This personal timeline essay is inspired by the East New York Oral History Project’s interactive timeline, which allows visitors to learn about the historical and political contexts of racial segregation on local, regional and national levels. Although the project’s timeline is on a grand scale, it caused me to reflect on my tenuous personal experiences in East New York, and sent me on a journey to learn more about my family history in the neighborhood.
PART I
East New York: A Personal Timeline
1998
You can live in a city your whole life and never know huge swaths of it. I never even heard of East New York until I interviewed my grandmother, Nonna, about her immigration experience for a high school class project. Nonna told me that when she came from Italy in 1934, at 14 years old, she and her family settled in East New York.
In this black and white photo from 1944, Nonna sits on a bench in the courtyard of her apartment building in East New York, and holds baby Uncle Robert in her lap. Robert is sleeping with his head leaning back on Nonna's arm. With her other arm, Nonna brushes hair off her face as she looks down at her baby. She is wearing a sleeveless floral print dress.
Thinking she was describing a geographic location, not a neighborhood, I asked, “Where in Eastern New York?” She explained East New York was a neighborhood in Brooklyn, not far from where we lived in South Richmond Hill, Queens.
I learned from my dad that Papa Bruno, my grandfather, had a shop in East New York. He was a carpenter and started a business called Triangle Kitchen Cabinets, but apparently it went out of business after being burglarized one too many times.
I realized I passed through East New York every day on my commute from Queens to my school in Manhattan. “Passed through” isn’t entirely accurate; I sped beneath it, enclosed in the underground tunnels of the A train, never interacting with the surface.
2003
When I was in college, I heard about a free Elephant Man concert at a club in East New York. Elephant Man had some of the best dancehall reggae hits at the time; I excitedly marked my calendar. My then-boyfriend Tyson, who was from the same neighborhood as me but far more street smart, advised, “Wear shoes you can run in.”
The night of the concert we took the A train to Broadway Junction. I could tell Tyson was on edge, feeling responsible for our safety. During the performance, the crowd reached up and pulled Elephant Man off the stage. After some scuffle, a shaken Elephant Man climbed back onto the stage without his heavy gold chains. For a moment he looked like he might cry. Then he quickly resumed his tough persona and kept performing.
At that age I knew too little of the ways of the world to fully realize just how unusual it was for an international superstar to be pulled off the stage and mugged at his own concert, but I came away with an understanding of East New York as a wild place.
2018
The next time I remember visiting East New York, fifteen years later, it had become a very different place. In 2014 the de Blasio administration declared East New York the first of fifteen neighborhoods slated for commercial and residential rezoning. Despite community resistance, the controversial rezoning passed two years later, and with the promise of new housing and amenities such as shops, parks and traffic signals, prices were already rising and locals were worrying about displacement. I, too, had changed over the past fifteen years, becoming a socially engaged artist and establishing the Five Boro Story Project to produce neighborhood storytelling events that strengthen community connections and resist gentrification.
A hip hop artist friend organized a gentrification resistance house party in East New York. In the invitation he wrote, “New luxury buildings are being built all over the city, rent is skyrocketing, and communities are being torn apart. Who is causing this, who benefits from this? How do we survive and thrive among the changes that are happening in our city?” The party had live music and poetry performances, and representatives from anti-gentrification organizations disseminating information.
The night of the party I took the A train to Euclid Avenue. I invited a friend, Zulmilena, who runs Preserving East New York, a community group advocating for historic preservation in response to the rezoning. Since we're both particularly interested in NYC neighborhood history, naturally the conversation turned to East New York. I told her how my grandmother used to live there, and how my grandpa opened Triangle Kitchen Cabinets but that the shop got robbed so many times in the 1970s that they went out of business. Burglars didn’t just empty the cash register, I explained; they stole the machinery.
My little party anecdote saddened Zulmilena. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry,” she said, grasping my arm. I didn’t particularly feel pain when I recounted my grandparents’ story. I knew too little about it; it felt too far removed. My grandparents never told me about it, and my dad had related the story in an offhand way. Yet Zulmilena’s condolences seemed so heartfelt that for the first time it sunk in how traumatic this experience must have been for my family.
2020
As an oral history student during the age of coronavirus, my most recent interaction with East New York happened online. This October Sarita Daftary led a workshop about the East New York Oral History Project, and in preparation the students explored the website. Opening the webpage, I found an interactive timeline and a map that visitors can click to see photos and listen to clips of oral history interviews about specific sites. I moved my cursor to a pin on the map and clicked. A story about arson on Liberty Avenue began playing. I grew up around the corner from Liberty Avenue! Liberty was my playground. I excitedly clicked another story on the map. A narrator spoke about the racial division of Linden Boulevard. Papa Bruno’s shop was on Linden!
I wondered where Triangle Kitchen Cabinets fell on the map. I wondered how my grandparents felt about the neighborhood and the changes they witnessed. Had their lives been impacted by the redlining, blockbusting and divestment that narrators described on the website?
Papa Bruno's carpentry work exposed him to asbestos; he developed mesothelioma and died in 1993 at the age of 72. Nonna lived to be 94, but we never spoke about those things. I wanted to learn about my family history in East New York and hear the story of Triangle Kitchen Cabinets, a story I’d only heard fragments of. I resolved to interview my father.
PART II
My Family’s East New York Story
Piecing together family history
Sometimes oral histories are messy. I called my dad to ask him about East New York and Triangle Kitchen Cabinets. He said he was too young to remember much - the shop probably opened in 1950, and he wasn’t even born until 1955. He said his brother Robert, older by nearly 12 years, would know more.
In this black and white photo from 1944, Papa Bruno stands on the street holding a very young baby Uncle Robert. Papa Bruno is wearing a white button down shirt and slacks, and is looking into the camera. In the background there is a house with a front garden and porch.
I called Uncle Robert and asked if he could do an interview about our family’s experiences in East New York. He began reminiscing about the apartment they lived in until 1949, when the family moved to South Richmond Hill, a nearby neighborhood in Queens. He apologetically explained that he was just four and a half when they left, so he didn’t remember much of his early childhood in East New York. I said that’s fine; more than his childhood, I wanted to hear about Triangle Kitchen Cabinets. “I remember the agony,” he replied immediately. “There was agony about it.”
I winced internally.
Here was the family pain.
We scheduled an interview that weekend.
Our interview revealed that Uncle Robert rarely visited Triangle Kitchen Cabinet’s Brooklyn location. He went off to college in Massachusetts in 1962, then did a year of AmeriCorps in Southern Maryland, followed by graduate school in Baltimore, so he just wasn’t around. He insisted that my father would know more.
The interview was not going as I’d hoped. Determined to squeeze more recollections out of him, I kept asking questions, and he kept deflecting, unable to pull specifics about East New York from his memory and instead supplying stories of relatives in New York and Italy. What I wanted to hear most of all was the story of how the shop closed. Curiously - and frustratingly - that direct question did not yield what I expected, either. I had previously heard hints of a dramatic story of robberies; he remembered it closing because the business partners split up.
I pressed: “I heard very long ago, I don’t remember from who, that they had to close because they got robbed so many times, and burglars took their machinery. Does that sound familiar?”
“I don’t remember that. They closed because the partnership split, and at some point they couldn’t sustain it. It probably became too difficult. They weren’t making money, and decided to close.”
“Do you remember hearing about them getting robbed at all?”
“I don’t remember it.” Uncle Robert paused, squinting as he searched his memory. “And I don’t know if I heard it and forgot it, but I don’t remember that being an issue. I mean, they had break-ins, but it never seemed like a turning point.”
Where had I heard that story?
I was questioning everything I thought I knew. I called my father.
“Uncle Robert doesn’t remember the shop going out of business because it was robbed.”
“He doesn’t?”
“No. I really thought I remembered someone telling me that...”
“Yeah, that was probably me.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Did you know I was working there?”
“What? You worked at Triangle Kitchen Cabinets?!”
“I never told you that? I guess I never did!” My dad laughed. “I figured you knew. Papa Bruno had hired me to work there. I was going to York College and working at Triangle Kitchens part-time. I was assembling cabinets. What I did mostly was drill holes for the doors and put the hinges on the doors, and then put the doors on the cabinet. Also, I used to go out and deliver the cabinets to the customers all over different parts of Brooklyn.”
So much for being too young to remember! My dad had painted Uncle Robert as the expert, but as a teenager he was the one in Triangle Kitchen Cabinet’s Brooklyn shop on a daily basis.
A photo of the Triangle Kitchen Cabinets potholder. The potholder is white with a yellow border. Words printed in blue ink read: "Triangle Kitchen Cabinets Corp. Custom made cabinets. Factory & Showroom: 1722 Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn, NY, 11207. Showroom: Corner MacDonald Avenue and Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY." Phone numbers used to start with letters instead of numbers. The potholder lists two phone numbers: BR2-8484 and CL3-6884.
Triangle Kitchen Cabinets existed from roughly 1950-1976. It was the time before Google. The New York State Corporation and Business Entity Database contains no record of Triangle Kitchen Cabinets. There are no extant photos of the shop. They couldn’t remember the address, but unearthed a Triangle Kitchen Cabinets branded pot holder with the address printed on it. I looked up 1722 Linden Boulevard on Google Maps, and saw an apartment building now stands there. My only research tool was the fallible, sometimes contradictory memories of Joseph and Robert Bartolini. Between the two of them, I pieced together the story - although not quite the one I’d gone looking for.
The Story of Triangle Kitchen Cabinets
Around 1950, Papa Bruno, his two friends Tommy and Angelo, and Nonna’s brother Pete - all carpenters from Italy - decided to go into business for themselves. They opened Triangle Kitchen Cabinets in Jamaica, Queens. They had a storefront on Jamaica Avenue, a busy commercial district with a lot of pedestrian traffic, and a little factory in the back making handcrafted cabinets. Business was fantastic.
A few years in (they don’t know the exact year), Papa Bruno and his partners learned of a city ordinance that prohibited manufacturing in that area; it was zoned for retail businesses only. They had to find a new location. They may have chosen East New York because they were familiar with the neighborhood, and at that time Linden was a relatively busy commercial street. They relocated to the corner of Linden Boulevard and Van Sinderen Avenue. While the family had moved from East New York to Queens, the shop now made the reverse move from Queens to East New York.
Bartolini Family Timeline
1934 - Nonna and her family immigrate from Italy and eventually settle in East New York, Brooklyn.
1943 - Nonna and Papa Bruno marry, and move into an apartment on East New York’s Logan Street
1944 - Uncle Robert born in East New York
1949 - Bartolini family moves from East New York (Brooklyn) to Richmond Hill (Queens)
1955 - Dad (aka Joseph) born in Richmond Hill
1950 - Papa Bruno opens Triangle Kitchen Cabinets in Jamaica, Queens
1953ish - Triangle Kitchen Cabinets relocates to East New York
1976 - Triangle Kitchen Cabinets closes
East New York wasn’t as vibrant a shopping district as Jamaica. My dad said, “It wasn’t very attractive. When I was a kid, I always felt that Brooklyn was ugly. That’s cause the only part of Brooklyn I knew was East New York.” Papa Bruno sometimes took him to the shop, and the family visited his aunt, Nonna’s sister, who still lived in East New York. He remembers playing in the street with a diverse group of neighborhood kids on those visits. Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, even as East New York gained a bad reputation as a dangerous area, he never felt unsafe.
Triangle Kitchen Cabinets would get commissions to make handmade cabinets from people throughout the five boroughs and often from rich people in Long Island. They would go measure their kitchens and create custom designs. They had good years and bad years. Bad years meant that after paying their workers they may not have money left to pay themselves. During those years, Papa Bruno and his partners had to take on second jobs to pay their bills.
Uncle Robert mused, “What I really remember - and it had a very strong impact on me - is that they were worried about the business. It came to a point where not only were they not making money, but they were taking their savings and reinvesting it to keep it going. What that sparked in me is a real value for saving money, and not spending it, for financial security.”
A black and white photo shows Uncle Pete, Nonna's older brother and everyone's favorite co-worker, standing on a street in Brooklyn. Uncle Pete wears a fedora and a long, double-breasted coat. He stands with his hands in his coat pockets on a wide, mostly empty street. In the background there is a man on a bicycle, an apartment building, and the elevated train.
Here’s the part that my dad never told me: Uncle Pete was difficult to get along with. He was bossy and obstinate. “There came a time that Tommy just couldn’t work with Uncle Pete anymore, and wanted to get out,” Uncle Robert said. “He and Angelo left. Papa Bruno and Pete stayed together, but neither of them were very good businessmen.” Tommy was the “main guy who held everything together,” Uncle Robert explained, and keeping the business afloat after his departure proved challenging.
Here’s the part Uncle Robert didn’t know: My dad remembers that at night people were breaking into the factory and stealing machinery. In response, Papa Bruno and Pete implemented increasingly elaborate methods of protection. First, they got an alarm system; then they installed a metal gate that pulled down over the windows; then they built false panels to hide machinery and tools. “I can remember a point when they didn’t have any security,” my dad reminisced. “The storefront was just big open glass with the lights on. You could walk past and look right into the showroom and see the cabinets. It was a good neighborhood back then. And then it turned into a high crime neighborhood.”
During my interview with Uncle Robert, after he had insisted that he didn’t remember robberies, his wife came into the room. She joined in the reminiscing about Triangle Kitchen Cabinets, and remarked, “They got held up at gunpoint, I know that. The new place in Brooklyn, I think it was dangerous. That was one of the reasons they had to close, that it was getting dangerous.” “That’s right,” Uncle Robert said, “I remember Pete being held up, now that you mention it.” He later recalled another relative who worked at the shop, Uncle Lou, being held up at gunpoint as well. My dad corroborated that Uncle Pete was robbed in the workshop: “He thought the guy was bluffing, and the guy shot at his feet.”
Triangle Kitchen Cabinets never recovered from the dissolution of the partnership, and besides hemorrhaging income to burglaries and shouldering ever-increasing security expenses, commerce on Linden Boulevard declined as crime in the area went up. My dad remembers there being less foot traffic as the years went on: “The location became secluded. Business dwindled.”
Nonna and Papa Bruno saw the writing on the wall. Nonna looked in the paper and found an ad for caretakers of the estate for the Winston family, wealthy jewelers with a home in Scarsdale, north of New York City. They interviewed, and because they knew how to take care of rhododendrons, they got the job. Papa Bruno and Uncle Pete liquidated Triangle Kitchen Cabinets. Nonna and Papa Bruno moved upstate. They kept their house in Queens, but essentially lived on the Winston estate. It all happened very suddenly.
My dad was 20 years old at the time. I asked him what it was like for the family when Triangle Kitchen Cabinets closed. He said he was wrapped up in his own world in those years. His sister was going through mental health issues that consumed much of the family’s energy. But more importantly, he was in love; he had recently met my mother. “My father must’ve been going through a lot of stress, but I was completely out of touch.”
Redlining, Blockbusting, White flight
I returned to the map on the East New York Oral History Project website. Where did Triangle Kitchen Cabinets fall? It took some time to locate the intersection of Linden Boulevard and Van Sinderen Avenue. The shop was just inside the border of the red zone.
This image shows the map from the East New York Oral History Project’s website, with a star over the intersection of Linden Boulevard and Van Sinderen Avenue, where Triangle Kitchen Cabinets once stood. Blocked off sections of the map are red, yellow and white: this is a "redlining" map, or a Residential Security Map, created by the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation in 1938. Triangle Kitchen Cabinets sits within a red section.
In her workshop Sarita Daftary explained, “interpersonal racism was not by itself sufficient to get the level of segregation that we got. It was encouraged, it was pushed by policies, by people who were going to benefit financially from that. There was pressure to move; it was planned and encouraged by government interests and real estate interests.”
My grandparents moved out of East New York in 1949, before blockbusting became prevalent, but some of Nonna’s family stayed there longer. Was my extended family pressured to move? When I asked Uncle Robert if that impacted our family, he replied, “They lived in apartment buildings, so they didn’t encounter redlining, blockbusting. I don’t think our family was conscious of anything like that.”
When I asked about how Nonna and Papa Bruno felt about the changes in East New York and the family’s relationships with non-white neighbors, Uncle Robert said, “Our family never had these racist feelings. In fact, we were sympathetic to the plight of black people.” My dad said, “I used to hear a lot of people in the neighborhood complain about black people. My parents didn’t do that. I heard them express that black people have been mistreated in this country. They had that awareness.”
Nonna stands outside her apartment building on East New York’s Logan Street. Nonna's back is to the camera, and she holds a baby Uncle Robert over her shoulder. She wears a dark knee-length skirt and a sweater. In the background there is a baby carriage, part of the entrance to the brick apartment building, and windows with blinds.
Relieved that my grandparents had “good” politics, I felt ready to rest my inquiries. But surely they must have complained about the crime that plagued the neighborhood and contributed to the loss of business? “I don’t really remember,” my dad apologized. The East New York Oral History Project timeline shows the 1960 census recorded the population as 92% White and 8% non-White. The 1980 census recorded 30% White and 70% non-White. Did Nonna and Papa Bruno feel alienated? Did they complain about the demographic changes in the neighborhood? “They had to acknowledge the neighborhood changed when black people moved in, and it changed for the worse,” my dad said. “I’m sure they were in certain situations more wary of black people.”
I will never know the full story of how Nonna and Papa Bruno felt about East New York, but I know that when the neighborhood where both they and my maternal grandparents settled, Richmond Hill, underwent a similar demographic transformation, my parents chose to stay. In the 1980s I remember my neighbors, the Gaffneys and the Connellys, being replaced by the Alis and the Ramsaroopsinghs. We were one of the few families who didn’t participate in white flight as Richmond Hill became a West Indian enclave, transforming into Little Guyana.
Neighborhood attachment
A painted wood carving shows a street scene of Liberty Avenue, where the writer grew up in Richmond Hill. On the left there are stores with signs that read "Stop 1 Delicatessen 24 hours", "Halal Meat Sold Here," "99 Cents and Plus," and "Star Music: Reggae, Calypso, Soca, Chutney." On the right there are elevated train tracks, cars, and more stores and apartment buildings across the street. Diverse people walk down the sidewalk, and one man makes a call on a pay phone.
I feel an incredibly strong attachment to Richmond Hill, where both my parents were born and raised. There are so few white people in my part of the neighborhood that I’ve been asked if I was lost when walking the two blocks from the A train station to my family home. Perhaps I love Richmond Hill even more so because of these racial dynamics that make people think I don’t belong; I love Richmond Hill defiantly. I take pride in being from one of the white families that stayed. I have written odes to Liberty Avenue and the A train. I carved a Liberty Avenue street scene when I went to college in Ohio and felt homesick. I created “Richmond Hill Love Letter” programming to create space for people to express love for Richmond Hill and share our neighborhood stories.
I came into this suspecting that trauma around leaving East New York and closing Triangle Kitchen Cabinets may have caused silence that would explain why I never heard the Bartolinis talk about that neighborhood, why it didn’t enter the canon of our family stories. But I didn’t discover an epic story.
An underlying assumption I brought to my questioning was that Nonna and Papa Bruno must have felt somewhat similarly about East New York as I do about Richmond Hill. But Uncle Robert and my dad don’t remember them talking about East New York in a way that showed a sentimental attachment to the neighborhood.
How do people come to be connected to where they live? Why do some places in time become meaningful, when others don’t? For Nonna and Papa Bruno, was it because they always saw Italy as home?
East New York used to be just a neighborhood I passed through during my commute from Queens to Manhattan. Even though they lived and later worked there, Nonna and Papa Bruno, too, may have felt they were just passing through.
Bridget Bartolini is a current OHMA student, a socially engaged artist, and the creator of the Five Boro Story Project, a program that produces free community events that bring New Yorkers together through sharing true stories and art inspired by the neighborhoods of New York City. She recently published stories that combine journalism and oral history in Gothamist and City Limits.