Port Washington monument honors sand miners

When John D. Murro started working at the Port Washington sand mines in 1937, he was 19 years old and was paid 50 cents an hour.

It was hard, dangerous work for him and hundreds of others digging out Cow Bay sand for the construction of the skyscrapers and subways, roads and bridges of New York City.

"We worked in 100-degree heat. We worked in rain and snow. We worked in all conditions," said Murro, who at 93 is the oldest living sand miner in Port Washington. "Many men lost their lives here. Many men lost their arms and legs."

Six years after it was conceived, the Sandminers Monument in Port Washington honors the men and women who worked the mines from 1865 to 1989, unearthing, moving and hauling 140 million cubic yards of sand to barges for the trip to Manhattan.

Barely a football field's distance from the entrance to the Harbor Links Golf Course, the Sandminers Monument emerges from one of the last mining tunnels still visible. Three life-size statues of men stand at the top of the statue, one with a wrench, the other a mallet, the third a shovel. A pair of hands weighing 200 to 300 pounds is suspended in the air, pouring sand onto a platform.

A replica of Manhattan emerges from the sand at the monument's elevated base, detailing the city's bridges and buildings and parks.

"This is in memory of all us sand miners, our fathers, our brothers, aunts and uncles," Murro said.

Immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia provided the chief labor force at the mines. They often lived and worked on the grounds.

"The life we had here, you could go on for months talking about," said Michael Pinna, 77, who worked for 42 years at the mines under various owners.

During cold spells, Pinna would risk the burn and place his fingers on a heater to get the circulation moving in his hand. Once, he was buried up to his chest in sand. "Thank God I'm alive," he said.

Work on the entry to the monument is ongoing with an opening ceremony targeted for later this year.

Construction of the monument, designed by Tallahassee sculptor Edward Jonas, started with a groundbreaking in 2008.

Funding for the $300,000 monument and $50,000 of interpretive signs came mostly from private fundraising, said Leo Cimini, president of the Port Washington-based nonprofit Sandminers Monument Inc. The chief benefactor was Kenneth Langone, a former York Stock Exchange director, Sands Point resident and No. 937 on the 2010 Forbes list of world billionaires.

The park is on Town of North Hempstead land and will be maintained by the town, public information officer Sidhartha Nathan said.