Robert Taylor

Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor was born in a small town in Texas in 1939. He graduated high school in 1964 and by that time had already held odd jobs as a gardener and paperboy and worked at a shoe store, a nursing home, a drug store and a bowling alley. Taylor was drafted into the military, trained in Louisiana and learned radio/TV repair, fought and was captured for a time in Vietnam, and served on a base in California. After his service, he worked for several years as a station porter for the New York City Transit Authority, as a shipping/receiving clerk in a hospital, and for the United States Postal Service. When he moved to Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in the 1970s, Taylor's first apartment was a shared studio. One of his roommates became his wife, and they moved to their own apartment in the Flatbush neighborhood. Taylor frequented the jazz nightclub Blue Coronet (1965 - 1985) in Bedford-Stuyvesant and other bars, and alcoholism took a toll and ended his marriage. At the time of the interview in 2010, Taylor was retired and had been a resident of Marcus Garvey Nursing Home for one year.

In the interview, Robert Taylor goes over his many biographical details in a loose, vague timeline. He mentions military service and several jobs he had over his lifetime; the longest being with the New York City Transit Authority. It was during that time as a station porter, that he discovered a dead body on the platform. He reflects on the work his parents did and how they instilled a work ethic and values. Taylor talks about the difficulties of sharing his first cramped apartment, where he met the woman he went on to marry. He speaks of the move they made to Flatbush and how he witnessed the rising blight from drug traffic and shuttered businesses that changed Crown Heights. Taylor recalls learning about radio and television repair in the service, as well as how it felt to be drafted. He offers his sound advice to high school students and reflects on what he was like in his school days. 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

Taylor, Robert, Oral history interview conducted by Alex Kelly, April 01, 2010, Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History collection, 2010.020.041; Brooklyn Historical Society.