Ayodele Maakheru Interview 08/09/2025
Ayodele Maakheru Interview Transcript:
NATASHA: Hello, I am Natasha Fearon and I am here with:
AYODELE: Ayo.
NATASHA: Ayodele Maakheru?
AYODELE: Close enough, yeah.
NATASHA: At the Park Slope Old Timers Reunion at 4th Street and 6th Avenue, on Saturday, August 9th, 2025. Can you please spell your name for me, please, sir?
AYODELE: A-Y-O-D-E-L-E M-A-A-K-H-E-R-U.
NATASHA: What is your relationship to Park Slope or to Brooklyn?
AYODELE: I was born in Brooklyn in 1960, and I lived up the street right here with a lot of these people on 4th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue from 1966 to ‘75. I've lived in several places in Brooklyn and I've lived in every borough in the city except for Staten Island.
NATASHA: Do you have a particularly powerful or important memory of Park Slope or Brooklyn you'd like to share?
AYODELE: Good or bad? I will share some good news. There's enough negative stuff in the world right now. (sneeze) Woohoo! Sorry. There was a musical theater company in this neighborhood operating out of the church on 7th Avenue– I mean 7th Street– between 6th and 7th Avenue. And the company was called Company. And occasionally I run into old members. But I've been a Broadway orchestra musician for now 46 years. And one of my first experiences with musical theater– Broadway, because they were Broadway performers actually, in that company–was working with Company in Park Slope in 1974 and '75.
NATASHA: Why did you decide to come to the Park Slope Old Timers Reunion today?
AYODELE: Because as I get older, my menu of friends are disappearing. You know, people that I grew up with. My father did tell me this when I was in my late 50s, he said that at around 60, he says, your friends are going to start dropping like flies. So every opportunity I get to kind of commune with my old timers, old friends from my childhood, I take advantage of them when I can, take advantage of those opportunities. So, I'm glad that John Lee started doing this, so I will support this event and participate with it every year that I'm able to.
NATASHA: What are some things you think more people should know about Park Slope or Brooklyn based on your own experience?
AYODELE: About Park Slope specifically?
NATASHA: Or Brooklyn.
AYODELE: Okay. I didn't live everywhere in Brooklyn. I've lived in several Brooklyn neighborhoods. What I will say specifically about Park Slope, it was not a ethnically, culturally, or racially harmonized neighborhood back in the early and mid-60s. And that didn't happen until about the mid-70s, and I'm glad I lived to see the evolution of…I can't say the neighborhood wasn't diverse because it was diverse, it just wasn't unified. But it became a lot more unified in the mid-70s, and I’m glad I lived to see that change.
NATASHA: What are your hopes for the future of the neighborhood and Brooklyn?
AYODELE: Uh, lower rent. That’s it.
NATASHA: Thank you.
AYODELE: Thank you.