Big Duck

In 1931, Riverhead duck farmer Martin Maurer commissioned some local builders to create this 10-ton eye-catcher using concrete (technically, "ferrocement") applied over a wooden frame. Taillights from a Model T Ford became its eyes, glowing red at night. Maurer sold ducks and eggs from the shop in its belly.  The builders Smith and Yeager completed the concrete finish work on the Big Duck which was featured in Atlas Cement's 1931 calendar. In 1937, Martin Maurer moved the building to Flanders, where it occupied a prominent location near the duck barns and marshes of Maurer's new duck ranch.

Maurer patented his fowl creation, and the Duck became the darling of vacationing New Yorkers -- particularly husband and wife architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who invented the term "duck architecture" in their 1972 book, Learning From Las Vegas. This explain why, in the world of architecture, any building shaped like its product is called a "duck." 

The Big Duck -- 30 feet long, 20 feet high, and 18 feet wide -- has shifted locale a few times. In the 1980s, when the land on which the Duck sat was earmarked for development, giant duck preservationists and the Friends for Long Island's Heritage campaigned to save it. The Duck was donated to the county. On January 27, 1988, it was moved from Flanders to Hampton Bay along Route 24, to the entrance of Sears-Bellow County Park. However, by 2007 it was clear that the original land would not be developed, so the Big Duck was moved back to its Flanders spot.

The shop still operates -- now as a tourism center for the East end of Long Island, selling duck souvenirs to flocks of city weekend-trippers. The interior of the Duck offers a small display of Duck artifacts, photos, and news clippings, and if you time your visit just right you'll find a volunteer manning an exhibit in an adjacent barn about duck farming.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

Sources:

“Big Duck.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Mar. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck

“The Big Duck, Flanders, New York.” RoadsideAmerica.Com, www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2173. Accessed 16 May 2024