Slow Change in Bay Shore

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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.

``You would just take a walk down Main Street, meet some people, say hello and have a soda,'' says Frank Manhardt, president of the Bay Shore Historical Society, who moved to the community in 1956. ``It was thriving, where everyone went to shop.''

Bay Shore's downtown began to decline in the 1960s, as the construction of shopping malls sapped the vitality of downtown stores. By the late 1980's, empty stores and loiterers were a fixtures of downtown, keeping shoppers away.

A recent photo of the same intersection shows little new construction over the past half-century, though sidewalks have been spruced up and storefronts renovated in an ongoing effort to revitalize the downtown area. In recent years, the area has added new housing, businesses, cultural facilities, and the Touro College of Health and Science.