StoryCorps’ Dave Isay On Universal Truths, Listening To The Everyman & Life In Ditmas Park

If you make a habit of listening to NPR, you’re probably familiar with the work of neighbor Dave Isay — whether you’re aware of it or not. Dave has produced several programs for the syndicate, including The Execution Tapes and the Yiddish Radio Project, and recorded excerpts from his nonprofit oral history project, StoryCorps, are often featured on NPR’s Morning Edition. We recently spoke to him about what inspired him to start the oral history project, what he’s learned over the past decade, and, of course, what he loves about Ditmas Park.

StoryCorps on the road

Dave says his experiences speaking to the subjects of his various radio documentary programs informed his founding of StoryCorps.

“I’d interviewed many people,” he says, “and I saw that being interviewed could make a big difference in their lives, especially for people who felt like their voices weren’t heard.

“So I wanted to try and turn radio documentary into almost a social service, and create this thing where people had the opportunity to do interviews with each other. We’re known for these radio broadcasts that we do, but that’s sort of a wonderful byproduct of the primary service we deliver, which is these interviews.”

Dave’s theory about the impact of StoryCorps recordings on participants’ lives was proven true even from Interview #1 — which he conducted with his Uncle Sandy — afterwards observing Sandy’s own response to the recording:

Today, roughly 50,000 StoryCorps interviews have been recorded with about 100,000 participants all over the country. Participants come from all different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. They’re of all different age groups. Some have been heavily impacted by a turning point in a relationship with a parent, some by a sports game, some by events as widely felt as September 11. But many, if not all, share a few common threads.

“StoryCorps recordings are always two people who know each other having a conversation,” Dave says. “Our facilitators, who we say ‘bear witness’ to the interviews, will always tell the interviewer, ‘Ask that question you’ve always wanted to ask, because 40 minutes goes really quickly.’ So people get into it really fast, and it’s often extremely intense, and they get right down to it.

“With StoryCorps, people are leaving a record of their lives in 40 minutes, so they talk about what’s really important to them; it always comes down, no matter what, to the kind of great themes of human existence. Love, death, birth, that kind of stuff.

“You see those themes come up over and over again, but the variety of stories that come out of that is always kind of remarkable to me.”

What you hear on the radio is just a grain of sand in StoryCorps’ archive — they broadcast about one out of every 400 stories, and even then, only about three minutes of a 40-minute interview. Excerpts that make it to air are generally chosen for their universal relatability, but some stick out in Dave’s mind for their exceptional weirdness.

“There was a woman who was probably 99 years old,” Dave says of the strangest story off the top of his head. “Her story was about how when she was younger, her mother had given her a blow-up bra for her birthday. She went on an airplane ride — and this is before airplanes were pressurized — and the bra exploded!

“They had to land the plane,” he laughs, “because they thought there was some 1940s version of a terrorist on board.

“The interviews are from things like that, to kids who are dealing with cancer, and everything in between. But I think what StoryCorps does is, it takes these stories of these regular people — our neighbors, friends, family — and it shows the kind of grace and courage and beauty you can find in the stories of regular people if you take the time to listen.”

While browsing StoryCorps’ archive, we even found an interview between NBA referee Marat Kogut and his father Leon, a particularly outsized Ditmas Park personality, as well as the owner Leon’s Fantasy Cut — of one of Dave’s favorite neighborhood spots to stop by for a quick hello.

Dave’s other nearby picks include Purple Yam (“I think it’s my favorite restaurant in the world; it’s so fantastic!”), Qathra and Milk & Honey, Foster’s Flowers, and Midwood’s The Orchard.

“The Orchard is this guy named Danny who’s been there for about 50 years or so,” Dave says. “I think he’s in his late 80s, and his kids run it now. I met him the first time I went in there, where everybody knows one another. Their produce is incredible. He is to fruit what Di Fara is to pizza.”

Dave thanks neighbor Blake Zidell for the introduction to The Orchard — just one case in which he’s felt grateful to and welcomed by his neighbors in the past six and a half years.

“When we first moved in, the first time we walked down the block, it took about half a day to get down the street; it was like moving into Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood,” Dave says. “Everybody came out and wanted to talk. We have people on our block, and surrounding blocks, who grew up there. It’s just so nice, in Brooklyn, to have those kinds of neighbors.

“For me, the neighborhood is just like heaven. I’m so happy to be here.”

Dave is so busy now, he says he only participates in one or two interviews for StoryCorps a year. Despite this, he says the more voices he’s had the chance to hear, the clearer his vision for the purpose of the project has become.

“Whether you’re recording one or just listening, what these stories get to is what’s fundamentally important about being human,” says Dave. “There are obviously a lot more people listening than are able to record one — but I still hope it’s just a little tap on the shoulder that reminds people every week, you know, this is what’s important.”

Via StoryCorps

Would you like to record an interview with StoryCorps? If you’re traveling, you should know that the organization has booths in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco, as well as a mobile tour. As for New York in the near future, your best bet is to record a session yourself using StoryCorps’ helpful tips. Your interview will still be uploaded onto the StoryCorps’ site, so you can easily share your experiences and newfound knowledge with others.

Top photo courtesy of StoryCorps