Where Steamboats And Trolleys Met

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

BABYLON'S STEAMBOAT DOCK was a hub of resort activity in 1910. The trolley -- previously horse-drawn but newly electrified -- brought escaping city-dwellers from the railroad station, some to sojourn in the Boynes Hotel, top right, whose wraparound porches overlooked the Great South Bay. Other visitors were ferried across the bay to the ocean beaches.

The Great South Bay villages' heyday as fashionable resorts ended after World War I. Permanent settlers replaced the summer tourists and grand hotels. The South Shore trolley line came to a stop in 1920. The ferries continued until the 1950s when the Robert Moses Causeway spanned the bay to Captree Island and then to Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island.

The dock was deeded to the village in the 1940s and the Boynes Hotel came down in the '50s, recalls Alice Zaruka, president of the Babylon Village Historical Society, who first came to the village in 1935. The dock is the joy of boaters and other villagers, she says.

Today, John Anthony's on the Water, a catering hall built on the site of the hotel in 1986, attracts wedding parties with the promise of "breathtaking views." And Rob and Eileen Hambrecht of West Babylon ride their bicycles to the dock to gaze across the shimmering bay and watch the sailboats drift by. "It's a wonderful place to unwind," Eileen Hambrecht says.