: 1993.001.08
0:02 - Learning he was living with HIV
3:39 - Background, drug use, how AIDS impacted home life, and getting tested
16:13 - Life around diagnosis: Rikers Island, homelessness, relationship with mother
20:34 - Living at Hotel St. George, accessing services through DAS, Cumberland Medical Center
28:35 - Personal life and interpersonal relationships regarding the virus
36:12 - Influence of Red Hook, Brooklyn; need for more support in society from Church & President
43:17 - HIV prevention messages and stigma
51:06 - Pride in Puerto Rican heritage, love of baseball, other passions
Interview Description
Oral History Interview with Adolph Morciglio
Adolph Morciglio was a person with AIDS (PWA) and a former intravenous drug user (IVDU). Part Puerto Rican, he grew up on Columbia Street in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood and used to live in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood at the St. George Hotel in a special program for homeless PWAs. Prior to the interview, he'd had no major opportunistic infections though he had a dangerously low Tcell count. He was formerly working as a paralegal and had served time in prison.
Adolph Morciglio speaks about his long relationship with drugs; both as a person who used drugs for thirty years and as someone who no longer uses drugs, as well the role that drugs played in his time at Rikers Island. He speaks about his early childhood and the impact he feels it had on his life chances, his early awareness of HIV, the impact HIV has had on his life and his family, as well as the Red Hook community he is from. Towards the end of the interview, he speaks about the need for greater action by the government and churches. Interview conducted by Robert Rosenberg.
The AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection includes oral histories conducted for an exhibition undertaken by the Brooklyn Historical Society in 1993. The project attempted to document the impact of the AIDS epidemic on Brooklyn communities. Recordings initially made on magnetic tape concerned the epidemic and were with narrators who had firsthand experience with the crisis in their communities, families and personal life. Narrators came from diverse backgrounds within Brookyn and the New York metropolitan area and had unique experiences which connected them with HIV/AIDS. Substantive topics of hemophilia, sexual behavior, substance abuse, medical practice, social work, homelessness, activism, childhood, relationships and parenting run through at least one, and often several, of the oral histories in the collection.
Citation
Morciglio, Adolph, Oral history interview conducted by Robert Rosenberg, June 01, 1992, AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection, 1993.001.08; Brooklyn Historical Society.People
- BrooklynCumberland Medical Center
- Gay Men's Health Crisis, Inc.
- Hotel St. George (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Morciglio, Adolph
- New York (N.Y.). Department of Social Services
Topics
- AIDS (Disease)
- AZT (Drug)
- Drug addiction
- Emigration & immigration
- Methadone maintenance
- Patients
- Politics and culture
- Prisons
- Social justice
Places
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- New York (N.Y.)
- Red Hook (New York, N.Y.)
Finding Aid
AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection