When Raymond Guarini was growing up in Bay Ridge, one his favorite places to eat was Cono’s, an Italian restaurant on Fifth Avenue. “My family used to eat there all the time. We had wonderful memories of great meals we had there. But it closed a long time ago,” he told the Brooklyn Eagle.

As his favorite restaurants and shops started to close, Guarini, a 38-year-old brokerage firm managing director, started thinking about ways to document the past and boost Italian-American pride. “I realized that my kids would never know the beautiful neighborhood we grew up in,” he said. So he started taking pictures of Brooklyn neighborhoods and talking to people about their memories of their favorite spots.