New book looks back: When Long Beach was young

In the early 1900s, a barren expanse of sand along Nassau County's South Shore was transformed into a resort town that beckoned elites from New York City with its promise of seaside revelry.

A new book tracing the early history of Long Beach through images and short anecdotes credits one man with much of the barrier island's development: State Sen. William Reynolds, who became the first mayor after its incorporation as a city in 1922.

The book, "Images of America: Long Beach" (Arcadia Publishing), chronicles how Reynolds, who had built Coney Island's Dreamland amusement park, acquired the whole sandbar and developed a planned community of luxury homes, hotels and a modern infrastructure.

Reynolds dredged the waters to the north and used the fill to enlarge the island, laying the groundwork for the eventual development of neighborhoods spanning Atlantic Beach to Point Lookout.

While Reynolds' planning created the island's grid layout, its iconic 2.2-mile boardwalk and many of its grand buildings, his publicity stunts created enduring legends, like the story of the elephants that built the boardwalk. A photo in the book shows two elephants on the sand carrying a beam with their trunks. But the authors debunk the myth that the animals were an important part of the labor.

As for Reynolds: He "was totally ignored in the history of Long Beach until the historical society got involved in 1979 and 1980," said Roberta Fiore, the city historian and founder of the historical society, who wrote the book with Carole Shahda Geraci and Dave Roochvarg.

And for all his accomplishments, Reynolds also suffered financial and legal troubles. In 1918 his real estate syndicate, the Estates of Long Beach, went bankrupt. He was convicted of embezzlement but cleared in 1925 by an appeals court. He died in 1931 at age 63.

Beyond the boundaries of Reynolds' planned community, other neighborhoods sprang up, helping the city evolve by the 1930s into a year-round home for working families.

The Walks, a sector without car access whose streets are named for the months of the year, grew out of a military barracks established during World War I. And the West End became annexed after summer residents erected shacks and prefab bungalows along tightly spaced lots.

The book highlights notable periods and events such as:

The swinging days of Prohibition (1920-1933), when bootleggers unloaded cargo for delivery to New York City with impunity and the West End boasted 28 speakeasies along West Beech Street.

A policy in the 1920s requiring beachgoers of the opposite sex to keep at least six inches apart; police officers patrolled the beach with a tape measure.

The assassination in 1939 of Mayor Louis Edwards. He was shot dead by a police officer stationed at a guard post across the street from Edwards' house. The officer, Alvin Dooley, disgruntled after losing a bid for re-election as head of the city's police union, shot Edwards as he approached the police booth accompanied by his bodyguard - the police officer who had defeated Dooley. He was tried and convicted.

The city's government responded by changing its top office from an elected post to an appointed one. Today, a city manager is chosen by the five-member city council.

In many ways the landscape of this barrier island today is inextricably linked to Reynolds and other personalities who shaped it. But the greatest and most enduring change has been the transformation of its citizenry, Shahda Geraci said, something Reynolds did not envision.

From a coterie of wealthy, white patrons, the population has expanded into a diverse mix of blacks, whites and Latinos of varying incomes and now numbers close to 36,000, according to the U.S. Census.

"We moved from being an elite resort to a heterogeneous little city. Reynolds envisioned a playland," Geraci said. "It's the diversity of the city that I see as the biggest contrast . . . and that's what I think makes this city so great."

Book signing

Proceeds from the sale of "Images of America: Long Beach" ($21.99) will benefit the nonprofit Long Beach Historical and Preservation Society. A book signing and a talk about Long Beach history by co-author and city historian Roberta Fiore are scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Long Beach Historical Museum, 226 W. Penn St. For more information call 516-432-1192.