Robert Beattie, Long Island Architect
Robert Beattie was many things: an architect, a designer of iconic public buildings on Long Island, and a decorated World War II veteran. But most importantly, he was the father […]
Category: 20th Century
Your 1975 Long Island Champion Babylon Panthers
Tom McKeown lived and breathed basketball throughout junior and senior high school in Babylon. As an eighth grader in 1974-1975, he got to experience the thrill of watching the varsity […]
Long Island and the Legacy of Eugenics w Mark Torres
The science of genetics took a wrong turn in the early 20th century and it ran through Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. Here overlooking a former whaling port, Dr. Charles […]
Riverhead Stadium w Fabio Montella
Memorial Day 1949 was an auspicious day in Riverhead as it saw the inaugural game at the brand new Wivchar Stadium on Harrison Ave. The brainchild of Tony Wivchar, a […]
From Broadway to Jones Beach w Richard Arnold Beattie
Robert Moses had a vision for Jones Beach in the 1920s that included a theater to bring high quality entertainment to the people. That theater on Zachs Bay went through […]
1914 Freeport Murder Mystery w Woody Register
An obscure bit of early 20th century technology embroiled Dr. Woody Register in a murder mystery. Register, a professor of history at the University of the South (Sewanee), became intrigued […]
Ralph Bunn, Long Island’s Jackie Robinson
Librarian and baseball historian Fabio Montella returns to the podcast to bring us the story of Ralph “Sammy” Bunn. Bunn was a Setauket native who excelled at baseball all his […]
Chubby Jackson, Jazz, and Freeport
Greig Stewart “Chubby” Jackson was a swinging sensation in his day. A child of vaudevillians, he was raised in an enclave of actors, musicians, and performers in Freeport, Long Island […]
The Howard School in Kings Park with Dr Tammy C. Owens
Dr. Tammy C. Owens of Skidmore College joins us to discuss her 2019 article “Fugitive Literati: Black Girls’ Writing as a Tool of Kinship and Power at the Howard School.” […]
In Levittown’s Shadow with Tim Keogh
While Long Island developed a reputation for affluence throughout the 20th Century, there has always been a parallel history of the everyday workers and servants who toiled in the shadow […]
Long Island, Kansas with Carrie Cox
There is a Long Island just below the Kansas border with Nebraska, between the Elk and Prairie Dog Creeks. It’s apparently the creeks that gave the area its name. When […]
Rockin History with Cindy Schwartz
Cindy Schwartz grew up on Long Island and followed her love of history into a long career as a social studies teacher at the Wheatley School in Old Westbury. She […]
The Our Hamptons Podcast
Your idea of the Hamptons on the East End of Long Island may include images of supersized mansions and extravagant parties, but there is an older, richer Hamptons history beneath […]
Making Long Island with Larry Samuel
Larry Samuel is an author and historian whose latest book looks at the development of Long Island throughout the 20th Century. It was a time of land speculation and rapid […]
Edward Lieberman’s Historic Tours
Yes, Edward Lieberman is a former assistant district attorney in Nassau County and the former mayor of Seacliff but just as importantly, he is a long-time listener of the Long […]
The Arthur Murray Girls Baseball Team
In 1949 nine women of the Arthur Murray Girls baseball team took the field against the all-male squad from the Patchogue Athletics. By that year, the Murrays had been together […]
The Gold Coast and World War I
The Gold Coast along Long Island’s north shore is most often celebrated as a showcase for the rich and famous in the early 20th Century. A decidedly different aspect of […]
How the Bayport Blue Point Phantoms Got Their Name
Today we team up with Stephanie Eberhard-Holgerson’s journalism class at Bayport Blue Point (BBP) High School to try to solve a mystery. At the suggestion of BBP’s librarian Pam Gustafson, […]
Redeeming Al Smith
Al Smith was many things during his political career: reform champion after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, four-time governor of New York State, the first Catholic presidential candidate. But he was […]
The Fate of the Long Island Mill
From time to time on the podcast we like to explore the histories of other Long Islands, those far from New York. Today we focus on the story of Long […]
Grumman Test Pilot Bruce Tuttle
Jet fighters once roamed the skies above Long Island. Grumman, the aviation powerhouse behind such planes as the Hellcat and the Avenger, turned its attention to jets by the end […]
Bayport History with Rob Walch of Libsyn
Bayport and its immediate vicinity in Islip on the south shore of Long Island have some deep ties to history. There’s the Bayport Aerodrome with its vintage airplanes, the Meadowcroft […]
Raymond Buckland and Wicca in Brentwood
If you lived in Brentwood in the late 1960s and 70s, you may have encountered a charming, transplanted Englishman named Raymond Buckland. You many not have realized it at the […]
Cleaning Up After the Hurricane of 1938
Much has been written about September 21, 1938, the day that a massive hurricane hit Long Island. For Jonathan C. Bergman, the more interesting story began the day after. His […]
The Ferguson Brothers
Two Black men were shot and killed by a police officer in Freeport on a cold winter morning in 1946. Another was wounded. All three were brothers, two were World […]
Revisiting Robert Moses
Robert Moses is the man most New Yorkers love to hate. This is in no small part due to his own hubris and the impact he had on the people […]
Collecting Bottles off Gilgo Beach
Long Island’s barrier beaches are fascinating places. Stretched along the south shore of the island, they persist through much of Long Island history as wild natural landscapes constantly shifting and […]
Long Island Beach
We continue our exploration of Long Islands other than our own. This episode takes us inland from the East Coast to the banks of the Whitewater River in western Ohio. […]
Judging the Amityville Horror
Thomas M. Stark served as a judge in Suffolk County and New York State beginning in the early 1960s. During his career he presided over a number of important cases […]
Square Dancing and the Durlachers
Glenn Durlacher looks back over his family’s legacy of square dance calling on Long Island with deserved pride. His grandfather Ed pioneered square dancing in the New York City area […]
How the Suffragists Lived
They were women and they fought for the right to vote. Beyond that, every person documented in the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States […]
Marguerite Kearns and an Unfinished Revolution
In 2020 we marked the centennial of woman suffrage and the passing of the 19th amendment. Although the intervening 102 years can make that struggle feel like the distant past, […]
The Jews of Long Island
Brad Kolodny returns to the podcast to update us on what he’s been doing during the intervening thirty episodes. Turns out he’s got a new book and a new historical […]
Cold War Long Island
Journalist Karl Grossman and historian Christopher Verga have teamed up for the new book Cold War Long Island, out now from the History Press. In it, they detail the productive […]
The Long Island in Casco Bay
Some may be shocked to find that there are many Long Islands out there, each with its own fascinating history. We’ve taken up the challenge of finding those who are […]
The Lost Boys of Montauk
In her first book, The Lost Boys of Montauk, journalist Amanda Fairbanks documents the story of the Wind Blown and the four men who lost their lives aboard it in […]
A Personal History of PTSD
Frank Romeo graduated from Bay Shore High School and enlisted in the US Army during the height of the Vietnam War. Despite fighting in the Tet Offensive and participating in […]
Agent Orange on Long Island
We finish out our special three-part series on Long Island’s Vietnam veterans by looking at a second battle they faced in the years after the war: the effects of Agent […]
Joe Giannini and the Vietnam War
We continue our conversation with Long Island historian Christopher Verga, discussing his oral history interviews with Vietnam veterans from Long Island. Today we feature excerpts from Chris’s interview with Joe […]
Jack Parente and the Vietnam War
Born and raised in Oyster Bay, Jack Parente found himself drafted into the Army in 1967 and served in Vietnam from 1968-1970 as a member of a reconnaissance unit of […]
A Cinderella Story from 1950s Long Island
Elizabeth Letts has a knack for finding good stories and evoking a time and place. In her New York Times bestselling book The Eighty-Dollar Champion, she uncovers the secluded equestrian […]
The Life of Marion Hollins
Imagine you were a woman born at the height of the Gilded Age with a passion, not for fashion or society, but for sports. And you grew up riding bareback […]
The Life Story of Primo Fiore
Primo Fiore was born in Brooklyn but raised his family in Deer Park while working as a physical education instructor in West Islip. His gifted speaking voice, combined with a […]
Restoring Thornhill’s Pharmacy with Matthew La Piana
Thornhill’s Pharmacy has overlooked the center of Sayville from the corner of Main Street and Gillette Avenue for over a century. This is actually the second location of Sewell Thornhill’s […]
Long Island Migrant Labor Camps
Mark Torres has uncovered a little-discussed chapter of Long Island history, the conditions under which many migrant farm workers labored on area farms from World War II into the early […]
Brentwood and Local Media
We’ve got two segments for you today. The first is a conversation recorded online through the Brentwood Public Library during a podcast demonstration last year. Our participants recall some childhood […]
Mickey Quinn and St John the Baptist High School
It’s the early 70s in West Islip and St John the Baptist High School is gearing up for a crucial game against St. Agnes of Rockville Centre. But for freshman […]
Francis “Two-Gun” Crowley
Over the span of a few short months in 1931, 19-year old Francis Crowley was on the minds of everyone from the Bronx out to Long Island. Known for always […]
Shudder Island
Robert Ottone is no stranger to the strangeness on Long Island. An Islip native, he has been attuned to the Island’s darker hues from an early age and has worked […]
Return to Plum Island
Anyone attempting to invade Long Island Sound at the turn of the last century would have faced a gantlet of artillery guns mounted in forts across the islands that stretch […]