A Timeless Road Still Wends

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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.

The two white buildings to the left of the road in the photograph are on the grounds of the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery, first opened by the state in 1883 and, since 1982, an independent nonprofit educational facility. The smaller structure, erected in 1927, was a storage building at the time and is now used for exhibits, according to Normal Soule, the facility's director. The larger building is the original hatchery and manager's residence, which was built in 1887 and razed in 1959, and replaced by another aquarium building.

At the time the photograph was taken, Route 25A was known as County Road 545, but it also may have been called Cold Spring Harbor-Syosset Road, or North Hempstead Turnpike - names that appear on a 1950 Hagstrom road map, according to Christopher Cotter, senior landscape architect for the New York State Department of Transportation's regional office in Hauppauge.

A recent photo (bottom) shows that the road characteristics have changed little over the years, with the exception of asphalt resurfacing, more utility poles, and additional road markings and road signs. After lengthy wrangling between the state and local residents over the scope of changes to Route 25A in this area, a compromise was reached and roadwork will start this spring. The roadway will be resurfaced and intersection improvements will be made at the entrance to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, just west of the hatchery on the north side of the roadway.