Fitzmaurice Flying Field

Fitzmaurice Flying Field was open from 1929 to 1953 in Massapequa. Brady, Cryan, and Colleran bought large tracts of land north and south of the Long Island Rail Road east of the preserve. They advertised throughout Irish neighborhoods in New York City, enticing customers with inexpensive land and houses, open spaces, and easy access to New York City. The airfield was an added enticement to purchase homes in that area.

They settled on a location for their airfield, relying on the recommendations of famous aviatrix Elinor Smith, who selected the area bounded by Second Avenue on the east, Roosevelt Avenue on the west, Spruce Street on the north, and Smith Street on the south. The 21-acre field had two runways, the longer one only 1800 feet in length, which made it one of the smallest fields on Long Island.

The airfield was named after James Fitzmaurice, who had achieved fame as the commander of the Irish Air Corps after World War I and as one of the three-man crew that crossed the Atlantic from east to west in 1928, the first to perform that arduous feat.

Sometime during World War II, Ken Tyler, a Hollywood stunt pilot, bought the field and operated Tyler Flying Services. He sold it in 1947 to Tom Murphy Jr., who ran the Skywriting Corporation of America.

Massapequa Park developed quickly after World War II and the proximity of houses to the airfield spurred concern among its new neighbors, who became fearful of crashes and felt inconvenienced by planes taking off and landing so close to their backyards. The School Board also needed to build schools and the Field was a perfect location. After several months of negotiation, they signed a contract with Murphy, who agreed in April 1953 to accept $600,000 in exchange for the property. The board built Hawthorn School in 1954 at the southeast end of the field and McKenna Junior High School at the north end in 1958.

The Historical Society of the Massapequas highlighted Fitzmaurice Flying Field's importance by erecting a marker on Spruce Street, just east of Roosevelt Avenue, in 1995.

Sources:

-, George Kirchmann, et al. “Fitzmaurice Flying Field: Pt. 2.” Massapequa Observer, 23 Sept. 2015, https://nassauobserver.com/fitzmaurice-flying-field-pt-2/

Kirchmann, George. “Fitzmaurice Flying Field.” Massapequa, NY Patch, Patch, 8 Aug. 2013, https://patch.com/new-york/massapequa/fitzmaurice-flying-field

Benson House

 Benson House, now part of the Episcopal Church, was home to FBI agents and radio technicians who, posing as German spies, broadcast false intelligence to Germany from January 1942 to June 1945.   It was built in 1912 by Dr. Gabriel S. Owen as a summer house. Weeks after the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the FBI began using Benson House as a top-secret radio site transmitting and receiving encoded messages with German intelligence agents. The Germans believed they were communicating with their espionage agents operating in New York.  As cover for the operation, the FBI moved one of its agents, Donworth Johnson, and his family, into the house. Mrs. Johnson cooked meals for her husband and the other agents who worked on the second and third floors.

A cover story was developed that Johnson suffered from tuberculosis and was, therefore, deferred from military service. The house was outfitted by FBI technicians with several large shortwave radios and supporting equipment. Antennae were hidden in nearby trees and intruders were discouraged by Clifford, the agent’s german shepherd. The radio equipment drew enormous amounts of electricity and not wanting to attract undue attention from the local utility companies, agents powered their equipment using the engine from a Buick which they bolted to the basement floor. The car’s muffler was also used to dampen the sound of the engine.

In the summer of 1943, FBI transmissions from Benson House gave the Germans bogus information designed to freeze German forces in northwest Europe to prevent their redeployment to strengthen the Italian and Eastern Fronts. In 1944 and 1945, radio transmissions from Benson House fed the Germans a steady stream of truthful and false information to confuse the German military about the size and disposition of Allied forces in Great Britain, along with the time and place of the D-Day invasion The most significant World War II contributions was the receipt of a German message in April 1942 instructing its spies to obtain information about American atomic bomb development; an order that helped influence President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to pursue an atomic weapon.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

 

Sources:

Campdewolfe. “Benson House Listed on National Registry of Historic Places.” Camp DeWolfe, https://campdewolfe.org/wading-river-radio-station-at-benson-house-listed-on-national-register-of-historic-places

Phillips, Ted. “Benson House's Wartime Role as Li Espionage Post Remembered.” Newsday, Newsday, 8 June 2014, https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/benson-house-s-wartime-role-as-li-espionage-post-remembered-t81293

Valiquette, Joe. “Long Island Home's Secret Role in WWII Espionage Revealed.” NBC New York, NBC New York, 6 June 2014, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/benson-house-long-island-fbi-wwii-intelligence-spying/2002799

Aviatrix Elinor Smith

 Elinor Smith was born on August 17, 1911 in Freeport.

In 1928, Elinor Smith, then 16, earned national recognition as the youngest pilot to receive a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Orville Wright signed her license.  On a dare that year, she flew a Waco 10 under all four of New York City's East River bridges; according to the Cradle of Aviation Museum, she is the only person ever to do so. That same year, Smith set a light plane altitude record of 11,889 feet, the first of many records she was to set during her career. In 1929 alone she set four world records.

In 1930, Elinor Smith was voted, "best female pilot" by her peers, a group that included Amelia Earhart. That same year, Smith set the women’s solo endurance record spending thirteen hours, sixteen minutes flying an open cockpit Brunner Winkle Bird over Roosevelt Field. In 1932, she set a straight-course speed record for women by zooming 229 mph.

She would become the first female test pilot for Fairchild Aviation Corp. and Bellanca Aircraft Corp., and as the first woman executive pilot for Irvin Air Chute Co., she demonstrated parachute drops. There were endorsements for motor oil and goggles, even a job with NBC Radio to cover air races

In October 1931, Smith attempting to stand in the cockpit while descending into Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field fell from the plane and was knocked unconscious. In September 1933, Smith nearly caused a collision after a sharp turn over Governors Island put her in the path of two planes. So, at 29, Smith retired to raise a family.  In 1934, she became the first woman to appear on a Wheaties cereal box.

In 2000, she was still breaking records at NASA's Ames Research Center with an all-woman crew. She took on NASA's Space Shuttle vertical motion simulator, and became the oldest pilot to succeed in a simulated shuttle landing. Her final cockpit time was spent in April, 2001, when, at 89, she flew a four-passenger plane while visiting NASA's Langley Research Center.

Smith died at the age of 98 in 2010.

Sources:

 Dunbar, Brian. “Elinor Smith: Born to Fly.” NASA, NASA, https://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/elinor-smith.html

“Elinor Smith.” Cradle of Aviation Museum, https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/history/women-in-aviation/elinor_smith.html

Kussin, Zachary. “How This Badass Pilot Paved the Way for Female Aviators.” New York Post, New York Post, 9 Oct. 2018, https://nypost.com/2018/10/08/how-this-badass-pilot-paved-the-way-for-female-aviators

Idle Hour

Idle Hour is the former 900-acre estate of railroad mogul and financier William Kissam Vanderbilt. It was completed in 1901. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the home, which continued to grow until an 1899 fire.  Costing $6 million, it contained 110-rooms which included 45-bathrooms and a garage large enough to hold 100-cars. Covering 70,000-square feet, it is purported to be the 15th largest house in the United States. After the fire, Idle Hour was rebuilt using red brick and gray stone and was designed by Hunt’s son Richard Howland Hunt. The estate was also once part of Dowling College. Vanderbilt liked the area as it was nearby the Southside Sportsmen’s Club (now Connetquot River State Park Preserve).

When Vanderbilt died in 1920, the estate was subdivided, but the buildings remained. In later years it was home to an artist's community and then a cult before its leader was jailed. The Idle Hour Artists Community was established by Mrs. Lucy Pritchard Thompson, her son William A. Thompson III, and architect Betty Miller. They divided the stables into apartments and sold them to those who joined their community along with a piece of land. In 1937, the mansion and carriage house were acquired by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians and Idle Hour was rechristened "Peace Haven". The Fraternity was a front for a cult led by James Bernard Schafer. He was convicted of stealing from one of his followers and in 1942 was jailed at Sing-Sing.

In 1947, the mansion, carriage house and 23-acres were purchased by National Dairy Research Labs. In 1963, they were bought by Adelphi University of Garden City and the estate became its Suffolk campus. In 1968, this became Dowling College, but just six years later (1974) the house Vanderbilt had tried so hard to make fireproof suffered another devastating fire: 

Unfortunately, when Dowling College closed in 2016-7, the Town of Islip had yet to officially recognize these buildings as local landmarks, leaving many of Idle Hour’s most important structures, including the mansion, vulnerable to demolition. In August 2017, the mansion and other Idle Hour properties were purchased by Mercury International LLC of Delaware. Many of the outbuildings have since become residential homes and the old tea house overlooking the river is now a restaurant called Riverview.

 

Sources:

“Idle Hour.” House Histree, https://househistree.com/houses/idle-hour

 “Idle Hour Archives.” Preservation Long Island, https://preservationlongisland.org/tag/idle-hour

Rodriguez, Arantxa, et al. “The Vanderbilt Houses and Mansions in New York - Page 21 of 24.” Untapped New York, 9 Feb. 2022, https://untappedcities.com/2021/09/20/vanderbilt-houses-mansions-new-york/21/

Cedar Island Lighthouse

Cedar Island Lighthouse stands at the end of a sand spit that protrudes from Cedar Point State Park and guards the entrance to Sag Harbor Bay. When originally built, the lighthouse was on Cedar Island, named for the small stand of trees on the otherwise barren island, but the Great Hurricane of 1938 filled in the 200-yard gap between the island and the shore, turning it into a peninsula now known as Cedar Point.  The light’s purpose was to guide whalers and other ships into Northwest Bay and the port of Sag Harbor. Sag Harbor was once one of the most important ports on the East Coast.

The town’s whaling fleet began to place stake lights around Sag Harbor as early as 1810, and in 1838, the federal government purchased Cedar Island from the town of East Hampton for a new lighthouse. After Congress provided $1,000 in 1837 and another $2,500 in 1838, the original Cedar Island Lighthouse was built in 1839 in the form of a one-and-a-half-story keeper’s dwelling with a small tower centered on its pitched roof. The beacon in the lantern room was made of nine Winslow Lewis lamps with fourteen-inch reflectors, shining at thirty-two feet above sea level and having a range of 12.5 nautical miles. In 1855, a sixth-order Fresnel lens, illuminated by an Argand lamp, replaced the lamps and reflectors. 

Since the Cedar Island Lighthouse was decommissioned in 1934, it has passed through private hands until it became part of Suffolk County’s Cedar Point Park in the late 1960’s. Vandalism and weather have taken their toll on the Cedar Island Lighthouse. Its construction of granite from New England has withstood the test of time, but in 1974 a fire gutted the interior of the Lighthouse. At that time the building was sealed up and it continues to be to this day.

In the early 2000’s the Long Island Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society raised the funds to restore the Cedar Island Oil House, the small structure next to the Lighthouse where oil to light the original beacon was stored. The Long Island chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society has been authorized by Suffolk County Parks to restore and “Relight the Lighthouse”.

 

Sources:

“Cedar Island Lighthouse.” LighthouseFriends, https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=737

“History.” Cedar Island Lighthouse, 10 Feb. 2021, https://www.cedarislandlighthouse.org/history/

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum

The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum first opened on February 11, 1972 with a game between the New York Nets and the Pittsburgh Condors. With an initial capacity of 15,000, the arena occupied 63 acres of Mitchel Field, a former Army/Air Force base, and was built at a cost of $32 million. The Coliseum was considered state-of-the-art at the time, featuring a digital scoreboard, the first of its kind in an indoor arena, instant replay technology, unobstructed sightlines and affordable tickets, starting as low as $4.50 in 1972.

The arena closed for renovations on August 4, 2015. Following an 18-month, $180 million renovation, the Coliseum re-opened on April 5, 2017. Guest enhancements included refreshed concourses, a redesigned main entrance, all new seating, improved bowl circulation, and revamped bathrooms and concessions. There are plans to to build housing, offices, biotech research space, "experiential retail," and parking garages around the arena, but nothing has bene verified.

The New York Nets called the Coliseum home from 1972 until 1977. The New York Islanders played their first game on October 7, 1972 and their final game on April 25, 2015. The Coliseum has hosted several WWE Raw and Smackdown Events over a period of over 30 years.

The Coliseum was originally intended as a cog in a grand vision for the Uniondale property, along with a concert hall, museum, library and gallery. Those plans  never came to fruition.

 

Sources:

“About Us.” Nassau Coliseum, https://nassaulivecenter.com/about-us

Brodsky, Robert. “Nassau Coliseum at 50: Memories of the 'Old Barn'.” Newsday, Newsday, 7 Feb. 2022, https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nassau-coliseum/nassau-coliseum-islanders-concerts-anniversary-1.50500279

 “The Storied History of Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.” The Disability Guys - Markhoff & Mittman, P.C. - New York Injury Attorneys, 16 Nov. 2018, https://thedisabilityguys.com/storied-history-nassau-veterans-memorial-coliseum 

Bulova Watchcase Factory

 When its last whaling boat, the Myra, departed in 1871, Sag Harbor’s heroic whaling period officially ended. The Bulova Factory was developed in 1850 as a cotton mill. A fire destroyed the cotton mill in 1879. Watchcase manufacturer Joseph Fahys constructed a new factory on the site of the former mill in 1881. The Fahys Watchcase Factory operated until 1931, and then sat vacant for six years.

In 1937, the Village leased part of the second floor to a subsidiary of the Bulova Watch Company. Local citizens formed a committee to raise money for renovations and new machinery for the watchcase industry. Once production increased to around 30,000 watchcases per week, many new jobs became available, and Bulova occupied the entire building. The Bulova plant was the biggest of Sag Harbor's factories. Generations of local men and women worked there. By World War II the Bulova factory had over 500 employees and was producing 30,000 watch cases per week, as well as telescope parts and aircraft instruments as part of the war effort. 

Bulova closed its operation there in 1981. For over 30 years the building sat abandoned and uncared for, left to fall slowly into ruin. In 2006, however, the property was purchased by New York developers Cape Advisors, Inc. with a bold and controversial plan to convert the old factory into luxury apartments and townhouses. The condominiums opened in 2016.

Sources:

Boody, Peter. “Sag Harbor Factory's Toxic Legacy Lingers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/nyregion/sag-harbor-factory-s-toxic-legacy-lingers.html

“The Watchcase Factory in the Whaling Village.” Beyer Blinder Belle, https://www.beyerblinderbelle.com/stories/13_the_watchcase_factory_in_the_whaling_village

“Watchcase - The Story of a Rebirth by Michael Heller.” Blurb, https://www.blurb.com/b/6909516-watchcase-the-story-of-a-rebirth