Roger Caban has been a resident in Spanish Harlem for over 65 years and came to the StoryBooth in Foley Square to paint a very vivid picture of growing up in “El Barrio.” “When I was a kid, Spanish Harlem was West Side Story. From 3rd Avenue west to 5th Avenue was all Puerto Rican. From 3rd Avenue to the river east was Italian. It was a real Mason Dixon line. You couldn’t walk to the pool by yourself, you had to have a gang.” Later Roger sheepishly qualified, “I had a very short history with a gang. I was in a gang called the Latin Gents. We had jackets and everything. I lasted about a week. I got beaten up, they took my jacket, and that was the end of my criminal career.”

Always the entrepreneur, Roger would buy shopping bags for two cents a piece and sell them on weekends for a nickel. “I would come home with my pockets bulging with coins. Five or six dollars was like a fortune to me as a kid.” His family owned the first television in their apartment building. “I grew up on television. All the kids would come up and I would charge them a penny to watch The Howdy Doody Show.”

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On Wednesday 19 of August 2009, we had a great experience visiting the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a non-profit organization that brings together girls and women from diverse communities encouraging them to explore self-expression through music. It is hosted at the Urban Assembly School for Music and Art in downtown Brooklyn, New York.

It is very common to see people walking the streets with their i-Pod while waiting for the bus or train, listening to their favorites music. Sometimes people are making some movements with their hands, head, or foot when a sound is really powerful or when they really feel the music. For me, it was like that at Willie Mae Rock Camp, and  I did not have to use an i-Pod, just my camera and recording equipment. I was ready for the show. The recordings started at 9:00 am and by that time, I had already listened a lot of sounds: girls with their guitars or drums, playing and singing and composing music. Everyone was preparing for the big event: a performance at a professional rock venue!

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Seitu, Amir and Tunisia Solomon come from three generations of steel pan musicians. As early as three years old their father taught them how to play and their uncle Phil made the drums in his factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Amir explains if you want to know what a steel pan looks like, “just look at a garbage can in the streets.”  The creation of a steel pan is work intensive. It starts out as a 50 gallon oil barrel then each steel pan is hammered, sculpted and tuned by hand.

The entire Solomon family travels together playing Soca, Calypso, Rumba and classical music at weddings and shows to the delight of audiences.  While all three mentioned being in the spotlight and getting attention as highlights of performing, they emphasized that the real benefit is being part of a musical family. “There’s always something we can agree with at the end of the day because everyone plays music. It’s special to have a family that can come together, go downstairs and just perform and practice,” says eldest sibling Amir.

Seitu agreed. “I really like it. Any song that I hear I can refer to anyone in my family to help me learn. It’s good to have them there. My family can adjust to any mistake that I make. If I mess up or miss my cue for a melody they all just shift accordingly to help me out,” says Seitu.

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In honor of StoryCorps Historias, Senior Coordinator Gabriel Higuera and his mother, Purita Higuera, came in to the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to share stories.

Con el pasar del tiempo aprendemos nuevas cosas, y vivimos momentos de todo tipo, nos topamos con diferentes imaginarios y seres humanos, unos mas especiales que otros segun nuestro parecer pero todos transitando y conviviendo en un mismo mundo.

Hoy les quiero contar una historia con sabor Cubano-Americano una historia de nostalgia y  musica. Todo parecia transcurrir como un sabado normal en el booth de Storycorps depronto veo a Gabriel Higuera el coordinador de Historias de nuestra organizacion, Gabriel venia acompanado de su madre Purita, que al verla sonrei inmediatamente la expression de su cara era una mezcla de dulzura y tranquilidad.

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Recently a group of teens from Faith to Faith – Face to Face visited the StoryBooth in Lower Manhattan. The organization invites youth from the U.S., the Middle East, Northern Ireland and South Africa to engage in multi-faith education and communication-building workshops.

When participants Mustafa Ganem and Karl Coulter entered the StoryBooth to tell their story they seemed a little nervous, but quickly settled in and opened up. Karl spoke of the challenges of growing up Protestant in the midst of political and religious struggle with Catholics in Northern Ireland and his desire for a peaceful conclusion, while Mustafa discussed the challenges of growing up as an Arab in Israel.

Mustafa said, “I feel hopeful that there can be peace when I see other people like myself or like you who are willing to talk and get to a common ground and understanding. Like when I meet people at Face to Face. (They) let people talk about their conflicts and their own experiences and how did it feel, and it teaches you to listen. I think also the problem back home is no one from both sides are willing to listen to each other.”

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Retired firefighter Harriet Duren and New York City Fire Museum director, Linda Burke, came to the StoryBooth in Lower Manhattan and talked about being in one of the first classes of female firefighters in New York City.

Born and raised in Harlem, Harriet talked about her family’s reaction to her decision to become a firefighter. “They laughed at me. My father was impressed,  but he never would say anything. My mother was adamant against it. She did not want me to come into this job. The idea of going into the fire department was something very strange. They thought that maybe a police would be better – at least I’d have a gun.”

She later describes what it was like the first time she entered a burning building. “The one thing that really enc0mpasses you when you go in there, it can be very quiet. And you can hear the fire crackling. It’s like you, you’re in a sound proof booth, because all of the smoke and gases are around and you have on your mask, and you’re searching, really searching….”

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Jose Alicia came to StoryCorps recently to reflect on his past and look forward into his future. In the 1980′s, Jose’s family was living in New York City and times were tough. His parents’ relationship was under strain. Money was short. The crack epidemic was in full swing. In an effort to help his family get by, teen-aged Jose got into the drug game.

A member of the Yellow Top Crew, one of the most violent gangs in their territory, Jose started out small moving drugs. But he eventually started working as hired muscle where the money was better. That’s when trouble really started for Jose. Drugs, killings, kidnappings, shootouts. “It was like a movie, but it was real,” remembered Jose. After a series of arrests and convictions, Jose finally caught a rap that landed him in prison for a 9 year stretch.

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This might just be a question that even “The Greatest” Muhammad Ali, can’t answer. Brian Victor sat in the comfort and security of the Lower Manhattan Storybooth and told Carl Scott about his first Boxing Day experience.

When he was a nine year old, his family was preparing to spend the Christmas holidays in Guyana where his parents grew up. There was one aspect of the festivities that Brian was not clear about, so he asked his father about Boxing Day. To prep him for the experience, his father told him that Boxing Day was a day on which everyone comes out into the streets and start to fight – it’s just a big brawl.

The prospect of a communal brawl really scared this young boy. He wondered, “Am I going to die”? So, on the days leading up to the event, he worked out, practiced boxing, and even studied some boxing videos.

Brian got up bright and early on December 26th, and looked out the window. He didn’t see a soul anywhere. He thought, “O.K., I guess things are going to start a little late. This is what West Indians do; when they are suppose to show at 7:00, they don’t show until 9:00 or 10:00. O.K.”

After a while he went into his dad’s room, only to find that he’d been punk’d. Laughing, his father said, “I can’t believe you fell for that one”. This was just one of the many times Brian’s dad made his childhood a wonderful place to be.

“We came down here because today is our 5^th anniversary of getting to celebrate being alive,” Kate Provencher began. Five years ago, at the exact time of their conversation in our New York City StoryBooth, Kate, a mental health therapist, and her friend and former-coworker Lynda Rose, a clinical director, were at the door of a client’s apartment during what they thought would be a routine home visit. They were assigned to visit the client together “because he was having so much trouble maintaining stability,” Kate explained. After ringing his doorbell and knocking numerous times without response, they knew that something wasn’t right.

_{Lynda Rose (left) and Kate Provencher at our New York City StoryBooth.}

“Then we heard a ruckus,” Lynda recalled. Kate feared the noise might be the client opening his window to jump (they were on the 4th story). So Lynda looked out the fire escape to investigate. When she turned back around, the client’s door was open and he was punching Kate. Lynda grabbed her cell and dialed 9-1-1, but the operator could hardly hear her due to bad reception. So she “went into autopilot” and ran toward him in an attempt to force him off. That’s when Kate yelled, “Please be careful. He has something sharp and I’ve been stabbed.”

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“Where Stars are born and Legends are Made”

On this 75th Anniversary of the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, Melvin Sheppard came into the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to tell the story of how he won first place for seven consecutive weeks in the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Hour.

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