Chain Your Dogs, Folks

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

SPECTATORS CAME to Floral Park in buggies and horse-drawn farm wagons to see motorcar daredevils charge down Jericho Turnpike in the first Vanderbilt Cup Race on Oct. 8, 1904.

"Chain your dogs and lock up your fowl," was the order preceding the race, which was run on a 30-mile course over public roads, not all well-paved, in a rough triangle between Jericho, present-day Levittown and Queens Village.

Organized by millionaire motor enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt II, Long Island's first international auto race finished without a major incident, thanks mostly to the sparse population of rural Long Island. Newly formed Nassau County had only 55,000 inhabitants, according to the 1900 census.

A spectator was killed during the third race in 1906, however, spelling the end to organized racing on Jericho Turnpike (although farmers complained that it continued to be a speedway). In 1908, Vanderbilt and his sportsmen friends opened the first stretch of the Long Island Motor Parkway, a private toll road that could be used for races.

Floral Park, extending south from the intersection of Jericho Turnpike and Tulip Avenue, continued to flourish as a flower capital, its streets all named for flowers. Today, the intersection has a lot more motorcars and two gas stations to fuel them.