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[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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Richard Rabinowitz
Oral history interview conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel
December 08, 2014
Call number: 2015.011.17
0:00 - Parents’ lives during the 1930s and 1940s
6:17 - Buying home on Bradford Street and the neighborhood in the 1950s
16:35 - Jewish identity and relations with other ethnic groups
20:17 - East New York geography, PS 213, and educational aspirations
26:47 - Libraries, George Gershwin Junior High School, YM and YWHA
31:37 - New Lots Avenue commercial district and Jewish religious education
34:47 - Brooklyn Dodgers, Communist uncle, and integration
42:37 - George Gershwin Junior High School integration, ethnic neighborhoods
47:45 - Block busting, White flight, and social mobility
58:43 - Public housing, neighborhood development, growing up in the 1950s
69:51 - Broadway and researching plays with Black characters
75:16 - Integration of East New York and Fortunoff
84:00 - Rapid switch from Jewish to Black families on the block
88:04 - Destruction of the Jewish community
93:58 - What led to White flight
101:41 - Effect of racism on social policy
109:39 - Close knit community in East New York
119:03 - Brownsville and the Jewish community
122:38 - Segregation of New York City and Black community leadership
Interview Description
Oral History Interview with Richard Rabinowitz
Richard Rabinowitz was born in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1945. His father was a Jewish American and his mother was a Jewish immigrant who emigrated from Poland in 1928. His family purchased a home on Bradford Street, between Hegeman Avenue and Linden Boulevard, in 1948, and they remained there until 1966 or 1967. He attended PS 213, George Gershwin Junior High School, and Stuyvesant High School. He moved to Massachusetts and attended Harvard University before returning to Brooklyn in the 1980s. Rabinowitz is a public historian and founder of the American History Workshop. He lives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn with his wife.
In the interview, Richard Rabinowitz discusses his parents' lives in the 1930s and 1940s, his childhood growing up in the Jewish community of the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1950s, local businesses and schools, White flight, race relations, and integration. The interview was conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel at Rabinowitz's home in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
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
Rabinowitz, Richard, Oral history interview conducted by Sarita Daftary-Steel, December 08, 2014, Sarita Daftary-Steel collection of East New York oral histories, 2015.011.17; Brooklyn Historical Society.People
- Brooklyn Dodgers (Baseball team)
- George Gershwin J.H.S. 166 (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- P.S. 213 (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Rabinowitz, Richard
Topics
- Housing
- Jewish neighborhoods
- Jews
- Public schools
- Race relations
- Real estate business
- School integration
- Urban policy
Places
- Bradford Street (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Brownsville (New York, N.Y.)
- East New York (New York, N.Y.)
Finding Aid
Sarita Daftary-Steel collection of East New York oral histories