Documenting a Disappearing Coney Island

The future of Coney Island is in the balance. Organizations from the Municipal Arts Society's "Imagine Coney Island" to the City of New York, to Joseph Sitt's Thor Equities to Charles Denson's Coney Island History Project are trying to figure out what is best for this much beloved amusement area at the edge of Brooklyn. For the past four years, students of the Urban Memory Project have been trying to figure out the same thing. Visiting the neighborhood in rain and shine, winter and summer, their images capture what they believe to be the heart of the community's history and appeal. As Astroland comes down, not to reopen this summer, the students' images present the Coney Island they grew up with – a bit tired, at times overlooked, and still engagingly colorful, compelling and fun.

Learning from the Park Slope Oral History Project

The Park Slope Civic Council's Civic News has just published a piece about its collaboration with UMP, the Secondary School for Research and the Old Stone House around interviewing Park Slope "old-timers." Students from the school will be transcribing and editing the interviews to post on the Civic Council and Brooklyn Historical Society web sites, as well as for inclusion in their upcoming exhibition in January. Stay tuned for more information on when and where this exhibition will take place!


Check out the article here.

Check out the UMP interview on All Day Buffet

Ashley Friedman interviews Rebecca Krucoff, UMP Director, about the origins of the Urban Memory Project, its goals, and student responses to recording the history of their community at All Day Buffet.

UMP to start Oral History Project in Park Slope

UMP students at the Secondary School for Research in Park Slope are recording the memories of long-term neighborhood residents. Partnering with the Park Slope Civic Council, the Old Stone House and the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), the students’ will meet and interview long-term community residents about their lives in the neighborhood and the changes they have witnessed. The students’ interviews will then be transcribed and uploaded to the BHS website, available for Ipod downloads as part of a neighborhood walking tour. The Park Slope project will lead to students documenting and recording the stories of residents in their own communities, to be used in exhibitions at their school, at the Old Stone House, and in public spaces around the city.

Student Work travels to NY Methodist Hospital

Selections from the Urban Memory Project's exhibition Lost in Transition, will be on display at the NY Methodist Hospital from April 28 - May 5, 2008 in the Hospital's Milner Pavillion. A reception for the public will be held on Monday May 5, 2008 at 4:30pm. The NY Methodist Hospital Milner Pavillion is located on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn

Student Photos

These are student photos from the past two years of the Urban Memory Project. Some of these are currently on display at the Brooklyn Historical Society through April 27th.

Urban Memory Project joins Youth Intiative

The Urban Memory Project (UMP) has been invited to participate in a Youth Initiative conference in April, 2008. Youth from across the country will convene in NYC to discuss issues of urban planning and the future of cities. Urban Memory Project students from across Brooklyn will give voice to their ideas and opinions in a forum at the Brooklyn Historical Society, in conjunction with the UMP exhibition Lost in Transition. Issues discussed will include: Does gentrification harm or help neighborhoods. What is really the greater good for NYC? And, what, if anything, should be preserved, and how should it be preserved?