Storycorps records tales in Short North
Parked across the street from the Hubbard Grille on North High Street in Columbus’ Short North is a silver Airstream trailer.
The exterior of the “Storycorps” trailer is unassuming but the inside features a cozy recording studio. A small table holds a soundboard and a pair of headphones, and two large microphones sit on another table. Boxes of tissues sit on both tables, ready to dry tears of laughter or heartbreak.
“It’s normal for facilitators to cry when the participants are getting emotional,” noted Ava Ahmadbeigi.
Ahmadbeigi travels across the United States as site manager of the Storycorps
Mobile Tour, an initiative started in 2005 that is committed to capturing and archiving the human story from a diverse set of voices across the country.
Storycorps is a nonprofit group aimed at preserving people’s stories and sharing them with others. Each year, the group’s mobile trailer visits cities and towns across the country, such as Columbus, to record the people who live there.
Participants sign up for 40-minute appointments, typically coming in pairs, and share a meaningful conversation. They might recall
a fond memory, address an issue or share a story — all of which is recorded, and stories are shared at storycorps. org. Select stories are aired on the National Public Radio Storycorps podcast series.
Either Ahmadbeigi or another Storycorps facilitator on the tour sit in on each recording, managing equipment and guiding conversation as needed.
In collaboration with WOSU Public Media (89.7FM NPR News and Classical 101-FM), the Storycorps Mobilebooth will be stationed at the Short North corner until July 31.
Returning to Columbus for the first time since 2005, the initiative hopes to record about 140 stories in Columbus, Ahmadbeigi, a New York native, said at a
news conference Tuesday.
The stories will join thousands already recorded and archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington. The Storycorps organization first originated in 2003, after opening a Storybooth in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, and has since grown to capture more than 75,000 stories.
Lea Zikmund, 23, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has been a facilitator for the Storycorps Mobile Tour since April. She said storytelling is an important tradition that captures “an appreciation of a shared humanity.”
Zikmund said she sometime feels as though she’s “bearing witness” to something extraordinarily special. She recalled a couple who had
been together for 30 years and were still deeply in love. “I’m a sucker for a good love story,” she said.
People can start making appointments for the second half of the month beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday and can be scheduled at storycorps.org/stops/ mobile-stop-columbus-oh/.
Mike Thompson, news director at WOSU, said people shouldn’t wait too long to sign up if interested because the slots for the first half of July filled within 35 minutes of being made available.
Anyone who is unable to make an appointment can record stories on the free Storycorps app at any time, any place, according to the Storycorps website.
Storycorps interviews are aired on WOSU (89.7 FM) on Fridays between 6:20 and 6:30 a.m. and 8:20 and 8:30 a.m. Starting this fall, recordings from the 2019 Mobilebooth stop in the Short North will go on air as part of Storycorps Columbus, a new WOSU podcast series.
Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin encouraged residents at Tuesday’s event to sign up and record fond memories, as well as their hopes for the future.
“Our community is a story of diversity, of inclusion, of partnership, of struggle, but also of triumph,” Hardin said. “That is what we will hear in each one of these stories.”