Remembering Long Island birthday party trends of the past

When Linda Bellofatto had a birthday party in East Patchogue in the 1960s, it entailed inviting half a dozen of the girls in the neighborhood to her house to share cake, ice cream and party hats. They’d dress up — girls had "party dresses — nobody was in pants," she says.

Times have changed — Bellofatto, 71, says her granddaughter’s birthday parties have included orchestrated events at Laser Tag, Chuck E. Cheese and Dave & Buster's. And she invites boys to the party as well as girls, as children now often invite their whole class to celebrations. "When I was growing up, boys had boys and girls had girls," Bellofatto says.

Bellofatto and other Long Islanders look back at the transformation of the birthday party — from the nostalgic simple backyard or basement soiree to early Long Island birthday venues that are now defunct, such as The Lollipop Farm with its famed train that drove through the children’s zoo in Syosset, Our Place video arcade with the now retro Super Pac-Man, also in Syosset, and McGuinness Amusement Park, with its caterpillar and helicopter rides in Garden City. Other party places Long Islanders remember include Club Libby Lu for spa parties, plus various festivities at bowling alleys, roller-skating rinks and ceramics studios.

It began at home

"I was an August baby, so back then, it was a barbecue in the backyard," says Traci O’Hara, who grew up in North Merrick in the 1970s. The big joke in the family was that her dad superstitiously refused to say the word "barbecue."

"He was afraid if he said the word barbecue, it would rain," says O’Hara, 57. He would say something like, "Time to start the briquettes for the grill. I’m not going to say it, but you know what I mean," she says.

For a few years the family had an above-ground pool, and her dad, who was a firefighter, would set off fireworks. Sometimes they’d have a ride that also spun in a circle; kids would push it while others rode so that the circle would spin even faster. "Nowadays I think it would be too much of an insurance risk," she says of the entertainment. "Kids would have to wear helmets and seat belts."

How parties changed

Bellofatto remembers when parties first started to morph from Pin the Tail on the Donkey and egg-on-the-spoon races to going out to venues. "The big thing that was more exciting or different was when my best friend’s mom and dad splurged for us all to have dinner at Howard Johnson’s," she says. She remembers having fried clams and being able to pick from so many different flavors of ice cream for dessert.

"That was kind of special to actually go out to someplace instead of having it at the house," she says. "I liked it so much that I asked my parents if I could have that for my birthday."

And things changed even more when she became a young mother, she says. Her son was born in 1985. "I think in the 80s is when a lot of that started to happen. As time went on, it was kind of expected you would invite kids from school or from church, she says. "We did gymnastics parties. The kids got to jump in the foam pit and there would be a balance beam."

She doesn’t lament the change, she says. "All the entertainment was taken care of," she says. "I didn’t have to do a lot of cleanup."

Eric Bordin, 49, who grew up in Old Bethpage, was born in 1976 and had the majority of his childhood birthday parties in the 1980s. He especially remembers one at Our Place, where kids paid one price to enter and could play as many arcade games as they wanted, he says.

"It was cool. Video games, pizza, the whole nine yards. How could you go wrong?" he says. "It was new, something different." Then he waxed sentimental. "Life was so much more simple when you’re young and all you have to worry about is playing games."