Then & Now (1999 and 1998 Coverage) -- -- Newsday.com

THEN AND NOW

School's Out, Doctors Are In

BUILT IN 1907, the old schoolhouse on Montauk Highway was the pillar of education for youngsters in East Moriches. The building, which had two rooms on the first floor and two on the second, housed kindergarten through eighth grade classes until a new school was opened in 1955.

THEN AND NOW

Banking on Lots of Change

THE NEO-GREEK building at 286 Main St. in Port Washington has gone through many occupants since it was constructed by Smull and Walsh, local builders, around 1900. Until 1928, it housed the Bank of North Hempstead, the oldest bank in town. Since then, it has been the home of various businesses, including a laundry, an auto electric shop, a woodworking shop, an art gallery and an antiques store. It is now Ayhan's Fish Kebab Restaurant.

THEN AND NOW

Hail to the Chief's Car

THE BELL at the front of the Depression-era chief's car has given way to flashing lights on the roof, but the essence of the fire chief's car hasn't changed much over seven decades. It's still important to get to a blaze quickly and reliably. Here's a then-and-now view of Valley Stream chiefs' cars. TIME MACHINE A Weekly Series Picturing the Past

THEN AND NOW

Getting in Last Coin Toss for The Road

THE JULY 4th weekend in 1978 included a true Independence Day for motorists who used the Southern State Parkway. That was the weekend that tolls were removed from the roadway after 24 years.

THEN AND NOW

The Quiet Stars of the Fair

Although animal rides, carnival music and zesty food are constants at the annual Long Island Fair, so is the architecture. A star at the fair -- which gets under way this weekend at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration and continues Oct. 14-17 -- is the main exhibit hall, where judges will bestow blue ribbons on handmade quilts and prize pumpkins. A version of the building was first built in 1866 on fairgrounds in Mineola (now the site of the Nassau County court complex). The structure cost $8,115.32 and was built by carpenter John Carpenter of Manhasset.

THEN AND NOW

Family's Motto: Keep On Truckin'

A family photograph from about 1913 shows two trucks laden with corn heading north on Little Neck Parkway, at what is now the intersection with 74th Avenue in Glen Oaks, then part of Floral Park.

THEN AND NOW

Surviving Is a Piece of Cake

Seven decades can bring enormous change, but at the bake shop located at 138 Tulip Ave. in Floral Park, things haven't changed all that much, except for the price of cakes.

THEN AND NOW

On the Way To a Road More Traveled

HEMPSTEAD TURNPIKE in East Meadow still had the appearance of a rural roadway when this photograph of the Bellmore Road intersection was taken on April 24, 1936, in preparation for construction of the Wantagh State Parkway extension. The photographer's camera is pointed to the west; the parkway is to pass just beyond the intersection.

THEN AND NOW

Strolling the Boardwalk

In the 1930s, when the earlier of these two pictures was taken, the quarter-mile-long boardwalk at Sunken Meadow State Park was one of the facility's main attractions.

THEN AND NOW

Yacht Club Celebrates 100 Years of History

Boat owners from Northport and surrounding areas celebrated Water Carnival Day in 1932 on the deck of their private club. Members watched motor boat and regatta races, and danced to the tunes of brassy big bands, broadcast from Manhattan via radio The Northport Yacht Club was formed in 1899, the same year a competing group, the Independent Yacht Club, began operating. In 1910, the Independent Yacht Club built a columned building along Woodbine Avenue. By 1926, it had absorbed the Northport Yacht Club and affixed that name to the structure.

THEN AND NOW

Battered Beach Club Survives

SINCE THE 1890s, families have gathered in bathing houses and along the beach just south of Lake Agawam in Southampton, the site of the Southampton Beach Club. The site was originally a meeting place for the Southampton Bathing Association, where local and summer residents enjoyed a pavilion that contained 230 separate bathing houses, or cabanas.

THEN AND NOW

Moat undergoes a sea change

The Jones Beach Theater has rocked all summer long, with big-name performers from Santana to Tom Petty giving concerts to crowds of up to 14,000 people. But the Jones Beach audience didn't always come for pop music. In the 1940s and 1950s, the theater was mainly known for shows, performed both onstage and on watercraft that skimmed the salt water in a wide moat.

THEN AND NOW

Come Hither Hills Campers

FIFTY YEARS AGO, Hither Hills State Park attracted mostly local vacationers who set up canvas tents or surplus, reinforced Army shelters on grassy campgrounds behind the beach. Many campers were veterans of World War II who rinsed off after an ocean dip in cold water that streamed out of a pipe in the park bathhouse.

THEN AND NOW

Huntingtons Centerpiece

THE BRUSH BLOCK BUILDING at the southeast corner of Main Street and New York Avenue was a Huntington village centerpiece in the early 1900s. It was built in 1889 after a disastrous fire swept away a row of wooden structures, including the Post Office, the Second Presbyterian Church, the Bank of Huntington and the telegraph office.

THEN AND NOW

Rush Hour Through the Years

POST AVENUE in Westbury was already fairly busy with automobile traffic when this photo of the Long Island Rail Road overpass was taken in 1914.

THEN AND NOW

Catching Up On a Pastime

THE LATTER YEARS of the 19th Century, most towns on Long Island had their own amateur baseball team.

THEN AND NOW

Tragedy on the Tracks

Shortly before 11 p.m. on Feb. 17, 1959, two Long Island Rail Road trains collided head-on near Banks Avenue in Rockville Centre, killing 32 and injuring more than 200. Rescuers worked throughout the night to extricate the injured and the dead from the mangled wreck.

THEN AND NOW

A Storied Old Cottage

SITTING at the southern end of West Meadow Beach, at the entrance to Stony Brook Harbor, is a two-story Victorian structure known as the Gamecock Cottage.

THEN AND NOW

Racetrack of the Sky

In the early days of aviation, Belmont Park in Elmont was the site of numerous air shows. The International Aviation Tournament, which was held Oct. 22-30, 1910, was the top aviation event of the year, drawing contestants from England, France and the United States and as many as 25,000 spectators.

THEN AND NOW

A Pier Into The Future?

The Sea Cliff Boardwalk was a popular attraction for vacationers when this photo of Carpenter Point was taken in 1910.

THEN AND NOW

Good Ground for Change

THE HAMLET of Good Ground had only recently changed its name to Hampton Bays to capitalize on the growing popularity of the Hamptons as a summer resort when this photo of Montauk Highway, looking east, was taken by photographer Charles Duprez sometime around 1930.

THEN AND NOW

Penny Postcards? It's The Economy, Cupid

BACK WHEN penny postcards really cost a penny to mail, holiday cards were all the rage. These Valentine's Day postcards from the collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society were mailed to Long Islanders between 1908 and 1910.

THEN AND NOW

A Strikingly Nice Church

The adage about lightning never striking the same place twice is certainly untrue for the Freeport United Methodist Church, which has been struck by lightning at least two times since the current building was dedicated on Pine Street in 1891.

THEN AND NOW

A House With History

The top photograph of the house at the southeast corner of Morris and Grand Avenues in Rockville Centre was taken by the home's owner, Bergen T. Raynor, shortly after he purchased it in 1900. The house was originally built in 1899 on speculation for use as a school, but it stood empty for a year before Raynor bought it, says Kathleen Blass, an interior decorator who, with her husband, Michael, bought the house from Raynor's daughter in 1979.

THEN AND NOW

A Poetic Christmas Connection

What's in a name? When it's Chelsea - as in the Muttontown mansion that now houses the Nassau County Office of Cultural Development - it's a link to one of the most famous Christmas poems, the one known to generations as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas.''

THEN AND NOW

Montauk: Miami of the North

This view of Montauk, looking west, was taken around 1930 by commercial photographer Charles Duprez. At the time, the community at the far tip of Long Island was in the midst of development fever, which began in 1926 with the arrival of Carl Graham Fisher, an entrepreneur who had created Miami out of mangrove swamps and woods in the early 1920s. Fisher envisioned Montauk as the ``Miami of the North'' and built the seven-story office tower (top photo) to serve as his headquarters. But the stock market crash of 1929 hit Fisher hard, and he went bankrupt in 1932.

THEN AND NOW

A Timeless Road Still Wends

The top photograph, taken by professional photographer Charles Duprez sometime in the late 1920s or early '30s, depicts Route 25A in Cold Spring Harbor, looking west from Harbor Road.

THEN AND NOW

Slow Change in Bay Shore

Back in the 1940s, when this undated photograph of Bay Shore's Main Street was taken, looking southwest at Fourth and Maple Avenues, the downtown area was a bustling shopping area for South Shore residents. And it continued that way into the 1950s.

THEN AND NOW

A Highway S-Curve

An undated photograph from Newsday's files, believed to be from the early 1940s, shows the S-curve on Montauk Highway just east of Cooper Street in Babylon.

THEN AND NOW

Fourth Graders 90 Years Apart

Sneakers and blue jeans weren't the style nine decades ago when fourth-grade students at the Park Avenue School in Amityville posed for a class picture on the front steps of the school building in a photo, top, from the collection of the Amityville Historical Society.

THEN AND NOW

Old-Time Spirit on the Fourth

A Fourth of July photo, at right, from 1910 provides a peek into the life of a Long Island family.

THEN AND NOW

Flushing's Changing Scene

A creek runs through it. Flushing Creek, that is. These images were both taken from the eastern side of the Flushing Creek Bridge, with the photographers facing Northern Boulevard. After that, similiarities are few. The older photo, according to James Driscoll, director of research at the Queens Historical Society, appears to have been taken around 1910. The building on the left was the American Ice Co. The fenced property in the distant left was home to the Prince family, which opened America's first commercial nursery in Flushing in 1737. The tracks embedded in the block roadbed were for a trolley that ran from Long Island City through Flushing and south to Jamaica. Another trolley ran north to College Point. Driscoll says a new Flushing Creek Bridge was built for the 1939 World's Fair, and another has since replaced it. And Northern Boulevard grows ever busier.

THEN AND NOW

Doing Business In Patchogue

For 104 years, Swezey's department store, shown at right in 1910, has stood as a mercantile monument in Patchogue.

THEN AND NOW

Bucolic to Busy In Sunnyside

The pastoral scene at right is, surprisingly, part of the Sunnyside community in 1913. Only one building can be seen on Queens Boulevard, looking north onto Greenpoint Avenue. The building was called J.W. Burrows Central Hotel in 1872, but its use in 1913 is not known.

THEN AND NOW

A Mineola Crossroads

Krug's Hotel, shown in undated photos, has long been a prime spot to watch the world go by in Mineola. Built in the 1870s at the northwest corner of Jericho Turnpike and Willis Avenue, the East Williston Hotel was run in conjunction with a barbershop and a bar. The building was purchased by Frank Krug in the 1890s, according to Jack Hehman of the Mineola Historical Society.

THEN AND NOW

On Main Street In Hempstead

The past and the future -- a horse and an automobile -- are seen together on Main Street, Hempstead Village, circa 1910, in the photo at top.

THEN AND NOW

A Tower of Strength

For more than a century, it has stood on Old Northern Boulevard, a witness to changing times and seasons in the Village of Roslyn. The old clock tower, at right in a circa-1912 photo, and today, below, remains resolutely the same, ringing out the time each hour.

THEN AND NOW

The Spreading Copper Beech

It stands in absolute majesty over the great lawn at Planting Fields Arboretum, 80 feet tall with leafy arms that reach out 100 feet.

THEN AND NOW

Village's Volunteers

The Rockville Centre Fire Department has relied on the same basic component -- volunteers -- since 1875, when Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1 was formed. But the volunteers of 1913, pictured at right, received a major boost when the department spent $700 for a ``motorized chassis'' to go under an existing wagon, according to Tony Walsh, a volunteer for Defender Hose Co. No. 1 and de facto historian for the department. Before that, volunteers either relied on horses or pulled the wagons themselves to fires.

THEN AND NOW

Something Is Missing

Perhaps the most monumental structure to dominate the intersection of Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard, Jamaica, is not shown in either of these photos. It was the elevated subway tracks that ran down the avenue from 1918 to the late 1970s. In the background of the top photo, taken in about 1910 along Jamaica Avenue, are the spires of the Dutch Reformed Church, which still exists. The building in front housed the Jamaica Beef Co. In its place, the recent photo shows the Joseph P. Addabbo Federal Office Building, which dates from 1989. The 11-story building houses the Social Security Administration's Northeast Program Service Center and has a payroll of about 1,450 employees.

THEN AND NOW

Just the Latest Of Its Tenants

Life comes full circle sometimes, and so blue jeans are back at the crossroads of Huntington.

THEN AND NOW

Northport's Old Row

One of the remarkable things about Main Street in Northport Village is how much remains the same after nearly a century.

THEN AND NOW

All Aboard At Glen Head

If the photo at right reminds some of today's Sea Cliff railroad station, it's because nearly identical stations were built in Glen Head and Sea Cliff in 1888. Sea Cliff's survives, but Glen Head's was torn down in 1961.

THEN AND NOW

Worn Away By the Tides

In the 1790s, hoping to insulate the planned Montauk Lighthouse from the crashing waves of the Atlantic, federal surveyors decided to build it on top of Turtle Hill, 297 feet from the tip of Montauk Point -- about the length of a football field. Over time, however, the ocean -- and heavy-footed climbers -- steadily wore away the surrounding cliffs. The lighthouse is now just 70 feet from the water.

THEN AND NOW

Model T's in Hempstead

Model T's and other cars navigating the roads of Hempstead encountered the town's first traffic device around 1921 at Main Street and Fulton Avenue. It was there that Officer ``Cutie'' Gardner would turn stop-and-go signs. A trolley from Mineola to Freeport also ran past him on tracks.

THEN AND NOW

Lifeguards Win 1934 Competition

The men who won a competition for lifeguards in 1934 would not have thought of posing in an array of T-shirts and colors. Nor might they, as they posed with their trophies at the Jones Beach Central Mall, have imagined women joining their ranks as champions of the surf. Below, the group of senior lifeguards posing for Newsday 62 years later, in 1996, totaled 1,285 years of employment at the beach.

THEN AND NOW

Field of Dreams, 50 Years Later

They were one-tract finds, and they came from a man with a one-track mind: Bill Levitt, the brash developer who practically invented the suburb, lived the dream of building dreams. In 1947, he planted the seeds of modern living in a Nassau potato field. Levittown was born.

THEN AND NOW

Evolution of a Highway

Long Island's post-World War II growing pains and the steps needed to relieve them are written in stone -- and asphalt.

THEN AND NOW

Five Corners, Two Views

THIS OLD PHOTOGRAPH, taken about 1925 and in the files of the Nassau County Museum Collection of the Long Island Studies Institute, shows traffic at the Five Corners in downtown Lynbrook. Hempstead Avenue, looking north, is to the left; Merrick Road, looking east, is to the right. In the center is the appropriately named Five Corners Building, which contained offices and stores.

Then & Now (1999 and 1998 Coverage)

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