Two Black men were shot and killed by a police officer in Freeport on a cold winter morning in 1946. Another was wounded. All three were brothers, two were World War II veterans dressed in their military uniforms. The ensuing outcry and investigations would spread far beyond the south shore of Long Island and bring the story of racial tensions on Long Island to the national level. [Read more…] about The Ferguson Brothers Lynching on Long Island (Podcast)
Nassau County
Robert Moses: The Man New Yorkers Love to Hate
Robert Moses is the man many New Yorkers love to hate. This is in no small part due to his own hubris and the impact he had on the people living in the path of his massive construction projects. Add to that Robert Caro’s hard hitting 1974 biography The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Vintage Book, 1975) and you’ve got a reputation that is hard to live down. [Read more…] about Robert Moses: The Man New Yorkers Love to Hate
Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst
In a book dedicated to Wilfred Ferguson, the son of Charles Ferguson, teacher and historian Christopher Verga resurrects the story of two Roosevelt, New York brothers killed by a Freeport police officer in 1946.
Verga opens The Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst (History Press, 2022) with an account of the long history of racism on Long Island and in the Freeport area including Ku Klux Klan activity. The background to the 1946 killings takes up the first third of the book. The book is well researched and referenced with extended quotes from official court documents and newspaper accounts. [Read more…] about Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst
Nationally Significant Olmsted Landscapes Threatened
The Cultural Landscape Foundation today released Landslide 2022, an annual thematic report and exhibition about threatened and at-risk landscapes, focusing on twelve sites designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., and his successor firms, a founder of the discipline of landscape architecture best known as the co-designer of Central Park in New York City.
This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of Olmsted Sr. (1822-1903). The sites feature the involvement of one or more of all three Olmsteds: Olmsted Sr., his son Olmsted Jr. (1870-1957), and stepson John Charles Olmsted (1852-1920). [Read more…] about Nationally Significant Olmsted Landscapes Threatened
Hempstead Plains Environmental & Cultural History
The Hempstead Plains were once a defining feature of Long Island. Covering some 40,000 acres, the Plains stretched from the Queens border in the west to the Suffolk border in the east, creating a sea of waist-high grass in the middle of what is now Nassau County.
Remnants of the Plains still remain, most notably in a 17-acre segment on the campus of Nassau Community College preserved by the Friends of Hempstead Plains. [Read more…] about Hempstead Plains Environmental & Cultural History
Featured Historic Site & Wild Area: Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill
The Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, was the home of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, from 1885 until his death in 1919. It’s located in Cove Neck, in Nassau County, NY near Oyster Bay on the North Shore of Long Island, about 25 miles east of Manhattan. [Read more…] about Featured Historic Site & Wild Area: Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill
Long Island’s Gold Coast & The First World War
Richard F. Welch book Long Island’s Gold Coast Elite and The Great War (History Press, 2021) looks at how Long Island’s leading North Shore families supported the Allies at the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914. Welch considers the Morgan bankers, movie producers, society glitterati, government officials, politically connected lawyers, and a former U.S. president who arranged massive loans and supplies for the Allies, while agitating for militarization and intervention.
This undercut the Wilson Administration’s official policy of neutrality and led the United States on a course, which led us inexorably to war with Germany in 1917. [Read more…] about Long Island’s Gold Coast & The First World War
Long Island Section of NYS Birding Trail Goes Live
DEC has announced the grand opening of the Long Island segment of the New York State Birding Trail. The Long Island segment includes 20 locations throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties, providing a variety of quality birding experiences for New Yorkers and visitors to enjoy. [Read more…] about Long Island Section of NYS Birding Trail Goes Live
DEC Announces New Leadership Appointments
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced three key leadership appointments to DEC’s Executive and Regional teams. [Read more…] about DEC Announces New Leadership Appointments
Uncovering Long Island’s Native Past Through Archaeology
The Nassau County Historical Society will host “Long Island Dirt: Recovering our Buried Past through Historical Archaeologies,” a talk on the archaeology of the two Native American Indian reservations on Long Island — the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton and the Unkechaug’s Poospatuck Reservation in Mastic, set for Sunday, September 19th. [Read more…] about Uncovering Long Island’s Native Past Through Archaeology