West Hempstead Now and Then

Dogwood Knolls - A Former Local Farm with a Familiar Story

2011-09-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Pick a random home under 60 years-old in the Malverne/ West Hempstead area and chances are that it sits on what was once a typical piece of Central Nassau County farmland with a familiar ring to its history that at the same time offers its own unique story to tell. That history typically includes what started out at the turn of the 20th century as a 40 or 50 acre tract upon which its owner, more likely than not a German immigrant, grew produce that would be harvested and then transported every season by truck to markets in New York City. The owner likely lived in a quaint farmhouse with his immediate family, perhaps even some of his extended family, and enjoyed a quiet country life in a neighborhood where the pace of life moved slowly, where things remained relatively unchanged until just after WWII.

Then, after the war, a major transformation occurred in Nassau County. There was a serious shortage of houses in the New York metro area, where heavy demand was spurred on by returning GIs who were eager to settle down and start a family. As a result of this demand, most of these Long Island farmers took deals that were too good to pass up and sold to developers who platted and subdivided their former land into neatly arranged properties whereupon mass produced, pre-designed, cookie-cutter homes would soon be built. In a relatively short period, houses began sprouting up everywhere, leaving a dearth of existing open space that remains in the aging suburbs of Nassau County.

Such is the story of a 45-acre farm on the western side of Dogwood Ave. on the West Hempstead/ Franklin Square border and its owner, Peter Wenk. Wenk voyaged across the Atlantic from Germany in 1892 as a young, enterprising 24 year-old bachelor full of hopes and ambitions that were characteristic of so many immigrants of that time. Shortly after arriving, he quickly found employment with Herman Breyer, a well-known florist from Elmhurst. Two years later, he married and started a family and all the while carefully squirreled away his savings until he was able to branch out and establish his own business. In 1898, he moved to Ozone Park and set up a series of greenhouses on a newly purchased plot of land where he cultivated marketable house plants and flowers. His flower shop became so prosperous that in just twenty years time, Peter Wenk & Sons Florists became the largest and most successful of its kind in all of Queens, according to one report.

The rapid expansion of his business necessitated the acquisition of more farmland. He found what he was looking for in what was then the rural community of Munson, L.I., where in 1916 he purchased a fertile plot from John Lewis Childs, founder of Floral Park and owner of the world-famous JL Childs Seed Co. Thereupon, he moved out to Long Island with his wife and four children, where the family planted roots - literally and figuratively - in the community and continued to farm there until 1950. In that year, developer David Coleman, president of Rutgers Homes, Inc., purchased the property to erect 175 bungalow-type homes similar to the one in the photo above, in a new $2.5 million colony to be called Dogwood Knolls. This photo appeared in the Sunday, November 19, 1950 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle together with a quarter-page advertisement heralding the first showing of this new development.

This three-bedroom ranch, located at the corner of Dogwood Ave. and Cornell Rd., also served as the development's model home and typified a popular architectural style of that era, featuring amenities that were considered cutting-edge at the time - scientific kitchens, dishwashers, washing machines, and automatic oil burners. In 1950, the Dogwood Avenue corridor was among the most rapidly expanding sections in Nassau County and Dogwood Knolls was but a small part of an overall development of more than 1,200 nearby homes that year, complete with a new, large 25-unit shopping center just down the road.

An added attraction touted by the Dogwood Knolls advertisments was that their homes were not subject to the imposition of a clause called "Regulation X". What was Regulation X? In September 1950, Congress passed the Defense Production Act in response to the start of the Korean War. Among various war powers enumerated in this bill, federal government was granted authority to regulate the terms of home mortgages to ensure that there would be no shortage of building materials that might hamper the war effort and also to curb economic factors in the housing market that might spur inflation. As a result, the Federal Reserve Board set minimums for the percentage of a down payment and interest rates on a home loan, a part of the Defense Production Act entitled Regulation X, which had the effect of cooling down a housing market that was red hot in 1950. Dogwood Knolls gleefully announced that their mortgage commitments were obtained before the passage of the DPA and therefore were not subject to its restrictions. That meant that a lucky veteran who purchased a $12,990 home could pay 10% down or $1,299, and at the going 4% interest rate that was offered back then, would pay just $72/ month on a 20-year mortgage. (Think about that next time your monthly mortgage is due.).

Over the next couple decades, area home development reached a saturation point and interest rates charted a path to a steady climb, never again to dip to those kinds of 1950s levels, until only recently.

The story of the Wenk Farm/Dogwood Knolls is a familiar and recurring one for properties of our neighborhood, and one that has shaped the local landscape of Malverne and West Hempstead into what it is today.

Junard Homes Development on the Lindner Farm

2011-08-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

The "then" shot above looks east on Colonade Rd. toward its curve northward toward Knollwood Dr., and shows a collection of freshly built houses in 1951 that were part of the 147-unit Junard Homes development. (The now shot comes from Google Maps). The property was originally a 34-acre farm owned by Henry Lindner, older brother of Paul W. F. Lindner, that extended from Nassau Blvd. to the east to Dogwood Ave. to the west, with Hawthorne St. as the southern border of the farm. Henry was born in Germany in 1866 and at age 4, came to America with his family where they settled in Washington Square (West Hempstead). Henry continued in his father George's footsteps and engaged in farming. In 1947, Henry's wife Anna died and in 1951, like so many other local landowners, the old farmer accepted an offer that was probably too good to pass up and sold his farm to a home developer.

The developer, Brooklyn native Saul Z. Sokolov, president of the Junard Construction Corp., had a proven track record accross Long Island and eventually established himself as one of the more prolific home builders in the region. His first major home project was a pre-war development on Lakeview Ave in Rockville Centre called Knollwood. Saul was a director of the prestigious LI Home Builders Institute. The Sokolovs were also West Hempstead residents for a time before later moving to Kings Point on the North Shore. After WWII, he went on to build many developments in and around West Hempstead: Garden City South (Nassau Blvd & 8th St., in 1947), Mayfair Section of WH (Concord & Hamilton Aves, between Broadway and Mayfair, and later Groton Pl. in 1948), Franklin Square (Franklin Ave & Polk St, in 1948), Garden City South (Nassau Blvd & Princeton Rd., in 1949).

For the Junard Homes development in WH, Saul brought in his son Richard, a recent Syracuse University graduate with a degree in engineering, as a principle of the company. In fact, the name "Junard" comes from a fusion of the names of Saul's daughter and son, June and Richard. (Now the names of the street in that section start to make sense - Junard Blvd., Knollwood Dr., June Ct., Lindner Pl. The meaning behind the name Colonade is still a mystery to me.)

The homes were marketed as 4 1/2 to 7 room capes and ranches with a price range of $14,900 - $20,900. The first of these homes, the ones you see pictured above, were ready for occupancy by September 1, 1951 and the remainder were quickly sold.

Saul Sokolov Died in 1977 and Richard went on to serve in the Kings Point Village government for over 30 years, first as a member of the the planning board commission, then as deputy mayor. He stepped down this year at age 85, having served as a village trustee.

A Look into Paul Lindner's Association with the KKK

2011-08-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

Below is a follow-up to the previous post, and discusses in more detail the activities of Paul W. F Lindner, a man who was instrumental in the founding of Malverne.

The issue of race relations on Long Island in the 1920s is a complex topic, one which deserves a separate and more extensive study. On its surface, there was undoubtedly a large contingent of White Long Islanders in the '20s who were racists, though historians continue to debate how widespread this racism actually was. What is clear is that the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan was gaining popularity across the Island.

1924 was a volatile year in the history of race relations in America. Eugenics and White Supremacy were widely-held and normative beliefs. The Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted the number of foreigners who were allowed to immigrate to the US. Here on Long Island that summer, the Ku Klux Klan was riding a wave of momentum that had been building over the previous year or two, and they made their presence felt with their cross-burnings and parades throughout the area. It is estimated that 1 out of every 8 Long Islanders in the 1920s belonged to the KKK. If that statistic seems hard to believe, consider that in 1923 the population of LI at the time hovered just above 200,000, while the KKK comfortably counted 20,000 among their ranks. Add to this their claim that year that they had been recruiting 800 people per week and the 1 in 8 statistic becomes easier to comprehend.

To be sure, the Western Long Island version of the KKK movement of the 1920s did not seem to possess the same kind of firebranded and violent fervor as it did in the deep South. A common refrain of local KKK members in press interviews of that time was, "We are not anti-Black or anti-Jew, but rather pro-America". Nevertheless, if nothing else, the movement did have the effect of scaring the daylights out of Blacks, Jews, Catholics and other minorities. The Klan's recruitment efforts on LI was indeed impressive, and the person most responsible for that recruiting success was none other than Paul W. F. Lindner, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan (pictured in the photo above, as indicated by the caption).

Locally, KKK activities in Malverne can be traced back to March 1924 and is tied-in to the very beginnings of village government. In 1922 a son of Irish Catholic immigrants and WWI veteran named Geoffrey J. O'Flynn ran against E. J. Christopher for Malverne Village President (back then the office of Mayor was referred to as President). Christopher had been elected in Dec. 1920 as Malverne's first ever president of the village. The 1922 election resulted in the closest vote in the history of the village, with 69 votes for O'Flynn and 69 votes for Christopher. The tie-breaking decision was then sent to the village trustees who chose the challenger over the incumbent, much to the chagrin of his opponents, particularly those who would go on to join the KKK. Two years later, when O'Flynn was soundly defeated by a 30% margin by George McIntosh, KKK members planted two 15-foot tall burning crosses in celebration, one at the Malverne railroad station, and the second at the Paul Lindner farm, a half-mile north on Hempstead Avenue. At Lindner's place they also set off a large explosion of dynamite that blew a hole in the ground "big enough to hold an automobile truck", and in the process, almost killed six of Norwood Hook & Ladder's bravest who rushed to the scene to extinguish the burning cross. When legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell made his off-the-cuff remark during the summer of 1977 that "the Bronx is burning", he seemed to encapsulate the tumultuous convergence of events that transpired in New York City that summer. Perhaps we can similarly refer to the turbulent year of 1924 as a time when "Malverne was burning". For the KKK that year, things were just getting started.

In July, A Jewish druggist named Ernest S. Louis was accused of improperly touching a 13 year-old girl while she was shopping in his Freeport drugstore for perfume. An inquest was made but no charges were filed for lack of evidence. Late on the night of August 15th, the KKK decided to take matters into their own hands by barging into Louis' store and threatening him, giving him ten days to move his family out of Freeport. Louis defied the Klan's order and sure enough, on August 26th, a group of Klansmen kidnapped the druggist. (No doubt, fresh in people's minds was the kidnapping and lynching of Leo Frank by the KKK in Georgia a decade earlier. That incident garnered national attention and spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League). The story was a sensation in the press and had many people on edge, wondering about the fate of Louis. The following day Louis turned up in a Mineola hotel, unharmed, but rattled. One of the perpetrators was later identified and arrested, but charges were eventually dropped. As a local Klan leader, Paul Lindner forswore any knowledge of the planning involved in the kidnapping.

One would think that notoriety from that incident might have put a damper on Klan activities. However, if anything, the opposite was true. The following month, on Saturday Sept. 20, Lindner organized in Freeport perhaps the largest Klan parade to ever take place on Long Island. Though Lindner had hoped to see 5,000 march at the event, the New York Times estimated that a total of 2,000 marched in the parade while 30,000 spectators came to watch. Following the parade, a women's KKK rally was held where 8,000 faithful turned up.

Lindner's open leadership in the Klan did not seem to negatively affect his standing in the local community. In 1926 he founded the Malverne Bank and served as its president for the next five years, until he moved to Suffolk County. During his presidency, in 1927, he paid $27,000 for the lot on the corner of Hempstead Ave. and Nottingham Rd. for the future location of the bank, an astonishing amount at that time. He has a street in Malverne named after him and, by extension, an elementary school. But then again, the '20s was a completely different era wherein its historical realities cannot be understood through the lenses of today's sensibilities. Some have argued that given Lindner's nefarious past, serious consideration should be given to changing the name of his namesake school and street. Time will tell whether this will eventually happen.

The Lindner Estate and the Limits of Early Local Firefighting

2011-08-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

The subjects of this blog don't usually veer beyond the borders of West Hempstead. In the case of the present subject, however, the magnificent home of Paul W. F. Lindner (shown above) I made an exception because, a) it lied just beyond WH's border, b) Lindner was born and raised in West Hempstead proper and his older brother, Henry, owned a large farm in WH just to the south of the future site of WH middle and high schools. The home was located in a familiar spot along Hempstead Avenue, just SW of the Grossmann Farm, where Grace Lutheran Church of Malverne currently stands.

Paul Lindner's father George, came over from Germany some time in early 1870s and, like so many other local Bavarian pioneers, he purchased a farm on Long Island, located in Washington Square (West Hempstead). Paul was born in 1877, the seventh of eight children. In 1898 he attended Princeton Theological Seminary and entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. He then went on to graduate from Princeton University. In the first decade of the 20th century, Lindner purchased a large farm on Hempstead Avenue, in what was then called Norwood, and his farming business brought him a modest degree of success. Soon thereafter he built the grand home pictured above.

He went on to become President of the Norwood school board (district 12) and held that position for over a decade. It was Lindner who sold most of the land purchased by the Amsterdam Development Co. to create what would become the Village of Malverne. Together with Alfred H. Wagg, he was heavily involved in the early development of Malverne and served as president of the Malverne Club. Lindner Place in Malverne is named after him. More information about Lindner will follow in a future post. For now, let's just say he was a pretty important local figure.

On a blustery Tuesday afternoon, January 18th, 1921, a fire started in the Attic of Lindner's home and quickly spread throughout the house. The Norwood Hook & Ladder Co. was called but then quickly needed additional help. They then called on the Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Hempstead Fire departments for assistance. The trucks rolled in and the massive assemblage of firefighters provided plenty of manpower but was soon confronted with a major problem - water supply. There was none. The wells on the farm were pumped dry and the nearest water supply was almost a half-mile away. The bucket brigade that was formed did little to battle the wind-swept flames. Rockville Centre FD did manage to lay the half-mile long hose but turned it on just it time to watch the home completely engulfed in flames. At least they managed to save the adjacent outhouses and neighboring properties. (Those of us who enjoy turning back the clock by visiting the Grossmann farm probably have those men of the RCFD to thank for ensuring that the fire didn't spread there).

The aftermath of this fire forced locals to take a long hard look at improving firefighting capabilities in the rural sections between Hempstead and Lynbrook. Two and a half years later, on July 26, 1924, Malverne taxpayers voted to lay water mains throughout the village, thus ensuring a supply of water for any future fire emergencies. The incident also generated a firestorm of protest in Lynbrook. The following Monday at a Village Board meeting, 55 taxpaying citizens of that village drafted a letter outlining their outrage at Village President George Wright, who had ordered every available piece of apparatus to fight the fire at the Lindner home. Wright acted apparently without consent of the Fire Chief, leaving his village totally exposed for lack of backup coverage. This despite the fact that the hose wagon and fire engine were completely useless in the fire for lack of a water hookup.

Paul Lindner rebuilt his home and lived there for over a decade before he moved further out on the Island, settling in Smithtown Branch. In 1948 the property was sold to Grace Lutheran Church and in 1952, the edifice shown in the "now" shot was dedicated.

Henry M Onderdonk - Editor of the Hempstead Inquirer

2011-07-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

The postcard above entitled "Looking out Fulton Ave., Hempstead, NY" is a remarkably vivid view c. 1904 looking west at the former Onderdonk estate located at the western corner of Fulton Avenue and Front Street, a property that was featured in an earlier post. (I have reposted the now shot to give a perspective of the present day location of this magnificent estate). Though almost completely obscured by an impressive collection of trees, one can make out the stately home that once occupied the premises. As previously mentioned, Henry M. Onderdonk moved in to the property in 1870 and lived there until his death in 1885. His second wife Catherine continued to own the property (though it appears that thereafter her primary residence was on Washington St in Hempstead Village) until her death in 1898. For the next two years at the close of the 19th Century the house was leased as the annex to the newly established Nassau Hospital, so the view above shows the property shortly after that period. At the time the estate was at the very outskirts of the village and in fact, most of the property lied outside the village limits.

As editor and publisher of the Hempstead Inquirer, Long Island's leading newspaper in the 19th century, Onderdonk was one of the most prominent citizens in Hempstead. He had quite an eventful and interesting life that put him at the center of some key moments in US history. Here is a brief synopsis:

Henry Moscrop Onderdonk was born on March 26, 1818 in New York, the son of Rev. Benjamin Treadwell Onderdonk who, from 1830 till his death in 1861, was Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. In 1835, at the young age of 17, he was tried and convicted of forging bank notes while he sat in his father's study in Trinity Church. He was sentenced to prison but then was promptly issued clemency by Governor William L. Marcy, which led to public accusations that his favored status as the son of an influential father unfairly led to his pardon. He then went on to become a civil engineer and in 1841 he married Justine Bibby. The 1840s saw him set up shop on John St. as a publisher and bookseller of religious books. (In 1848 he published the first fully-illustrated, book-length edition of Clement C. Moore's poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, a book whose effect in popularizing the modern-day, portly image of a jolly Santa Claus cannot be overstated).

In the mid 1840s, we also find Henry listed as a member of Alexander Cartwright's famed Knickerbocker Base Ball club who would ferry over to Hoboken, NJ to play in the world's very first recorded baseball games at Elysian Fields. I'll bet he and his teammate and brother-in-law, Edward A. Bibby, must have made a fierce double play combination.

In the summer of 1849, ten days after giving birth to their fifth and sixth children, Justine tragically died probably a result of complications from the birth, as did the two infants four days later.

The following year he was remarried to Catherine Donnely and moved his family to Virginia's Kenawha River Valley (before it became part of West Virginia) and put his engineering training to use as a representative of the Virginia Coal & Coke Company. While there he served as postmaster in Len's Creek, VA, in the heart of (West) Virginia's coal mining region. In 1855 he represented the Great Western Mining & Mfg. Co at a mining convention. When the Civil War broke out, he fled across the Ohio River to Gallipolis, OH and opened a bookshop there.

In 1868 he ran for state senate in Ohio's 8th district and narrowly lost to incumbent Homer C. Jones. Onderdonk contested the election by claiming that 100 negro votes were unlawfully counted for his opponent. On the opening day of Ohio's 58th congress in January 1869, the senators voted to unseat Jones in favor of Onderdonk, and in the ensuing debate, state laws were reinforced denying black suffrage. (This would be one of the last times in US history that the lawful denial of a negro's right to vote would factor into an election result. That's because the following month, the federal congress passed the proposed 15th Amendment prohibiting government from denying blacks and former slaves their voting rights, and the proposal was sent to the states for ratification. Two months later, in April, Ohio was one of only three northern states in the Union that outright rejected the 15th Amendment. It wasn't until the following year on January 27, 1870, that Ohio voted to ratify it, and the following week, on February 3rd, the law was amended to the constitution.)

Shortly after completing his term in the Ohio Senate, Onderdonk started yet another chapter in his life by moving back with his six children from his second wife to New York and settling in Hempstead, in the home pictured above. In July of that year, he purchased the Hempstead Inquirer, changed the paper's format and turned it into a world-class publication. (He had some prior editing experience during his old John St. bookshop days when he edited numerous volumes of the NY Ecclesiologist).

His attainment by that time as a man of means is evident by the fact that he became one of three principles in the new New York & Hempstead Railroad (along with William L Wood - see this post and Edward Cooper), the first railroad to lay tracks through Malverne and West Hempstead. (In 1873 he was listed as "treasurer", but his engineering background undoubtedly was also put to good use). He was one of the lay incorporators of the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City and was instrumental in the creation of St. Paul's and St. Mary's schools.

The Onderdonk Homestead in those days, with the six children running around, must have been quite a lively scene. Henry even brought his mother Eliza, the bishop's widow, to live with them. Eliza, a beautiful woman (her portrait shown below, taken in the early 1830s), was born in 1794 and was reported to be in remarkably good health well into her 80s. She survived her son, Henry, by two years, and passed away in 1887 at the age of 93.

Dr Lewis A W Alleman - One More on Morton Manor

2011-07-08T13:15:00.001-07:00

In the previous post, we mentioned that a large parcel of land that came to be known as Morton Manor was the sole remnant of an estate that remained intact during the development that occurred on the Willets Farm in the 1920s and 1930s. It is also the reason why Oak St. is a dead-end road that does not run through to Maplewood St. The estate once belonged to one of the most prominent opthamologists in the country, Dr. Lewis Arthur Welles Alleman (left).

Dr. Alleman a native of Geneva, NY in Seneca County, was born in 1862 during the Civil War to the son of a Union army surgeon. In 1888 he received a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College (now part of Thomas Jefferson University) in Philadelphia and soon after moved to Brooklyn and opened up a practice that specialized in opthamology.

He then went on to publish numerous articles in medical journals and wrote a book entitled Optics as Related to Evolution (D. Appleton, 1891). Among his many achievments, he refined and patented a medical instument called an opthalmo-dynamometer (below) that measures the strength and behavior of eye muscles during convergence.

That same year he married Miss Frances Dudley, a descendant of Thomas Dudley, co-founder of Harvard College and former Governor of the Massachussetts Bay Colony. In 1892 he became chairman of the eye dept. at Long Island Medical College in Brooklyn (now part of SUNY Downstate).

Though his primary residence was in Brooklyn and he retained a summer residence in Seneca County, as can be seen from the 1906 E. Belcher Hyde map (below), he purchased a house and a parcel of land on Maple Ave. (now Maplewood Ave), just south of Hempstead Turnpike. Though it is unclear how extensively Alleman and his family lived at their country place in Hempstead, given the fact that his two daughters, Marion and Elizabeth, attended St. Mary's School for Girls in nearby Garden City, they must have spent some time there.

According to the Nassau County property records, their home (below) was built in 1888.

Then, in 1908, we find the following notice below in the July 2 edition of the Hempstead Sentinel:

Dr. Alleman eventually moved back to Geneva and, after suffering from an illness, died at the young age of 56. His only son, Dudley (d. 1966), was a WWI veteran who was an ambulance driver and was injured in combat. He eventually married and moved to Massachussetts. Dudley had a daughter, Frances D. A. Luce (d. 2001), who became a prominent child psychologist in Boston. Her son, Jim Luce, is founder and president of Orphans International Worldwide.

The new owner of the property on Maple Ave, Henry Rickmeyer, moved the home just to the north to its present location, and by that fall, moved in with the rest of his family. It wasn't until the early 1950s that the rear of their property was subdivided and the homes built around the Oak St. cul-de-sac.

Morton Manor II and the WH-Trump Connection

2011-07-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to a previous post, the two photos above compare a then and now look of Oak St. in the Morton Manor section of West Hempstead, looking west from the intersection of Morton Ave. The "then" shot c. 1928 comes from an advertisement in the Brooklyn Eagle by Preferred Homes, Inc. who purchased lots at auction and then began building houses on neatly arranged 40x100 plots of land. The sellers touted the prime location of the development, a mere stones-throw away from West Hempstead's brand new LIRR station aside a newly electrified line that offered daily service to NYC. Single family 3 bedroom houses went on the market in July 1928 with a price tag of $7,350 ($4,750 down), and after three months, 40 homes had been sold. By October 1929, around 70 had been sold.

Then, in the Fall of that year, the stock market crashed.

Banks went under, credit dried up and people lost their jobs. The Great Depression was well under way and the nation would suffer its effects for the next decade. By the following year, Preferred Homes, Inc. had only 10 homes remaining on the market but understandably had a heck of a time finding buyers. Their answer was to resort to sales gimmicks, such as offering a Chrysler automobile with every remaining home sold.

As the Great Depression wore on, many of the original homebuyers in the Morton Manor development lost their homes to foreclosure. In 1934, the federal government created the Federal Housing Administration to help out the lagging housing market by facilitating more favorable lending terms to home buyers and by insuring the mortgages. In those very early days of the FHA, one of the companies that took advantage of this new entity was a firm called Metropolitan Investors, that proceeded to rehabilitate the homes and put them back on the market. By November, 1935, the New York Times reported that Metropolitan Investors had sold all but three of the homes that they renovated. Credit for the success of this transaction can be given to the head of the company, a young, enterprising 30 year-old real estate developer from Woodhaven named Fred C. Trump. His keen eye for a good business deal would eventually make him one of the wealthiest real estate moguls in the New York area, and would pave the road for the success of his famous son, Donald J. Trump.

The images above show a block that has been left relatively unchanged for over 80 years. Oak St. is curiously the only block in the development that does not run through to Maplewood but terminates as a dead-end. That's because the cul-de-sac portion of the block was once the location of a large property called "Morton Manor" that was not subdivided until around 1950.

More about the original Morton Manor property will come in a follow up post.

The Rasweiler Farm in Dogwood

2011-06-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

The 1949 photo above is of a West Hempstead farmer named George Rasweiler who, along with his brothers, ran a large farm in the Dogwood section of WH & Malverne. They inherited the farm from their father John Jacob Rasweiler who immigrated from Germany. The photo most likely looks north, with Dogwood Ave along the right side of the image and it was part of a feature article in the New York Times about how some Long Island farmers were unaffected by a severe drought that plagued farmers in 1949. These farmers, the Rasweilers included, learned how to tap into Long Island's seemingly boundless water table by installing hydraulic well-water pumps on their property which fed into their spray pipes.

The Rasweiler family literally planted roots straddling three local communities - West Hempstead, Malverne and Franklin Square. When Robert Moses laid out the meandering route for the Southern State Parkway through south shore farmland in 1927, most farmers accepted the state's offer for compensation; but not the Rasweilers. In The Power Broker, Robert A. Caro's seminal book on the life of Robert Moses and the alleged strong-arm tactics he used to accomplish his massive civil works projects, the author relates a fascinating account of the confrontation he had with the Rasweilers. As retold by one of John Jacob's sons, Phillip, the family had just spent enormous effort clearing a part of their property to make it suitable for farming, when along came Moses and his men with his proposal for a highway through that property and threatening a defiant John Jacob with eminent domain. A subsequent visit by state surveyors ended up with John Jacob chasing them off his farm with a shotgun. The Southern State was eventually built, effectively splitting the Rasweiler farm in two.

The Rasweilers farmed in WH for another 23 years before selling their land, along with four other local farm owners, to developer Emil Morton in 1950. Morton then went on to build a massive 700-home, post-war development along Dogwood Ave., which also included the shopping center below that still serves as the major business cluster for the Dogwood section of WH and Morton neighborhood of Franklin Square (Best Yet is now the anchor supermarket where Food Fair is shown in the picture) .

The Rasweiler farm was developed as Dogwood Park and the photo below, taken at the corner of Willow Ave., approximates the scene depicted at the top of this blog post.
The Rasweiler legacy in WH & Franklin Square includes the name of Rasweiler Blvd. and their old hundred year-old farm house, which still stands at the corner of their namesake street and Dogwood Ave, shown below.
A couple months ago, Warren Rasweiler, a life-long resident of Malverne and a member of the Malverne Volunteer Fire Dept. for an astonishing 71 years, passed away at age 89. He was, I believe, a grandson of John Jacob Rasweiler. May his memory be for a blessing.

The "Bedell House" in Old Bethpage

2011-06-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

The following article first appeared in the Summer 2011 edition of the WH Community Support Association newsletter. A view of the "Bedell House" c. 1918 when it still sat along Hempstead Turnpike. Photo first appeared in Garden and Home Builder magazine in 1926.
Those who are attuned to local history are familiar with the fact that West Hempstead’s oldest and most valued relic can be found at Old Bethpage Village Restoration. The Bedell House was a modest wood frame house built in the 18th Century in colonial style, and was originally located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike just west of Mayfair Ave. By 1918, it had fallen into disrepair and was rescued by new owners, Carl L. and Lena Otto, who moved the house north toward the Garden City border. Carl L. Otto (pictured at left), a master architect who designed many prominent buildings and bridges in the Northeast, put his knowledge and expertise to work by having the house transported north toward the Garden City border and restored to its former glory. (Long time residents referred to the property surrounding house as Otto’s Woods).

The Roosevelt Savings Bank building on Gates Ave in Brooklyn (below left) and the Washington Street Bridge in Providence, RI (below, right, photo courtesy of Lisa J. Miller) are two examples of Otto's works.

In 1982, Carl's widow Lena, who was 100 years-old by then, donated the home to the Nassau County Parks Dept. who then transported the structure to Old Bethpage where, for the past 30 years, it has awaited a restoration that never happened.

But who owned the house before the Otto’s and how far back does it date to? When it was acquired by Old Bethpage, not much was known about its past and so an effort was made to puzzle together some historical information about the house. It was discovered that homestead dated to the last decade of the 18th century and was traced back to a man named Hiram K. Bedell who expanded the structure in 1835. The Bedell family was prominent throughout Long Island and Hiram’s father, Abraham, was postmaster for Hempstead Village. Beyond this, not much information was available about this home, so I decided to do see if could uncover any other clues about its history. What I discovered startled me.

A little while ago, I came into contact with a descendant of Hiram Bedell who was born and raised in West Hempstead. His grandfather, Alfred McCoun, was born in the Bedell House. (For those who wish to keep score, Hiram and Hannah Bedell had a son, Henry, who had a daughter Mary. Mary Bedell married Willett McCoun who had Alfred. Hiram Bedell died in 1870. His wife, Hannah, died at the age of 98 in 1894 and left 165 living descendants at the time of her death). He was kind enough to share with me a photo of the home of his grandfather from the 19th Century. I instantly noticed some obvious structural differences between the home in the photo and the one at Old Bethpage. This led me to discover that the house, in fact, is not the Bedell House at all, but another home that sat a couple blocks further west on the Turnpike. More importantly, the house may well be much older that previously thought, perhaps built as far back as the early 1700s! In 1926, Carl L. Otto penned an article in the Garden & Home Builder journal, detailing his transportation and renovation of the home. At the time of his purchase, Otto carefully studied some features of the home, particularly the handwrought strap-hinges, h-hinges and hand-made nails used in its construction and, in his expert opinion, concluded that it was at least 175 years-old. If true, that would date the Bedell House to around 1743, almost 50 years older than previously estimated, and would rival the Schenk farmhouse from Manhassett as the oldest house at Old Bethpage. (Some sources at the county have 1730 as the date it was built while another source claims 1765).

But who owned the house before Otto, if it wasn’t the Bedells? A notice in the April 4, 1918 edition of the Hempstead Sentinel at the time the home was originally moved gives us a clue. It was the family of John T. Hanna, a Brooklynite who worked on Wall Street as a stock broker. Hanna purchased the home in the 1870s as a summer retreat in the country for his wife and five children. At the time of his purchase, the property ran all the way back to the Garden City border and included both sides of what today is Mayfair Ave. In 1913, John Hanna died and soon thereafter the house fell into disuse before the Ottos rescued it in 1918. Who the owners of the house were before the Hanna’s still remains to be discovered. Owing to the fact that the house has been uprooted twice, and in the second move, the three chimneys supporting the structure were removed, the building is now beyond repair. It's actually amazing that the house has survived until now. The sturdy pine timbers used by the original owners (the Hannas used to refer to their retreat as "Pine Tree Cottage") have proved remarkably resilient. It has been deemed too deteriorated to warrant restoration and the decision was made to tear it down and build a replica. While the County is still busy securing funding for this project, head down to Old Bethpage and get one last look at a home that has been part of our local landscape for over 350 years.

Above is a view of the home c. 1926, after the Otto's moved it to the WH-Garden City border and restored it.

The "Bedell House" as it appears today at Old Bethpage.

Hempstead Lake Park Homes II

2011-01-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

As a follow up to the previous post, the view above is another photo of the Hempstead Lake Park Homes development and highlights one of its most beautiful and attractive features - its private lake, located just off Colonial Drive near the Woodfield Road entrance. Developer Reuben Hillman took advantage of the fact that Schodack Brook, a rivulet fed by a natural spring, ran through his property. As a result, he carved out of it a man-made lake with a 50 foot beach for private recreation of the homeowners. The wooden bridge above was built by Hillman and a newspaper reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle was so struck by the beauty of the scene that he called it "a slice of old Connecticut transplanted to Long Island" and "suggestive of Shakespeare's Garden of Arden".

Schodack Brook, like its sister rivulets Pine Brook to the west and Horse Brook to the east, was once a continuously flowing stream that originated somewhere in the Hempstead Plains - a sandy barren at the center of the Island. It then meandered its way through West Hempstead before forming a series of small ponds in Lakeview. In the 1960s, the installation of sewers across Nassau County caused a dramatic drop in groundwater levels and thereafter our local streams no longer flowed continuously without the help of rainwater runoff, and many of the lovely ponds that once graced our landscape are now mere shells of what they once were. In some cases, such as with Pine's Pond in Malverne and Johnson's Pond in West Hempstead, the body of water was deliberately drained to make way for development. In other cases, such as with the ponds formed along Schodack Brook, the ponds are dying a slow death by asphyxiation. Below is a "now" view of Hempstead Lake Park Homes' private pond as it looks today.

Hempstead Lake Park Homes I

2010-12-31T07:44:00.000-08:00

The view above, looking west toward Woodfield Road from Hillman St. along Colonial Drive in Lakeview and shows a section of the brand new Hempstead Lake Park Homes development as it appeared in 1931. On May 5th of that year, the development was incorporated by Reuben Hillman with a capitalization of $20,000 and with rapid speed, a number of houses were already built by September 6th when 2,000 people came out to inspect the homes. The name of the principle street of this neighborhood was chosen for the colonial designs of its homes, and another, Hillman St., was named, well - you guessed it, after its developer.

The premier attraction of this new neighborhood, as indicated by its chosen name, was its proximity to Hempstead Lake State Park, to which it had easy access via a back entrance at the end of Colonial Dr. The deal for the park's development occurred in Nov. 1925 and two years later, on Nov. 6 1927, the first section of the Southern State Parkway, from the Queens border to Hempstead Lake, was formally dedicated by Gov. Al Smith. In the following couple years, Hempstead Lake State Park began to take shape with a number of prized amenities such as playgrounds, clay tennis courts, ballfields and bridle trails. Local landowners immediately saw the value of their properties rise and these and similar types of housing developments began sprouting up throughout the area.

Below is the "now" shot to the picture above, showing the block virtually unchanged. The only difference is something you need to pay close attention to; in the "then" shot, you will notice at the end of Colonial Drive an island of trees that used to adorn the entrance to the colony at Woodfield Rd, which is no longer there.

West Hempstead's Grandest Home

2010-12-16T14:13:00.001-08:00

The above picture shows a rare front view of what was likely West Hempstead's grandest home, built in the mid 1800's for and by the planner of Garden City, John Kellum. The house was a relic that seemed to fit in more among the grandiose Gold Coast mansions of Long Island's North Shore than among its humble West Hempstead surroundings.

Kellum was a native of Hempstead and a close associate of A.T. Stewart, the founder of Garden City. It was Kellum who convinced Stewart to purchase a large swath of the Hempstead Plains for his planned village in 1869. In a posthumous writeup of Kellum after his untimely death in 1871, the Brooklyn Eagle described his house as "..if not the finest, certainly the most comfortable house in the United States...a miracle of comfort and ingenuity". The house was built upon a foundation of ten feet of sand trucked in from the seashore, to protect it from moisture. It was piped throughout for plumbing and well-water was supplied via a state-of-the-art, self regulating windmill. Every window was equipped with a burglar alarm, an innovation that was almost unheard of in the mid 19th Century. His property spanned what is known today as the Cathedral Gardens section and when the A. T. Stewart deal was finalized, he deeded land to the Town to build Rockaway Avenue through his property as the southern approach to the new village.

Kellum's daughter Hannah inherited the home along with his son-in-law, Dr. Gerrit D. Van Vranken, a physician from Saratoga. Shortly after Van Vranken moved to Hempstead in 1877, he abandoned his trained profession and founded the Nassau Lumber Company and made a fortune. (The Nassau Lumber Co. was eventually taken over by fellow Dutchman and founder of Hofstra University, William S. Hofstra). Van Vranken was a prominent citizen of Hempstead and among the positions he served was as president of the board of trustees at the M. E. Church in Hempstead and also as superintendent of their Sunday school, and a director of the Hempstead Bank. He died in 1901 and his widow, Hannah, continued to live at the estate until her passing in 1915. Her will of over $1 million showed that she was one of the richest women in the region and was one of a handful of females who attained the status of millionairess in the early 20th century.

In 1926, the entire estate was sold at a hefty sum of $8,000/acre to a developer who subdivided and built the fine residences of the Cathedral Gardens section. Realizing the value of their properties, many other landowners in West Hempstead were inspired by the Cathedral Gardens deal to sell off their farms and estates as well. Thus began the transformation of West Hempstead from a quiet farm hamlet to a booming suburban community.

Below is a contemporary photo the approximate location of the Kellum/ Van Vranken estate, looking north across Hempstead Turnpike just east of Rockaway Avenue.

A Rare Old Sketch of Halls Pond and the Hall-Wall Feud

2010-12-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

Note: This coming year will mark the 50th anniversary of Halls Pond Park as a county park.

The image above comes from the September 20, 1896 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle and is a rare sketch of Halls Pond in the 19th Century, perhaps the earliest known image of the pond in existence. Back then, it was called Wood's Pond and was but one of a series of ponds that formed along Pine Stream which eventually emptied into Smith's Pond in Rockville Centre, one of the storage reservoirs of the Brooklyn Water Works. The 1896 article as well as a follow-up article from June 25, 1899 focused on the water quality of the Brooklyn water system, about which some argued that the growth of vegetation in the tributary ponds was contributing to the foul odor and taste and questionable healthfulness of the water. The picture above, showing the pond blanketed in lilies, was presented as evidence of the typical type of vegetation prevalent in many of the ponds of the South Shore. (If you wish to see a similar example of a local pond carpeted in water lilies, go to Hempstead Lake State Park and hike down to Schodack Pond, a small body of water tucked away in a wooded area of the park). But, as a sanitary engineer interviewed in the 1899 piece correctly pointed out, the lilies and other vegetation, rather than polluting the water, actually worked as a purification system by aerating and filtering the water as it flowed down to the storage reservoir.

Now, a little about the name. The pond was originally called Wood's Pond after it's original owner, former Town of Hempstead supervisor Martin V. Wood. Wood willed the property to his daughter and son-in-law, William S. and Jeanette Hall. Their son, Martin V. W. Hall, president of the Hempstead Bank, became the eventual owner. In the 1920's, the Halls' beautiful Mansard style home across the street was sold to Charles S. and Eva Wall (Eva was the granddaughter of President John Tyler) and thereafter, it seems, the pond became known as Walls Pond. In the 50's the home fell vacant and eventually burned down.

Toward the end of that decade, Nassau County began buying up the pond and surrounding land to create a new park. By that time, the Wood/ Hall sole surviving heir, Martin Hall's son Bruce, had moved to Syosset while one of Wall's sons, Charles Jr., remained local. When the County dedicated the park in 1961, they chose the name Halls Pond. Evidently, Bruce Hall's prominent standing in the county (he continued for years as president of the Hempstead Bank until his retirement in the 80's) was enough to persuade the County to use the park name to pay tribute to his family. Charles Wall Jr. promptly fired off an irate letter to the County stating that for the previous three decades the pond was called "Walls Pond", and demanded to know why it was being changed now. Further, he alleged that the Halls were not worthy of the tribute anyway, since they were snobbish and wealthy elitists who fit in more in the exclusive North Shore estates where Bruce eventually moved than among the average, middle-class folk of the South Shore. Wall's argument fell on deaf ears at the County and ever since, the name Halls Pond has stuck. The Walls did get a token local tribute in the naming of West Hempstead's "Wall St.", a small avenue off Nassau Blvd. near where their home once stood.

Below is a "now" shot of Woods-Halls-Walls-Halls Pond , approximating the location of the "then" shot above. Photo is taken from Tara Conry's wonderful, new local online news publication Malverne/West Hempstead Patch.

The Wilcox Bungalow in Hempstead Gardens

2010-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

The following article originally appeared in the Fall 2010 edition of the West Hempstead Community Support Association newsletter.

In 1910 the famed book publisher Frank Nelson Doubleday relocated his successful publishing house from Manhattan to the small Long Island village of Garden City. The move brought Doubleday's firm closer to his Long Island roots and was in line with his company philosophy that emphasized the joys of country living, a philosophy emblemized by its flagship publication - the twice-monthly magazine called Country Life in America. A move from Manhattan out to the country for an employer of over 600 workers was not without risks, however, as Doubleday would have to make due with a talent pool on Long Island that was considerably smaller than that of the region's great metropolis. So, to help attract area talent, Doubleday created a work environment that was at the cutting edge for a company in the early 20th century. The grounds were neatly manicured and decorated with ornate gardens with flora and fauna from all over the world. A completely separate railroad station was built for the location (which still exists today as Country Life Press). The campus came equipped with a baseball diamond, tennis courts and lawn bowling greens. A registered nurse was stationed on site and a doctor and dentist was on call to service employees.

With all these amenities, its no surprise why so many existing Doubleday employees opted to stay on and relocate with their company. For many of these employees, the hunt was on to find affordable housing in the area. The grandiose estates of Garden City village were out of reach to all but the most affluent of them. It was estimated that choice lots in Garden City commanded between $5,000- $10,000 an acre. So, many set their sights to the south where properties were much more affordable, in the small, up and coming residential neighborhoods of West Hempstead and Hempstead Gardens. One such employee was a 36 year-old proof reader named Robert H. Wilcox, who moved out with his wife and son from Hasbrouk Heights, N.J. At first, Wilcox rented one of the homes on Hempstead Avenue owned by the Hutcheson family, near the current location of the Chestnut Street School. In 1912, he purchased a two acre plot of land for $1,600 that was tucked away in the northeast corner of Hempstead Gardens. The location at the time was strikingly rural and was nestled in a forested area called Parson's Woods (the area would later be developed as the Hempstead Golf & Country Club. Aside from the recently platted street (Cedar St.), little else existed in the way of infrastructure improvements for the property. The gas and lighting district would not come for another couple years. It would be over a decade before the water district was formed. There was no sewer line on the street. To access to the property one had to traverse a dangerous railroad crossing of the LIRR's West Hempstead branch. As such, a hand-pumped water-well was built to provide the water supply. A sceptic tank was installed to handle the sewage. The house was piped for gas, in anticipation of the day that the gas district would come on line. Floor plans for the bungalow was a modest 36 X 36 ft with an excavated cellar as well as a loft. Wilcox began construction in August, 1912 and with blazing speed, completed the home and moved in by October 1st. Total construction costs for the bungalow came to $3,200, a relative bargain that would translate to a little over $70,000 in today’s dollars.

Together with the indefatigable E.J. Jennings, Wilcox successfully petitioned the LIRR to deed land adjacent along the rail line so that Railroad Ave. (later named Hempstead Gardens Drive) could be built.

Over the years the home has served its owners well and stood the test of time. It can still be seen albeit with minor alterations at 555 Cedar St.

S Klein Then & Now - Follow Up to Previous Post

2010-05-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

The sketching below comes from an ad that ran on page nine of the Saturday, August 13th, 1955 edition of Newsday, heralding the grand opening of the S Klein Dept. Store in West Hempstead that Monday.

The building's initial design took full advantage of the property's wide frontage along Hempstead Turnpike with large showcase windows along the full length of its' north facade. You will also notice that the store originally had an entrance from Hempstead Turnpike. Overall, though the building typified the "big box store" model that became so prevalent throught American suburbia, it evidently had somewhat greater aesthetic appeal than what it eventually devolved into over the years. And while it didn't exactly compare to other upscale department stores, shoppers who entered the main floor were greeted with high, waffled ceilings and broad columns.

Comparing the "then" shot to the "now" shot below, taken roughly from the same angle, aside from the showcase windows being boarded up, the one striking difference is the addition of a third floor, which wasn't built until 1961, effectively adding another 75,000 sq. ft. to the building.

Looking closely, one notices a different color shading of the bricks used for the third floor. When Liquidators occupied the building, the 3rd floor was used for the offices of their national headquarters.

From S Klein (1955-74) to E J Korvette (1974-80) to Shopper's Village (1980-95) to National Wholesale Liquidators (1995-2009 to Shopper's Village #2 (2009), this property has gone through alot of tennants.

A Brief History of the Shopper's Village Property

2010-04-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

The following article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 edition of the West Hempstead Civic Association newsletter. The article has been updated with minor modifications.

The recent “liquidation” of the National Wholesale Liquidators flagship store in West Hempstead and subsequent reopening (and reclosing) of Shopper’s Village gives us an opportunity to reflect on the history of a property that for over 50 years has housed our neighborhood’s largest retail establishment in one form or another.

We pick up the story in 1891, before which time the entire area was but a wooded and grassy meadow. The property was originally part of a 19 acre estate built by War of 1812 veteran Adrian V. Cortelyou, and later sold to Henry M. Onderdonk, editor of the Hempstead Inquirer. That September, LIRR president Austin Corbin started buying up hundreds of acres in West Hempstead, including the triangular property bounded by Hempstead Tpke., Westminster Blvd. and Hempstead Ave., instantly making him the neighborhood’s largest individual land owner¹. More than just purchasing land for a new rail line that would run from Valley Stream to Mineola (the remnant of which comprises the existing WH branch of the LIRR), Corbin envisioned developing a planned community to rival the style of Garden City². Corbin died unexpectedly in 1896 and his grand plan never materialized to the scale of his aspirations, leaving many large, vacant plots of land.

The tract remained undeveloped and in the hands of the LIRR, which for a time used the property as a grazing area for the horses of the Long Island Express Company (see this post). Then in May 1941, a man named John “Ole” Olsen came on to the scene. Olsen and his partner Chic Johnson had struggled in the small-time Vaudeville circuit for 25 years until the debut of their hugely popular smash hit Broadway musical, Hellzapoppin. By the time it ended its almost four-year run in 1941, Hellzapoppin became Broadway’s longest running musical and third longest running play of any kind³. Olsen, a resident of Malverne, became a big celebrity and made a killing on his show, and now was confronted with two primary problems - finding a good investment for his new fortune and finding a good local shopping venue where his wife could spend it. His solution was to head up a syndicate to purchase twelve acres of land in West Hempstead and develop a business and shopping center on it. His ambitious plan called for a building to accommodate a department store such as Sears or Montgomery Ward, a 1,500 seat theater, a sports center with bowling alleys and an ice skating rink, a “Howard Johnson” type restaurant and other retail shops⁴.

Disappointed West Hempsteaders who never got to see this development materialize can blame Emperor Hirohito for putting a hold on plans because in December of that year, a little incident at Pearl Harbor drew the US into WWII, effectively putting a stop to any major capital projects that didn’t have to do with the war effort. By the end of the decade Olsen’s project lost steam, though he did accomplish some minimal development not the least of which included a car wash he aptly named ‘Carzapoppin’⁵. During this time, a professional PGA golfer named Art Stuhler also set up a driving range on the site to the delight of St. Thomas school children who would scavenge for golf balls along the fence on their way to and from school. In July 1952, Olsen sold most of his land to Samuel Leider, a developer who had just completed the Centre Island Shopping Center in the brand new settlement of Levittown. Leider planned on bringing in S. Klein on the Square as the anchor tenant of a new 200,000+ sq. ft. building⁶. ‘Klein’s’ was a full-line discount retailer on Manhattan’s Union Square that started in 1906 and focused on selling bargain merchandise. Financial problems and disputes between shareholders delayed the project’s construction⁷ until it was finally completed in 1955. While the building was not exactly a marvel of architecture, it did provide modern conveniences like elevators and escalators and, oh yes, plenty of parking. To understand the phenomenon of the property’s massive underused parking lot is to appreciate the whale sized vehicles driven by our mothers and grandmothers in the ‘50s, the Long Island housewife’s disaffection for parallel parking those vehicles (especially the ones with the fins), and the lack of requisite parking at existing local dept. stores like Arnold Constable in Hempstead.

For West Hemspteaders old enough to wax nostalgic about those days, it didn’t get much better than the summer of ’55 and the heyday of the baby boomer generation. Scores of new homes, schools, churches, and synagogues were transforming the neighborhood, the Brooklyn Dodgers & NY Yankees were headed to the World Series, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley & His Comets was playing on the radio, and West Hempstead was getting its very own department store.

For Klein’s management, however, anticipation of the August 15th grand opening was probably cause for more anxiety than excitement, after the launch of their first branch store in Newark five years earlier had caused a potentially dangerous human stampede. Terrific hype leading up to that opening (the front section of the previous day’s Newark Star-Ledger contained 14 full page broadsides announcing deeply discounted goods) had backfired when over 150,000 bargain hunters showed up. The mob forced managers to close the doors every 10 minutes to allow the disbursement of shoppers while police were called in for crowd control. Learning from that mistake, Klein’s heralded the WH opening with an understated single page ad in Newsday⁸. The plan worked, for although the 1,500 car parking lot was quickly filled (for the first and probably only time), the crowd was civil and orderly while shoppers sifted through racks of $1.39 skirts and 39¢ hosiery⁹.

By 1974, major operating losses forced Klein’s to sell off the WH store to another discount retailer called EJ Korvette. Korvette’s didn’t last very long, however. Mismanagement and a slowing economy forced it into bankruptcy and by 1980 the WH store was closed. After that was the brief tenure of Woolco (Woolworth’s experiment in the discount box chain market), followed by an indoor flea market called Shopper’s Village. Many locals still fondly remember the old Shopper’s Village for its grab-bag bargains and colorful vendors known by the particular merchandise they plied such as “the Pickle Man” and “the Dollhouse Lady”. The flea market operated for over a decade until it closed in 1995, done in to some extent by the soaring utility rates of the ‘90s.

The closing of Shopper’s Village created an expansion opportunity for National Wholesale Liquidators, an up and coming, locally based discount retailer that offered a wide variety of closeout items. For over the past decade, the building housed not only its flagship store, but also its national headquarters.

Alas, the wheel of history continues to turn, as National Wholesale Liquidators filed for Chapter 11 last year, giving a chance for a second go-around for Shopper's Village . Unfortunately, though, once again the viability of Shopper’s Village was short lived, leaving us awaiting to find out what’s “in store” for property that for decades has been an integral part of West Hempstead’s business landscape.

[1] “Buying Farms” Brooklyn Eagle 19 Sept, 1891 2
[2] See “Improvements at Hempstead” Brooklyn Eagle 30 May, 1894 12.
[3] Stanley Green, Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (Da Capo Press, 1980) 184
[4] “Business Center Planned in Nassau” NYT 11 May 1941 RE1
[5] “Farm in Baldwin Sold for Housing” NYT 17 Apr 1954 21
[6] “Stores Planned on Site Bought From Ole Olsen” NYT 25 Jul 1952 32
[7] “Shopping Center Halted by Dispute” NYT 26 Nov 1953 55
[8] The ad was placed on page 9 of the Saturday edition of Newsday
[9] “Klein Causes Jam at ‘Quiet Opening’” NYT 16 Aug 1955 34

Munson L.I., a Forgotten Hamlet

2010-04-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

The photo of the magnificent estate at left comes from the May 5th, 1917 edition of the NY Sun announcing the sale of the home to Mr. & Mrs Wilford L. Wright, president of the Savage Arms Company. The seller was Harry Munson, who had lived in the home for over 20 years. The 20 acre property was located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike between Nassau Blvd and Cherry Valley Ave, where the Compare Foods Shopping Center is now located, and extended all the way back to the Garden City border.

Harry Munson (pictured at left) was a decorated Civil War veteran who made a fortune in advertising in New York City. Some estimated that he had a 50% market share in Manhattan's billboard posting business. In 1896, he retired and purchased the home above in a tiny village then called Washington Square, centered around the corner of the Hempstead-Jamaica Plank road (Hempstead Tpke) and John St (Nassau Blvd). Upon moving out to Long Island, Washington Square then became known as Munson in honor of the area's newest resident. Despite the fact that Harry Munson was a successful businessman and decorated Civil War hero, it is surprising to consider that local residents were so eager to change the name to honor a newcomer. After all, with his purchase, Munson initially intended occupy his country seat only on a part time basis as a Summer retreat. Perhaps we can offer the following theory:

In 1892, Washington Square in Manhattan gained national recognition when a memorial arch was erected to celebrate the centennial of President George Washington's inauguration. The existing, permanent memorial arch was completed in 1895. This created too much confusion for tiny Washington Square, Long Island, and shortly thereafter locals began looking for a suitable replacement name for their village. When Munson came on to the scene and purchased the area's most prominent home and property, he was a natural candidate to be given the honor of the village's namesake.

In 1947, Wilford L. Wright died. Five years later the home was sold to the Ethical Cultural Society (later called the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island), who then used the building as their headquarters until they built a new headquarters on Old Country Road in Garden City. The photo at left comes from the EHSLI website and shows the building as it looked in the 1950s. As a testament to the size of the home the Ethical Cultural Society converted the rooms of the house into a Platform room with a capacity of 100 people, a study, lounge, kitchen, office, caretaker's room and six Sunday School classrooms.

A survey of local newspapers such as the Hempstead Inquirer and the Hempstead Sentinel from the early 1900s shows that local news from Munson was covered much more extensively than other neighboring locales such as West Hempstead, Lakeview and Franklin Square. Munson had it's own hotel, a general store, a blacksmith, various other businesses and even its own baseball team. Over time though, Munson slowly lost its identity because it got crowded out by the expansion of West Hempstead from the east and Franklin Square from the west. Only an echo of Munson exists in the name of the Franklin Square & 'Munson' Fire Dept., and Munson Ave., south of Hempstead Turnpike, just east of Nassau Blvd. Below is a photo of the location of the Munson/ Wright home as it looks today.

Martin V. Wood – West Hempstead’s Most Accomplished Local Politician

2010-03-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

The following article appeared in the Winter 2010 edition of the WH Community Support Association newsletter (I have since added minor modifications).

In West Hempstead in 1881, there lived a tall, demure, middle-aged farmer named Martin V. Wood, who resided on a modest farm with his wife and two daughters, directly across from where Hall’s Pond Park is currently located. Born on January 23, 1838, Martin grew up on a homestead located a stone’s throw from where he eventually settled, and spent his boyhood years helping his father, Valentine Wood, with farm work and at his general store, and attending local schools¹. Martin likely spent some years of his schooling at the old ’Trimming Square’ School (at the corner of Dogwood Ave & Nassau Blvd) where a young Walt Whitman once held a job as schoolmaster². Shortly after getting married in 1861, Martin purchased a farm adjacent to his father’s and for the next twenty years quietly busied his time in agricultural pursuits and raising his family³.

All that would quickly change in July, 1881. Martin had an uncle named William L. Wood, a grocer from New York City, who died childless in July of that year. Aside from his day job, William was also a Tammany politician who held various public offices including assistant alderman, police justice and member of the NYC Board of Education, and had amassed a small fortune from his business dealings. (William L. Wood was also a principle investor in the New York & Hempstead railroad, West Hempstead’s first rail line, which began service in 1870. The engine that served that line was named the ‘WL Wood’. The local train depot, at the north end of Valentine Wood’s property, currently where the St. Thomas parking lot is located, was given the name “Norwood”. With this investment, Wood was probably serving the dual purpose of helping provide rail service near the homes of his brother and nephew and perhaps also creating a faster and cheaper way to transport produce from Long Island to his grocery business in NYC.) His estate was valued at $175,000, a small part of which he bequeathed to the children of his nephew, Col. Alfred M. Wood, a Civil War hero who was wounded and captured at the First Battle of Manassas and at one time was Mayor of Brooklyn. Martin V. Wood was shocked to learn, however, that the bulk of his uncle’s estate, $150,000 ($3.3 million in today‘s dollars), was willed to him. It was reported at the probate hearing that the deceased selected Martin as the primary beneficiary because “he was a staid, straightforward, honorable man who would not be disturbed by possession of wealth but use it as a sensible man”.⁴

With his new change of fortune, Wood tried his hand in local politics and ran for Town of Hempstead supervisor in 1882 as a Republican, a position which he won. The widely popular Wood then went on to serve a record eight consecutive terms as Town Supervisor (back then, terms lasted one year). He was finally narrowly defeated in 1890 by 43 votes, only because he even lost support of many admiring republicans who felt that, “they are opposed to any one man having a life mortgage on the highest office in town, no matter what his peculiar fitness may be⁵”. However in 1894, he again won the Town supervisorship and served another two terms in that position. During this span, the Town of Hempstead underwent a period of expansive growth, going from a population of a little over 18,000 in 1880 to over 27,000 just twenty years later⁶. (The latter figure would have comparably been higher, but no longer included the entire Rockaway peninsula, once part of the Town of Hempstead but later annexed by greater New York City in 1899. As an aside, the greater NYC annexation plan originally included all of Inwood and most of the Village of Lawrence, but angry residents of Inwood & Lawrence successfully fought off the attempt to be swallowed up by NYC. In April 1899, Governor Theodore Roosevelt signed the Doughty Bill, named after the bill's sponsor, Assembyman G. Wilbur Doughty, redrawing the Queens-Nassau border further west. [Doughty Blvd. in Inwood, along the new border, is a living testament to that effort. G. Wilbur Doughty went on become TOH Supervisor and then Nassau Co. Supervisor and helped establish a virtual Republican dynasty in Hempstead & Nassau that lasts to this day, largely from the benefit of the perception that the GOP was the best party to protect LI from the encroachment of the liberal political policies of New York City. His nephew, J. Russell Sprague created the position of Nassau County Executive and served in that capacity from 1938 to 1953]. A year into the annexation plan, many residents of the Rockaways were dissatisfied by the diminished level of services and representation once they became part of New York City. This compelled Doughty to advance another bill in the NYS Legislature in 1900 that would establish a new township and join Nassau County. Had the bill passed, a new jurisdiction would have been formed as the "Town of West Hempstead". That bill never came to the floor, however, because the Nassau County supervisors came out against the plan⁷). Martin V. Wood presided over Town government during this period of change, when numerous roads were macadamized, gas and lighting districts were formed, and new school districts were established.

One of the more interesting issues during Wood's tenure involved the establishment of School District 25 in Garden City in 1886. When the Town of Hempstead sold a large swath of the Hempstead Plains in 1870 to A.T. Stewart to create Garden City, Town citizens agreed to sell their common lands with the provision that the monies obtained from the sale should be placed into a trust fund and that two-thirds of the accruing interest from that fund should be devoted to support the public schools of the Town. However, the manner of distribution of those funds was left to the discretion of the board of town auditors. When SD 25 broke off from SD 1 (Hempstead) in 1886, it was discovered that the Garden City School District was not receiving their fair share of disbursements from this fund. At issue was whether the Laws of 1870 included newly established school districts or only the ones that existed at the time the law was written. SD 25 then sued the Town of Hempstead and the NY State Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the plaintiff, forcing the Town of Hempstead to compensate Garden City for missed payments⁸.

Martin V. Wood was also the founder and president of purportedly the oldest bank in Nassau County, the Hempstead Bank, est. 1887. Hempstead Bank was for years one of Nassau's premier financial institutions. (In fact, the name Hempstead Bank survived as late as 1983, until a series of mergers and acquisitions brought it to an end. Hempstead Bank became Northstar Bank in the ‘80s, and then Fleet Bank in the ‘90s, and was ultimately swallowed up by Bank of America in 2005⁹). For a time Wood was also president and director of the Hempstead and Nassau Gas Companies¹⁰.

Unfortunately, Wood was predeceased by his wife Harriett¹¹, and a daughter, Jeanette¹². He was survived by a younger daughter, Wilhelmina, who never married. Jeanette married William S. Hall, a prominent citizen who was a trustee of the Freeport Bank and at one time County treasurer. When Martin V. Wood died on Feb. 22, 1911, he bequeathed almost his entire half million dollar estate to his grandson, Martin V. W. Hall¹³.

Martin V. Wood standing
in front of the Hempstead
Bank

Upon his grandfather’s death, Hall became president of the Hempstead Bank and ably guided its continued progress for the next 30 years¹⁴. Hall inherited Wood’s beloved farm in West Hempstead and occupied the magnificent twenty room colonial home that Wood had built on the property. Hall died in 1944 and his widow, Elizabeth, continued to live in a cottage on the property at least until the mid 1950s, around the time Nassau County began to acquire land across Nassau Blvd to create a new park¹⁵. Thereafter, Hall’s Pond Park, as it came to be known, became a tribute to the local legacy of the Wood and Hall families.

(Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Hall’s Pond Park as a County Park¹⁶).

1 See Portrait and Biographical Record of Queens County (Long Island) (New York: 1896, Chapman Publishing Company) Valentine Wood owned a farm just south of Hall’s Pond. Martin V. Wood’s farm was located due east, across the street, from Hall’s Pond. See Atlas of Queens Co., Long Island New York (New York: 1891, Chester Wolverton) Plate 031.

2 For an overview of this school and the Walt Whitman connection, see the essay by Thomas F. Heffernan, Walt Whitman Here in Trimming Square (Garden City: Adelphi University Office of Publications) here - http://libraries.adelphi.edu/bar/Whitman/heffernan_essay.pdf.

3 Portrait and Biographical Record of Queens County (Long Island) (New York: 1896, Chapman Publishing Company).

4 “A Poor Man’s Sudden Rise to Wealth” Brooklyn Eagle 29 Jul 1881 4.

5 “On the Far Rockaway Branch” Brooklyn Eagle 31 Mar 1889 11.

6 Compare 10th Census of the United States Vol 1 (Washington, DC: 1883, Government Printing Office) 269, and 12th Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900, Part 1 (Washington, DC: 1901, US Census Office) 280.

7 “Fifth Ward Bill Dropped” Brooklyn Eagle 6 Feb 1900 1.

8 State of New York, Dept. of Public Instruction, 35th Annual Report of the State Superintendant (Albany: 1889, The Troy Press Co.) 148-152.

9 See http://www.scripophily.com/nybankhistoryh.htm.

10 “Nassau County Gas Company” Brooklyn Eagle 30 Jan 1903 10.

11 “Mrs. Wood Left Large Estate” Brooklyn Eagle 22 Jan 1910 1.

12 “Mrs. William S. Hall” Brooklyn Eagle 15 August 1908 2.

13 “Martin V. Wood’s Will Filed” Brooklyn Eagle 13 Mar 1911 5.

14 “Martin V. W. Hall” NYT 25 Mar 1946 19. Leadership of the Hempstead Bank remained in the family as Martin V. W. Hall’s son, Bruce, assumed the presidency into the 1980s. Bruce died in 1995.

15 See “Malverne Landmark Burns” NYT 4 Apr 1954 56. According to the Nassau County parks website http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/Parks/Wheretogo/passive.html, the County purchased Hall’s Pond Park in three parcel between 1956 and 1970. The large home that Martin V. Wood built on his estate at the southern approach to West Hempstead (where the Exxon gas station is now located) eventually fell into disrepair and was ultimately burned by vandals in 1954.

16 A placard at the southern end of Halls Pond commemorates the official opening of the County Park in 1961.

Effects of Last Week's Storm and the Legend of the West End Flag Pole

2010-03-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Over the years, Long Island has certainly endured its share of damaging storms. The Long Island Express in 1938 and Hurricane Gloria in 1985 are just two that come to mind. Before that, on August 18, 1897, as reported in the Brooklyn Eagle, a tornado touched down in the West Hempstead vicinity, brushing by and causing much damage to the old Woodfield Road school building before continuing over the Hempstead Reservoir, where it generated a fifty foot high column of water.

The storm that visited our area last week doesn't quite compare to the devastation wrought by those events, but it certainly took us all by surprise to discover how much damage was actually done. A long period of heavy rains, followed by sustained gale force winds had the effect of toppling many trees whose roots were softened up by the soaked ground. Cars were crushed, power was lost, and the storm generally wreaked much havoc upon our neck of the woods.

One of the casualties of last week's storm was a beautiful eastern hemlock tree located on the traffic island at the corner of Fulton & Front Sts, which can be seen on the left side in the photo below, featured in a previous post.

Sadly, the tree is no longer there.
Judging from the number of rings, the tree was just over 50 years old -

I hope the Town (or Village?) of Hempstead will do the right thing and replant something there soon.

On a related note, there is an interesting story relating to the presence of the flag pole that rises over the traffic island. The pole was placed there in 1929 and was originally made from one of the legendary white cedars of Long Island that grew around the swamps and marshes of the south shore. (It has since been replaced by a metal pole). The LI white cedar was prized for its exceptional strength and sturdiness and was the wood of choice for shipbuilders to make masts for sailing ships of the 18th and 19th centuries. A plaque was placed at the base of this pole claiming that it was once the mast of a former America's Cup defender.

In the July 1960 edition of the Long Island Forum historical journal, a reader named Fred Ingraham revealed a dirty little secret about that claim. Ingraham grew up on an estate at the eastern end of Hempstead Village and, as a child, helped his father fell a cedar to make a flag pole as an expression of their patriotism during the Spanish American War. The pole and the flag stood proudly at the Ingraham estate until Fred's father died and the homestead went vacant. In 1929, Fred and his brother were convinced by Hempstead Village trustee Eugene Geer to donate the pole to the Village. Geer then faked the whole Americas Cup story in order to sensationalize the acquisition, pledging the Ingrahams to never tell otherwise, a secret that Fred Ingraham kept for the next 30+ years.

I'm not sure when the current metal pole replaced the old cedar pole, but now it is all that remains as a token remembrance of this legend, and, as Paul Harvey used to say - now you know...the rest of the story.

The Willets Homestead and Morton Manor

2010-02-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

The photo to the left, which appeared in the late 1920s edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, is of Willets Avenue in West Hempstead, looking east, with a row of freshly built homes. The name Willets is one of the earliest and most popular surnames throughout Long Island. Anyone who does a little driving around the Island (or listens to traffic reports) has no doubt come across references to I U Willets Rd, or Old Willets Path or Willets Point in Queens.

Here's what I've been able to uncover about the namesake of West Hempstead's Willets Avenue. We pick up the story with a Platt Willets, who moved to from Huntington to Hempstead in 1805 and established a tannery there. Platt Willets acquired his given name probably to honor his mother's family, Mary (Platt) Willets, whose great, great grandfather, Isaac Platt, was among the very first English settlers of Huntington in the 1660s, and Isaac's father, Richard Platt, was counted among the pioneer settlers of New Haven in 1639.

Platt Willets was a prominent citizen who served as Hempstead Town Clerk in 1817-1818 and was elected Queens County Treasurer in 1836. One of his sons, George Willets, was born in 1820 who went on to become a liquor dealer in Hempstead. George was a defendant in a court case in 1873 that went all the way to the NY State Court of Appeals. The case involved an acquaintance from Hempstead, a scam artist who arranged the sale and delivery of 5 barrels of whiskey from a distillery in Brooklyn. The barrels arrived via the LIRR and, Willets, thinking the acquaintance was an agent of the distillery, met him at the station and paid him for the sale. When the distillery sent Willets a fresh invoice for the goods, George refused to pay, claiming that the agent already collected the payment. By that time, the scam artist skipped town and the distillery promptly sued Willets. The court ultimately held Willets liable for payment, invoking the principle of caveat emptor.

George was married in 1846 to Phoebe Gildersleeve. Some time after he married, he purchased a farm just west of Hempstead Village, on the south side of the Hempstead & Jamaica Plank Road.

In 1852, they had a son, Sylvester Woodbridge, the same year that Platt Willets died. Sylvester was ostensibly named after the Rev. Sylvester Woodbridge Jr. , minister of St. George's church who officiated at his parents' wedding. Sylvester became a stone mason and feed dealer in Hempstead. At one time he was a foreman in the Hempstead Fire Dept. He was also a director in the Hempstead & Jamaica Plank Road Co., as was his father. (The Hempstead & Jamaica Plank Road, now Hempstead Turnpike, was a private toll road until it was purchased by Queens County in the 1895. The easternmost toll house on the road was located in West Hempstead, approximately across the street from when the WH Fire house is now located). He also served as president of the Hempstead Rod & Gun Club.

When George died in 1892, Sylvester inherited the farm in West Hempstead. The farm was bounded by Hempstead Tpke to the North, Hempstead Ave to the south, and Maple Ave (Maplewood) and Westminster Rd. to the west and east, respectively. Some time in the early 20s, Sylvester sold the farm to a developer who laid out streets for a planned community called "Morton Manor". One of the streets would be called Morton Ave. Another street, Willets Ave., paid tribute to the original owner of the property. Shortly after the streets were platted the property went into foreclosure and the plots auctioned in 1925. Preferred Homes, Inc. then built the homes shown in the photo above. In the '30s the depression took a big toll on property values, as homes that were originally built to sell at close to $8,000 were being liquidated at half that amount.

To the left is a "now" shot of the same view at the top of the post. Note the same tree in front of the second home and its growth over an 80 year span. Aside from the trees, as you can see, not much has changed on this block.

Robert Van Cott - Namesake of Lakeview's VFW Post 1139

2009-12-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

WWI is sometimes referred to as "the Great War" and the "war to end all wars", in part because the modern advances in weaponry caused devastation that was never seen before in military history. The advent of modern chemical warfare brought the horrors of war to a new level, and caused world powers to eventually recognize the need to ban the use of poison gas via the Geneva Protocol of 1925.

The picture at left is a photo of Robert Van Cott Jr., namesake of Lakeview's VFW post. Born in July 1898 to Robert Sr. and Ella (Julia) Van Cott, [Update - Thanks to correspondences with relatives, I learned that Ella and Julia were two different people. Ella, Robert's first wife, died in 1915 and Julia was Robert's second wife] not much is known about young Robert's childhood, other than the fact that he was a typical mischievous kid from Lakeview, Long Island. On New Years Day, 1916, 17 year old Robert and a buddy were caught stealing candy from a confectionery truck in Rockville Centre and Robert's father, Robert Sr. posted the $200 bail (almost $4,000 in today's dollars). Robert Sr. worked as a "lather" (some kind of woodworker), not a particularly lucrative profession, so it's safe to assume that $200 wouldn't have been easy for him to pay.

Robert Sr and Ella Van Cott, it seems, did not have an easy life. In all they had six children. Their second son, Divillo [Update - Elwood (Toby)], was born with some kind of developmental disablility and when they refused to see a recommended medical specialist in Rockville Centre, the state threatened to take custody of Divillo [Toby]. Their third son, Remsen, was later thrown in prison for larceny, only to escape from county jail in Mineola (causing the jailer responsible for his watch to be dismissed).

In mid 1917, Robert joined the Army after the US was drawn into war with Germany. He was detached to the 106th Machine Gun Battalion of the 27th armored Division. By April 1918, he was sent overseas to fight in France. On August 8th, the decisive Hundred Days Offensive commenced which eventually led to the Allies breaking through the vaunted Hindenberg Line.

In late September his unit was brought into a forward area near the enemy line near Bellicourt and on September 27th, he was killed in combat. Robert Van Cott Jr. died a hero in defense of his country, and was buried at the American Military Cemetery in Somme, France.

In the mid 1930s, when Lakeview organized its own American Legion VFW post, the natural choice was to name the post after the only veteran from Lakeview to be killed in action, Robert Van Cott. Robert's parents were still around to witness the tribute to their son - Robert Sr. died in March 1938. The photo at left shows the memorial stone that stands in front the the Van Cott VFW Post 1139, with the names of all Lakeview servicemen who died in service of their country, including Robert Van Cott, at the top of the list.

So, where in Lakeville did the Van Cotts live, and is the home still there? Strangely neither insurance maps of 1906 or 1914 list any property in Lakeview labeled Van Cott. However the following clue from the listing of mortgage assignments in the Brooklyn Eagle from May 28, 1910 might give us an idea:

Smith. I W, to R Van Cott, adj land Rhodes. Woodfield ....................$800

As is shown in the 1914 Belcher Hyde map to the left, the Smith property adjacent to Rhodes was on Woodfield Rd. across from the Lakeview fire house, just south of the intersection with Rhodes Ave.

The Nassau County property records show that the house at that location was built in 1868 and still stands, as is shown in the photo below, taken in 2000.

Are there any contemporaries of Robert Van Cott still alive today? As memories of WWI have faded into history, there remains only one documented American WWI veteran alive, 108 year-old Frank Buckles. Van Cott would have been 110 if he were still alive.

[Update - the above information about the location of the Van Cott's residence needs to be corrected. According to relatives, the Van Cotts lived in Lakeview on Erie Rd.]

Plymouth Colony - a View of Sycamore St

2009-11-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

The years of 1926-27 were ones of unprecedented transformation in West Hempstead, brought on by changes to the two major modes of transportation to New York City, rail and highway. In 1926 the LIRR moved the WH station south of Hempstead Ave and built a fine new station house. More importantly, the LIRR electrified the rail line so that the branch would be served by more efficient electric trains rather than steam engines. Then, in 1927, the first portion of Southern State Parkway was completed connecting West Hempstead to NYC. The LIRR upgrade and the new parkway made WH an attractive option for home buyers who were looking to move out to 'the country', while still within commuting distance to their workplaces. Many local farm owners took advantage of the rise in property values and sold their farms to developers.

Two such farmers were Edwin Duryea and his brother Frank, who owned a farm between Hempstead Ave and Woodfield Rd, with Woodlawn and Chestnut Sts forming its north & south borders, respectively. Ed Duryea was a prominent local citizen who was deeply involved in WH's early progress including the establishment of its school district in 1911 and its fire dept. in 1919. In Dec 1926, the Duryeas sold their 35 acre farm to the Spiro Realty Corp. who contracted the Bach Construction Co. to develop 'Plymouth Colony', the cluster of quaint tudors that now line its streets.

The image below, taken from a Nov. 9, 1930 Brooklyn Eagle article, shows a rare glimpse of Sycamore Ave. looking east from Hempstead Ave. The development for the most part was divided up into uniform plots and buyers were offered a choice of three similarly styled tudors, resulting in the neat row of homes you see below.

Having been converted from farmland, expectantly absent from the photo are the trees that now line the streets and fill the back yards of the homes. The one tree that can be made out in the "then" shot (on the left in the foreground) evidently did not survive. Though the photo was printed in the Eagle in Nov. 1930, it must have been taken sometime in mid 1928, because by the end of that year, a brick business building went up at the far left that would have almost totally obscured the house at left in the foreground, as can be seen in the "now" shot below. After nearly eighty years, two of the original occupants of that building are still there - the Community Cafe and Riesterers Bakery.

Josephine DeMott Robinson – West Hempstead’s Celebrity Circus Star

2009-11-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

The following article appeared in the fall 2009 edition of the West Hempstead Community Support Association newsletter.

Amidst the rough-edged gold nuggets of prominent male personalities who pioneered in the early settlement of West Hempstead lies a sparkling gem of a lady whose efforts left a lasting effect on our community. When we hold up this jewel to be scrutinized and rub away the dust of history, it is revealed that perhaps no other West Hempstead resident before or since has achieved as much celebrity as the illuminating Josephine DeMott Robinson, the subject of our present sketch.

Born in Newtown (present day Elmhurst), Long Island in 1868[1], Josie DeMott came from a long line of circus performers whose bygone members performed in front of early 19th century French audiences. Throughout her childhood, she accompanied her parents in their small travelling circus and at a very early age, was trained to perform tricks while riding horseback. By her teens she became a highlight act by perfecting her trademark stunt - multiple somersault flips on a moving bareback horse, purportedly the only woman in the world at the time to perform the feat. The diminutive, five-foot tall circus star then went on to win international renown as a marquis act with the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

In 1891 she married Charles M. Robinson[2], a business manager of the circus who would later go on to serve as an Ohio State assemblyman, and soon thereafter she quit the circus settled down as a homemaker in Cincinnati. Unaccustomed as she was to the formalities of playing hostess in her husband's social and political circles, she never really adapted to this new lifestyle. In 1897, news of the Klondike gold rush swept the nation and Charles Robinson made a split decision to try his luck in the Yukon. Ever the adventuress and eager to break the humdrum of life in Ohio, Josie decided to join her husband in Alaska.

The next three years in the Alaskan frontier brought little else but misery for the Robinsons, as their gold seeking venture proved unrewarding. As one of the very few women among hundreds of men in the remote and isolated miners' camps, Josie found herself overburdened as the unofficial camp matron and having to care for the infirm. Out of hope and money by the spring thaw of 1900, the Robinsons longed to return home but simply could not afford passage back to the States. Stuck in Alaska with nowhere to turn, they caught a break that June by finding work as federal census agents and earning just enough money to get back home[3].

Soon after returning, the Robinsons purchased a picturesque 14 acre farm in West Hempstead from a man they had met in Alaska named William Pine-Coffin who had also spent 3 years up north in fruitless pursuit of gold. This farm, located between Nassau Blvd. and Hempstead Ave., was originally settled and built in 1855 as the summer home of prominent Kings County judge, Brooklyn school superintendent, and two time NY state assemblyman Samuel E. Johnson.[4] (The southern border of this estate is marked by Johnson's Lane, named for the original owner). The estate sprawled around a small lake about the size of Halls Pond that once filled an area just south of where Echo Park is presently located. In-period descriptions of this fine estate paint the picture of a long, hedge-lined driveway, rolling lawns, cornfields, forests of birch and pine trees, and a stately home with an expansive porch[5]. By 1900, three years of absence by its previous owner took its toll on the property’s appearance. With great effort, in short time the house was renovated, crops were planted, the pond was once again stocked with trout and the estate was brought back to its former splendor. Farm life in West Hempstead suited Josie much better than the straight-laced world of Cincinnati's upper class. But once again, fortunes would turn for the worse as a series of bad stock market investments erased the Robinson's savings and by 1906 nearly cost them their beloved farm. Though already pushing 40, Josie went back to doing what she knew best to remedy their situation; against the insistence of her husband but to the delight of Circus fans, she came out of retirement and rejoined the Barnum & Bailey Show.

Financial constraints and long periods apart weighed heavily on the marriage. The following year Josie and Charles Robinson separated and would later divorce in 1912.[6]

Josie was an early champion of women’s rights. Her strong will coupled with her life experiences in male-dominated environments - the years spent in various circus troupes and at the Yukon miners’ camps, undoubtedly influenced her to become a leading, outspoken advocate for women’s suffrage. In 1912 she stirred up controversy by organizing the women of the Barnum & Bailey Circus to work for the suffrage cause[7], and went on to become captain of the suffrage club for her district[8].

When her body could no longer handle the rigors of performing under the Big Top, she continued to stay involved in circus life by building a makeshift ring at her farm and training horses to perform in the circus. With her husband now out of the picture, Josie went on to use her home as she pleased. So, she opened a horse riding school for the young girls of Long Island and then converted the place into a sanitarium for women where young ladies could relax, go horseback riding, canoe or swim at the lake or partake in a variety of courses from dancing to nutrition.[9]

Though she never bore any children, in 1916 Josie Robinson adopted Verona Oakley, the twelve year old daughter of a colleague at Barnum & Bailey’s, a circus clown named ‘Slivers’ who tragically took his own life.[10]

As Josie got on in years, care of her beloved farm became too burdensome for her. So in late 1917, Josie sold the property to William and Margaret Collins[11] (after whom Collins Avenue is named) until they, too, sold to a developer in 1940[12]. (Part of the property was purchased later in 1952 as the site of the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County). Josie moved to Manhattan and taught classes in exercise and proper posture to women at the now defunct Traphagen School of Fashion. But her heart was always drawn to the circus. Whenever the circus would roll into town at the old Madison Square Garden, Josie would never miss the show, on occasion being called down to be recognized by the crowd.[13] In 1935, at the remarkable age of 67, she had a part in an ongoing live production called Jumbo that required her to perform shoulder stands on a moving horse[14].

Josie DeMott Robinson died on March 8, 1948, a relic of an era before the advent of motion pictures and television, when all the real starlets of the world were found on stage and in the circus.

(To read more about the remarkable life of Josephine D. Robinson, see her autobiography entitled The Circus Lady.)[15]

[1] As an adult, Josie would never reveal how old she was to reporters, in part because her appearance would belie her age. The 1880 Federal Census (Film T9-1182, Page 137B) taken on June 12 records that she was 11 years old at the time.
[2] New York Clipper 1892 Annual (New York: Frank Queen Pub. Co., 1892) 6.
[3] Entries of the diary that Josie Robinson kept during her years in Alaska were published as a three part feature in McCalls magazine Nov 1927 – Jan 1928. Leaving Rampart, AK on June 9, 1900 to do census work, the Robinson’s were not heard from for more than two months and were presumed dead until they turned up on Aug. 21, having surveyed every camp and native village in the territory.
[4] As for the date when the farm was originally built, see “In Memoriam, Hon. Samuel E. Johnson” Brooklyn Eagle 7 Feb 1870 4, wherein it is reported that Johnson purchased the property at Hempstead ‘twelve or fifteen years ago’ and converted it from swamp and marshland into a farm. See also Transactions of the NY State Agricultural Society Vol. XVI 1856 (Albany: C. Van Benthuysen, Printer to the Legislature; 1856) 551, which shows that Johnson presented corn specimens from his farm at the Queens County Agricultural Society Exhibition in September 1856.
[5] Photos of this lovely estate accompany an essay on Josie Robinson in “Romance of a Circus Rider’s Home” New York Herald Magazine 16 July 1911 8.
[6] “Love’s Dream Shattered” New York Clipper 6 Apr 1912 10.
[7] “Bareback Rider’s Husband Defies Mad Suffragists” Syracuse Journal 1 Apr 1912 4, recounts an incident when the husband of a participant rudely interrupted the suffrage gathering to pull his wife out of the meeting, to which Josie Robinson angrily shot back, “What right do you have to take your wife away from a decent, orderly meeting?”. The husband retorted, “Because she’s my wife and I’m not going to wait all night for my grub!”
[8] “Once Daring Circus Rider Now Soother of Jaded Nerves” Brooklyn Eagle 25 Aug 1916 8
[9] “Youth Possible to Every Woman Who Really Wants It” New York Times 16 Feb 1913 44.
[10] “To Adopt Slivers’s Child” 11 NYT Mar 1916 9.
[11] “Nassau County – Conveyances” Brooklyn Eagle 24 Nov 1917.
[12] The initial plans for the pond was to preserve it as a recreational centerpiece for the new “Hempstead Manor” development (see “Home Models ‘on Parade’ in Development” Brooklyn Eagle 31 Mar 1940 2D), but evidently the developers found it more profitable to drain and subdivide it.
[13] “Circus Star, 80, Revisits Old Scene” NYT 5 May 1946 16.
[14] “Mrs. C. M. Robinson, Once Circus Star” NYT 10 Mar 1948 27.
[15] 304pp. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.; 1926. A personalized, autographed copy can be found in the special collections of the Hempstead Library.

West End Tavern

2009-10-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

The undated above photo, from the Hempstead Public Library collection, is an early view looking east into Hempstead Village at the corner of Fulton Ave. and Front St. A couple features of this photo are noteworthy:

1) The 20MPH speed limit signs on both sides of the intersection. When the automobile came of age in the early 1900s, villages like Hempstead had a real problem with motorists speeding right on through its streets, frightening horses and endangering pedestrians and bicyclists. As noted in a previous post, Hempstead cracked down on speeders every now and then by setting up speed traps and issuing hefty tickets. Newspaper reports show that residents of West Hempstead were none too pleased that no such speed restrictions existed in their neighborhood so that once motorists left Hempstead Village's speed zone, it was all petal-to-the-metal from that point. (One can only wonder how big of an impact enactments such as these had on the decision of so many municipalities on Long Island to incorporate during this period).

2) At the center of the photo is the front steps of a home that is mostly obscured by the trees. This home would later become the landmark West End Tavern, a popular local eatery in the first half of the 20th century. At first the tavern also operated as a hotel, whose proprietor, Frank Wettstein, was a WWI vet and prominent citizen of Hempstead. The innkeeper was John Pfortsch, a German immigrant who, like so many other Bavarians, hailed from Ridgewood, Queens. On New Year's eve 1935, a terrible fire damaged much of the building, but it was soon remodeled to appear as it looks in the terrific 1943 photo below, taken at roughly the same angle as above.

In this pic below, the tavern is decked out in patriotic bunting to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Hempstead Village, as the sign on the traffic island indicates. What can also be made out are two gas stations on the right; a Texaco, the site of which is still a gas station today; and an Esso in the foreground.

The 1943 photo shows the tavern in its heyday, before the proliferation of fast food restaurants that would replace the West End as the preferred venues for eating out. The West End would soon become crowded out by the stiff competition of nearby chains that provided waitresses with drive up service popularized in the '50s, the first of which was White Castle which opened up where the Esso is located in the picture. The Tavern survived at least until 1960, but how much longer after that is unclear. As if to accentuate the void left by the Tavern, the '60s brought to that area of WH an explosion of food options including Wetson's in 1963, a burger joint located across Hempstead Ave. from White Castle, now currently a KFC; Steak & Brew, a restaurant located inside the Hempstead Motor Inn (currently the infamous Courtesy Hotel), built in 1963; and the IHOP on Hempstead Tpke in 1964 (still there after all these years).

Comparing the two 'then' shots to the 'now' shot below, one is struck by the comparative lack of trees left in the area. The magnificent trees that once gracefully lined the streets and made our town beautiful and rural have been felled and sadly not replaced.

The WH Community Support Association is currently is spearheading the Hempstead Avenue Revitalization Project (HARP), an effort to beautify West Hempstead's main thoroughfare by planting trees and placing banners (among other things). If there was ever a visual argument for the success of HARP, this would be it.

Early WH Womens' Basketball Phenoms II - Gertrude Van Hoven

2009-10-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

As shown in the previous post West Hempstead owns a rich tradition of womens basketball excellence. In the previous post we linked to the website luckyshow.org that contains, among other fun facts, a page dedicated to the 1925 National Champion Hempstead High Women's Basketball team. The photo below, taken from that page, shows the lineup for that team.

The team traveled to Struthers, OH to compete for the Westfield Cup - the national Women's HS basketball championship, and victoriuosly brought home the trophy. The following year, they started their season in spectacular fashion by trouncing the Malverne ladies team 64-5 and went on to a 9-1 record, their only loss coming at the hands of Lynbrook. They were again invited to defend their national title in Struthers, OH, but this time Hempstead superintendent John Calkins refused to let them make the trip.

At least one of these young ladies, 5ft 5in Gertrude Van Hoven on the far right holding the basketball, was from West Hempstead. (Van Hoven was on both the 1925 and 1926 teams).

Gertrude Van Hoven was a middle child born in 1909 who lived in an 1888 home which still stands at 263 Locust Street, together with her parents and two sisters. According to the 1920 federal census, her father, Emil, worked as a machinist for an auto manufacturing company.

Having been born before 1910, she and her older sister Emilie were among the earliest students at the new SD27's Chestnut St. school, built in 1912 and conveniently located right behind their house. Since the local school district did not have a high school back then, WH teens attended Hempstead High until 1952 when a new SD27 high school was built on Nassau Blvd. After graduating high school Gertrude took a trip to Havana and Panama, and when she returned she went to work for the Eastern Air Transport Co., the forerunner to Eastern Airlines. In 1931, Eastern began to experiment with "airplane hostesses" on their commercial flights, women who would "greet passengers...distribute reading matter and cigarettes, and serve light meals and refreshments". The experiment was a huge success, touching off a wave of female applicants to this coveted job, and setting the standard for all modern commercial air travel. Van Hoven was part of this early experiment and was thus among the very first flight attendants to fly the frienly skies. Her short height made her the perfect candidate for navigating the short cabin ceilings of their fleet of 18 passenger Curtiss Condor airplane. Here is a pic of Eastern's Condor -

The photo below gives a good perspective of the interior (though this depicts a model produced a couple years later for American Airlines). Hey, what's that boy doing out of his seat without his belt securely fastened?