Long Island

Women in Long Island’s Past: A History

November 10, 2013 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

Women have been part of Long Island’s past for thousands of years but are nearly invisible in the records and history books. From pioneering doctors to dazzling aviatrixes, author Natalie A. Naylor brings these larger-than-life but little-known heroines out of the lost pages of island history in Women in Long Island’s Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives (History Press, 2012).

Anna Symmes Harrison, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Edith Kermit Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt all served as first lady of the United States, and all had Long Island roots. Beloved children’s author Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote The Secret Garden here, and hundreds of local suffragists fought for their right to vote in the early twentieth century. [Read more…] about Women in Long Island’s Past: A History

An Environmental History of Fire Island

November 2, 2013 by Editorial Staff 4 Comments

Robert Sayre, a retired English professor at the University of Iowa, has spent nearly every summer on Fire Island since 1934. Drawing on his deep interest in Fire Island environmental history Sayre has written Fire Island, Past, Present, and Future: The Environmental History of a Barrier Beach (Oystercatcher Books, 2013).

Syre’s book, which began as an exhibit at the Point O’ Woods Historical Society in 2007 is a concise and readable environmental history of Fire Island from its post-glacial origins to its human uses and its prospects in the age of global warming. [Read more…] about An Environmental History of Fire Island

The Rise and Fall of Southampton College, 1963–2005

October 26, 2013 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Southampton College, the easternmost campus of Long Island University, opened with great promise in 1963 and closed in 2005 amidst great acrimony. Located in an idyllic environmental setting on the Atlantic shore of Long Island, it had a nationally recognized marine science program that produced an unprecedented number of Fulbright awards and an impressive number of alumni who went on to careers in prestigious universities and research centers.

David Steinberg, the president of Long Island University since 1985, referred to Southampton as “the jewel in the university crown.” However, an accumulating yearly deficit led Steinberg and the Long Island Board of Trustees to view the campus as an “albatross around the university neck.” [Read more…] about The Rise and Fall of Southampton College, 1963–2005

Historians And Economic Development Councils:
Lessons From Long Island

July 17, 2013 by Peter Feinman 8 Comments

Now that I have become more aware of the Regional Economic Development Councils, I decided to review the ten regions in that program and see if there was any connection with the Path though History. As it turns out, two Path regions have submitted proposals to the Regional Economic Development Councils: Long Island and Western New York. In this post, I would like to focus on what Long Island has achieved as an example for the other 8 regions. [Read more…] about Historians And Economic Development Councils:
Lessons From Long Island

When The City Celebrated The Queensboro Bridge

June 6, 2013 by Jaya Saxena Leave a Comment

On June 12, 1909, New York City began an eight-day celebration of the connection of the East Side of Manhattan with Long Island City in Queens with the Queensboro Bridge, designed by Henry Hornbostel.

Though it officially opened to traffic on March 30, 1909, the June festivities drew over 300,000 people (larger than the population of Queens at the time) to see the bridge lit up with electricity, and hear 1,500 children sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” in its honor. It meant that crossing the East River was no longer an obstacle to the development of the borough of Queens. [Read more…] about When The City Celebrated The Queensboro Bridge

Long Island’s List of Endangered Historic Places for 2013

June 4, 2013 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) has issued its Endangered Historic Places List for 2013. The list includes six endangered properties that exemplify the vast diversity and character of Long Island’s historic resources. [Read more…] about Long Island’s List of Endangered Historic Places for 2013

The Leadership Role of Municipal Historians

January 24, 2013 by Peter Feinman Leave a Comment

As the new year gets underway, it is appropriate to pause and reflect on open issues from years gone by. I am referring now to the role in 2013 of the county historian as a custodian for New York State history as we forge ahead with our Path through History Project.

The starting point for this investigation is an article which appeared on September 12, 2012 just after the summer launch in August entitled “New York State’s Curious, Century-Old Law Requiring Every City and Town to Have a Historian” by Amanda Erickson in The Atlantic Cities. [Read more…] about The Leadership Role of Municipal Historians

New Exhibit: Long Island at Work and Play

December 19, 2012 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Long Island’s story of work and play comes to life when a farmer, dust flying, rushes to market, a boy swings a baseball bat, a peddler sells fish door to door and a family, wearing their Sunday best, poses for a portrait in their new car.

The remarkable images, many of which have never been exhibited, are just some of the gems in the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) collections and feature the work of such turn of the 20th century photographers as Clarence A. Purchase, Arthur S. Greene and Harry R. Gelwicks. [Read more…] about New Exhibit: Long Island at Work and Play

James Howard Kunstler On Rescuing the American Townscape

December 5, 2012 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) will present a lecture “Rescuing the American Townscape from its Own Recent History” by author James Howard Kunstler.

James Howard Kunstler is a vocal critic of American architecture and urban planning which he describes as a tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities and ravaged countryside. For two decades, Kunstler has examined the growth of urban and suburban America. [Read more…] about James Howard Kunstler On Rescuing the American Townscape

Signage Plans Focus on Local Historians

July 2, 2012 by Gerald R. Smith 1 Comment

Is resurgence in the interest in history a sign of the time? It seems so as two initiatives to promote the importance of history and heritage of New York both use signs as a means to the end.

At the 2012 conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State on Long Island, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation used that opportunity to announce that their organization was taking their interest in historical markers statewide. [Read more…] about Signage Plans Focus on Local Historians