Bridget Bartolini

Bridget Bartolini is an oral historian, socially engaged artist and writer with a specialization in New York City history, place-based storytelling, and public humanities. She believes the simple act of sharing personal stories has an incredible power to build connections between people, create a basis for empathy, and help us move beyond simplistic conceptions of other people and places to attain more nuanced understandings of others. Bridget holds a Masters in Oral History from Columbia University. Her thesis project, 34th Avenue Oral History (a work in progress that tells the story of the 34th Avenue Open Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, through multimedia profiles of narrators), was awarded the 2021-2022 Public Humanities Fellowship from the Heyman Center for the Humanities and the Public Humanities Grant from Humanities New York. Previously, she earned a Masters in Community Education and a Bachelors in East Asian Studies with a concentration in Japanese language. Bridget has published profiles of narrators in Urban Omnibus, Gothamist and City Limits. She has conducted oral history interviews for the Columbia Center for Oral History Research's NYC COVID-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive, Queens Memory's COVID-19 Project, Educational Alliance's Nonagenarians in the NORC, and family clients. She served as an audit editor for Columbia's Obama Presidency Oral History. Inspired by her love for New York City and belief in the power of storytelling as a tool for social justice, Bridget created the Five Boro Story Project in 2013 to produce community programs that bring New Yorkers together through sharing personal stories and art inspired by our neighborhoods. She has produced more than ninety community events and has led numerous workshops on oral history, storytelling, advocacy, and social change.