In this interview, Letizia discusses her career, and breaking gender barriers in both broadcasting as well as in advertising. She also talks about how her family ended up settling in Las Vegas, and the evolution of her relationship with Judaism from childhood to adulthood, eventually leading to her leadership roles with Congregation Ner Tamid as well as Jewish Federation, where she is on the Board of Directors.
Marla R. Letizia is the founder of Big Traffic Mobile Billboards in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company operates mobile billboard advertising trucks and employs brand ambassadors to carry WOBI? walking billboards for retail, gaming, and entertainment clients such as Caesars entertainment, Tropicana, and Cirque Du Soleil. Letizia founded Big Traffic in 2001 after leaving a successful broadcast journalism career to raise her two children. She met her husband, Tom Letizia, while working at KLAS-TV Channel 8 as an assistant production manager. She later became the first female director of live television news broadcasts in Las Vegas at Channel 8. She also developed a TV show called "Las Vegas Turnaround" and a syndicated production called "The Parenting Network." Letizia grew up in Las Vegas, and is a former president of Congregation Ner Tamid and a founding member of the board of trustees of the Meadows School in Las Vegas. In this interview, Letizia discusses her career, and breaking gender barriers in both broadcasting as well as in advertising. She also talks about how her family ended up settling in Las Vegas, and the evolution of her relationship with Judaism from childhood to adulthood, eventually leading to her leadership roles with Congregation Ner Tamid as well as Jewish Federation, where she is on the Board of Directors.
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In this interview, Rosencrantz discusses at length her involvement as a founder of the city?s Jewish Federation?s Young Leadership Program, including other local leaders she worked with to promote Jewish community engagement in Las Vegas. She also talks about her spiritual journey as an adult, leading to her participation at Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development.
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In this interview, focused on the John S. Park neighborhood of Las Vegas, Arne Rosencrantz discusses his childhood growing up in Las Vegas. He talks about local businesses, including his father's furniture store, as well as schools and churches in the neighborhood.
Arne Rosencrantz remembers living on Beverly Way from 1954 to 1970. Like so many others from that era, he attended Fifth Street School, John S. Park Elementary School, John C. Fremont Middle School and graduated from Las Vegas High School. As a Jew, he was in a small minority, but fondly recalls growing up in the dense Mormon population of John S. Park Neighborhood. As a youngster, life in Las Vegas was filled with fun. The desert provided opportunity to hunt lizards and rabbits. Kids walked to school without concern. They played ball and found the Strip casinos welcoming to locals. He tells how the social issue of segregation of the 1960s did not affect him personally, but how local movie theatre owner Lloyd Katz fought to make his Huntridge and Fremont theatres integrated. He also reminisces about his father opening Hollywood Furniture and later Garrett's Furniture, which Arne operated until retiring in 2001. During the interview, he lists other furniture companies and the strong assortment of other retailers and restaurants that served the neighborhood.
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In this multi-part interview, Louis Wiener, Jr. discusses coming to Las Vegas from Pittsburgh at a young age, attending Las Vegas High School and University of Nevada Reno. He attended law school at University of California at Berkeley and passed the Nevada State Bar in 1941. He established a practice, Jones, Wiener and Jones, with Bob Jones and Cliff Jones and later with Herb Jones. He had another practice with Neil Galatz and Dave Goldwater, retiring in 1988. Wiener had other business ventures that allowed him to do pro bono work as a lawyer. Wiener discusses his family, including former spouses, his children, and various aspects of his career as an attorney in Las Vegas, representing hotels in the Greenspun antitrust lawsuit, and as an attorney for Bugsy Siegel. He says of his success, "I'm just lucky. I was here at the right time and I picked the right people to help."
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Interview with Myra Berkovits, Susan Dubin and Doug Unger of the Holocaust Resource Center. In this interview, the group discusses the beginnings of what is now the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center. Edythe Katz-Yarchever is discussed as the catalyst for establishing the center and getting others involved with the Governor's Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust. Berkovits talks about her role as a liason for Holocaust education in the Clark County School District and the student-teacher conferences held each year with funding from Sheldon Adelson. Unger discusses expanding the outreach to the Washoe County School District with assistance from Atlantis Hotel (Reno, Nev.) owner, John Farahi and Judy Mack. They talk about the previous locations of the Holocaust Resource Center on Maryland Parkway, then Renaissance Drive, and the affiliation with the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Family Service Agency. After funding and personnel issues around 2011, the advisory council and the library went through a re-structuring and hired Susan Dubin who organized and catalogued the library collection. The library is now accredited by the Association of Jewish Libraries.
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Interview with Henry Kronberg by Barbara Tabach in two sessions, February 26 and April 13, 2015. In the first session Kronberg talks about his childhood in Germany and Poland and his experience being imprisoned by the Gestapo, and transported to a concentration camp. He survived the Holocaust and met his wife, and they moved to the United States in 1946. He discusses being reunited with his sister in Las Vegas after decades of searching, and moved his family to Las Vegas in 1962. Kronberg talks about becoming involved with Jewish life here, and his wife, Lillian's involvement at Temple Beth Sholom. In the second session, Kronberg discusses purchasing Stoney's, a loan and pawn shop, including some of the clientele and merchandise. He also discusses other social and environmental concerns like anti-Semitism and water resources in Southern Nevada.
Henry Kronberg was born in 1920 and spent his early childhood in a town on the border of Poland and Germany, about 40 miles from Krakow. For years he felt uncomfortable telling his story of surviving the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Today his name is linked to the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center in Las Vegas. And in his soft-spoken manner, Henry recalls his ordeal of loss of family and survival during this most heinous of situations through backbreaking labor and ingenuity. At the end of the war, Henry met the love of his life, Lillian, also a survivor. The two married in 1946 in Frankfurt and immigrated to New Jersey where she had relatives. He describes their difficulties and the various jobs he held until becoming an excellent baker. Then in 1962 an interesting choice took him to a bar mitzvah in Canada. While there the dinner conversation lead him to a great discovery?his sister Lala had survived and was living in Las Vegas. Soon he moved his wife and daughter to Las Vegas. His first foray into business was with his brother-in-law. However, soon it was important to be independent and to control his own destiny. He purchased a going concern, Stoney's Pawn Shop, from Dr. Alexander Coblentz, one of the city's first doctors. He became the fourth owner of Stoney's and operated it until selling it to Steven Mack in 1998. Henry and his wife were active in the Jewish community. They joined Temple Beth Sholom and became fast friends with many of the early leaders of Las Vegas and became a respected member of the secular and Jewish communities.
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Jacque Dvorak was born in London, England, in 1944. Two years later, her family immigrated to Canada and then in 1953 they fulfilled their dreams to reside in the United States. The Dvorak family settled in Long Beach, California where Jacque?s brother was born. In 1957, the Dvorak family relocated to Las Vegas when Jacque?s father, Sam, opened a 24-hour barbeque restaurant in Market Town with his brother Harry. While growing up in California, Jacque enjoyed dancing and being on stage. She found herself drawn to performance much like her mother, Irene, who was an entertainer in Great Britain. This enthusiasm served her well in her future retail career which included the opening of the MGM. Jacque attended Las Vegas High School and graduated in 1962. Taking full advantage of being a teenager in Las Vegas, Jacque remembers the days when the need to lock your doors didn't? exist. Though, Jacque describes being keenly aware of being Jewish and forming strong bonds within the Jewish community through BBYO and other Jewish organizations. She also recalls protesting during school prayer recitations in the 1960s. In this interview Jacque gives an insider?s perspective of growing up in Las Vegas and Jewish life in the city. Her stories range from tales of teenage fun to dealing with modern anti-Semitism in Las Vegas to the joy she has found in friendships in the community. Jacque has two children, Harry Fagel and Lisa Sokoloski.
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On February 25, 1977, Walter John Ritzau interviewed Elizabeth Schneehagen Garrison (born 1943 in Las Vegas, Nevada) about her life in Southern Nevada. Garrison first talks about her schooling in Las Vegas and her first homes in Las Vegas. She also discusses the atomic testing, the Devils Hole in Ash Meadows, early church involvement, recreational activities, and some of the environmental aspects of Las Vegas. Garrison later describes her work for the Central Telephone Company before describing the Helldorado parade and some of the early activities designed for children. In the latter part of the interview, she describes her father’s garden, the changes in the city environment and building, shopping locations, and more about her home life.
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On February 24, 1979, collector Elyse Rozinsky interviewed file clerk, Janet Garry, (born on November 24th, 1927, in Louisiana) at her home in Bonanza Village Trailer Park in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers the growth of Las Vegas from 1952 to 1979. Janet recalls the early years of the television and the telephone. She also discusses her own personal experience of raising a family in Las Vegas.
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On March 30, 1976, collector Margaret Stambro interviewed schoolteacher and registered medical stenographer, Judith L. Hamblin (born June 11, 1941 in Las Vegas, Nevada) in her home in Henderson, Nevada. This interview covers the history of Henderson, local schools and teachers, and Helldorado. Also during this interview, Mrs. Hamblin discusses her fondness for Lake Mead, the Basic Magnesium Plant, Nellis Air Force Base, and the early aboveground atomic blasts.
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