Across LI mid-morning, signs of a shutdown spotty

The William Floyd Estate — under the purview of the U.S. National Park Service — was closed to the public Wednesday, its Park Drive entrance gates chained to prevent visitors and cars from entering. The grounds are typically open year-round to the public from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

The Fire Island Lighthouse — a federal property managed by the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society — is open to the public, a spokesperson said on the phone.

It looked like business as usual at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory a little after 10 a.m., with the parking lot jammed with cars and employees walking around the campus with ID badges slung around their necks.

Lisa Cruz, vice president of communications of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said in an emailed statement that the lab is "a 501(c)3 nonprofit with diverse funding mechanisms, enabling us to continue our mission uninterrupted."

"The length of a government shutdown will ultimately determine the impact to future operations, but it is too soon to predict the effects," she said.

At Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, a steady stream of vehicles were seen entering and existing the main gate onto the campus late Wednesday morning. The laboratory is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and managed by Brookhaven Science Associates, a partnership between Stony Brook University, Battelle Memorial Institute and six core universities, according to its website.

The Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the sprawling former estate of President Theodore Roosevelt, was quiet but not empty around noon, with a pair of park rangers patrolling the grounds and small clumps of people taking to the nature trail. Bursts of color — red, yellow and orange — decorated leaves on the first day of October, and plants lining the fields Roosevelt himself once harvested swayed in the wind as chirping birds provided a muted soundtrack.

It could not have felt farther from Washington, D.C.

Joe Whitton, a Mt. Sinai resident, sat on a bench looking out onto Roosevelt’s home with a cup of apple cider and an apple cider donut.

Roosevelt has always been a “hero” for him, Whitton said. Whitton, a Stony Brook professor in the School of Health Professions, lamented the shutdown as “the way business is these days.”

“T.R. would’ve figured out a way,” Whitton said. “He would’ve grabbed both of ‘em by their collars, sat ‘em down at the table and said ‘Let’s figure this out.’”