Jean Bartelt Oral History

In this interview, Jean Bartelt reminisces about growing up in Queens as the child of German immigrant parents. She describes herself as a “Queens product,” having studied in PS 135 and Jamaica High School, and then Queens College where she attained a bachelor’s degree and two graduate degrees. She describes the house in Hollis, where she grew up and where she still lives, her home, which was the reason her family did not leave in the sixties when most families in her neighborhood left because of fears of property values going down due to changing demographics. She remembers that Jewish families arrived in the fifties, then Blacks and Filipinos in the sixties, that an Australian who worked at the United Nations also lived in the neighborhood at the time. She describes the area now as “wonderfully diverse,” with a mix of Hispanics, Caribbean Blacks, and Indians.