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Port Washington & Vicinity

Port Washington, NY: ACA Case StdStudy

Copyright 2011 AFG 1 2

Peninsula Toponomy COW NECK • In 1643 English settlers from Connecticut rowed across Sound to Sint Sink. Present day • They purchased land from the Matinecock Indians Manhasset Neck and made a pact with the Dutch to pay taxes. a North Shore pp,eninsula, was • The peninsula’ s rolling hills, freshwater, salt water called Sint Sink marshes were perfect for cattle grazing. by Matinecock • Cattle were a sign of stature. By 1658 the cow herd Indians and had greatly increased in size. The settlers built a renamed Cow fence across the peninsula to keep in the cows. Neck by English settlers. • As a result, the peninsula was dubbed Cow Neck and the bay called Cow Bay.

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Phase One Cow Neck

• Orientation to water transportation. • 1676: John Cornwall built a farmstead on the peninsula’s northwest coast. • 1691: Cornwall sold land to the Sands family • Activities are focused along the shorefront. who built 3 farmsteads at the northern part of the peninsula. (The ti p i s now call e d San ds Po in t). • 1715: A grist mill to grind grain was built. • A link to City is established via • 1786: Shipbuilding activities were started along sailing ships. the shores of Cow Bay. Inlets became harbors. • 1793: A dam was built across Dodge’s Inlet of Cow Bay to create a tide-powered grist mill.

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Cow Neck – Agricultural base Cow Bay Village, c.1800

• Cow Neck Village grew around Dodge’s Inlet. • Ships sailing docked here. • The tidewater mill was considered the catalyst for the peninsula ’ s development since it bought farmers and local merchants to the area and stimulated the growth of the village. • With its fertile soil, fresh water, abundant game and fishing resources, by the mid-1770s no more than 200 people lived on Cow Neck at a subsistence level with little outside contact. 7 8

Cow Neck Cow Neck

• In the early 1800s, fueled by the growth of • Cow Bay Village’s waterfront and docks gave it an advantage over horse and wagon routes NYC, there was a change in the area’s to Queens and Brooklyn. economy from subsistence farming to • NOTE: The LI road system was a maze of narrow, wind- ing ungraded paths formed by horse and wagon traffic. commercial agriculture. NthHNorth Hemps tea dTd Turnp ikthike, the ma in eas t-westtft route of • NYC residents needed fresh food and hay the North Shore, ran closest to the base of Cow Neck. • Several steamboat docks were built and for horses. (Hay became the chief cash crop.) regular steamboat passenger service to • There were now two tidewater grist mills at Manhattan was started in 1836. The docks were connected by stagecoach to Cow Bay Dodge’s Inlet. Village.

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Cow Neck – Shellfishing base Peninsula Toponomy, pt 2

•In 1832 the first seed oysters were planted in a • With the success of shellfishing and pond on O’Gorman’s Island (now Manhasset Isle). In farming, Cow Bay residents in 1857 1835 grown oysters were placed in Cow Bay decided to change its name to something followed in 1840 by the first clams. more dignified: • Seeing the success, in the 1850s other local residents claimed sections of bay bottom and Cow Bay Village >>> Port Washington. planted clams and oysters in Cow Bay. Cow Bay >>> Manhasset Bay • The activity grew into a profitable shellfishing Cow Neck >>> Manhasset Neck. industry. (Lasted to the early 1940s.)

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Port Washington – Sand & gravel base Village of Port Washington • 1865: the sand and gravel that covered Manhasset Neck was deemed to be of 1873 extremely high quality.

• Local residents opppened sand pits and sold TTaxax revenuerevenue aallowedllowed forfor improveimprove- the material to construction companies. ments to the village’s infrastructure. Many contracts then specified “Cow Bay Sand.” Laborers brought in to work the quarries fueled the growth of retail • Waterfront location was again a plus: stores on Main Street. mined material could be easily loaded onto barges at low tide and sailed to NYC at high tide.

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Port Washington Sand Barge Loading Facility

• The demand for Cow Bay Sand had an adverse affect on the peninsula’s landscape. • O’Gorman’s Island was leveled. Land north and west of the village was also quarried. Shoreline sand pits moved inland up to the village’s border and private property lines. • When west shore sand and gravel was depleted, operations moved to the © Eugene Greco peninsula’s east shore on Hempstead Bay. View across the road, showing the conveyor belts which reached out into Hempstead Harbor. 15 16

Digital Elevation Model Oyster Bay Map

• http://people.hofstra.edu/J_B_Bennington/research/long_island/li.html 1897 1968

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Sea Cliff Map Topographic Profiles 1913 vs. 1968

1947 1968

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1991 The sand pits on Man- Manhasset hasset Isle became sub- Monument to Sand Miners urban communities in Neck Land the 1950s. Use Map: 1991

East shore commercial sand mining operations stopped in the 1980s. Sand pits were rehabilitated under NYS law (1975) and the area is now a county park.

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Port Washington Port Washington – Leisure-time base

• The sand and gravel quarry boom made • In the 1870s, NYC residents came to Port great profits for the operators and tax Washington for leisure activities. revenues for the village. • Day-trip and overnight boat trips from • Quarry operators brought in hundreds of Manhattan were scheduled and by the foreign laborers to work the pits. 1880s people stayed the entire summer. • The workers stayed, swelling the • Hotels were built for the “tourists.” The rich population and creating a demand for built vacation houses. goods and services. • Stagecoaches met the ships.

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Port Washington – Commercial center Port Washington, c. 1880

• By 1890, the combination of well-to-do oystermen, miners and vacationers, created a local demand for retail goods and services . • As a result, the number of merchants operating on Main Street increased.

Middle Neck • The focus was the intersection of lower MAIN Road Main Street and Shore Road STREET

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Phase Two Port Washington and the LIRR

• Orientation to railroad transportation. • In 1866, the North Shore RR was extended from Flushing (ferry link) to Great Neck. Local officials pushed to have it extended to Port Washington. • Activities move inland from the shorefront • In 1873 a road from Manhasset to Port tthtito the terminal lfthLIRR of the LIRR. Washington was built allowing a shorter stagecoach ride from the Great Neck train station (Great Neck-Manhasset-Port Washington). • A link to is established via the Long Island Railroad’s branch line. • In 1896 LIRR agreed to extend the line if the locals secured the right-of-way!

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Port Washington and the LIRR Manhasset • The who’s who of Port Washington agreed and Neck, 1897 when Alfred Bayles gave the LIRR a large tract of land the deal was sealed. • Safety issues, including accidents at grade crossings by spooked horses , and the desire to keep out of town the noise, dirt, and congestion associated Route of the LIRR with railroad stations, the terminal was placed .7 Port Washington branch. mi outside of town. • The line opened for service in 1898 and the town began to move to upper Main Street around the railroad station.

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Detail of 1897 Port Manhasset Washington, Neck map 1901 focusing on LIRR terminal is located outside Lower Terminal Port of town. Main St. WhitWashington LIRR After the arrival of the LIRR the tracks commercial strip began to move to upper Main Street.

Day-trippers and vacationers began to arrive by train instead of LIRR branch line to Port steamboat. Washington was built Between 1896 and 1898. 31 32

Main Street Phase Three Port Washington, 1914 • Orientation to automobile transportation.

• In the 1930s retail activities extend inland ppgast the railroad terminal to Port Washing- ton Boulevard where there is space for Victoria Hotel 1906 automobile parking.

LIRR terminal • A link to New York City is established via and rail yards. the state highway system.

By the 1920s the greatest concentration of stores was found “uptown” on Main Street. 33 34

Port Washington Port Washington

• The presence of the automobile in Port • To ease congestion Washington began in the early 1920s. - streets were widened and paved - streets were designated as one-way • Drivers complained about the - municipal parking lots were built - narrow, oysthlldttter shell paved streets - traffic and parking regulations were established. - traffic congestion on Main Street • Still the Main Street business district could not - no place to park compete with the shopping centers that were - barrier of the LIRR train yard being established along the main roads south of - peninsula’s isolation from the rest of LI. the peninsula.

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Port Washington Map of central Port Washington

• In 1948 the first automobile shopping center was LOWER UPPER built in Port Washington on the north-south Pt. Washington Blvd., south of Main Street.

• Having moved as far east as possible, the LIRR business district turned south along a stretch of road that offered motorists ease of access and ample parking. • By the 1960s all available land fronting Pt. W. Blvd. had been converted to drive up strip malls. • Once again the business district moved in response to a transportation improvement.

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Port Washington & Vicinity

LIRR

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