Preservation Awards: SANS Sag Harbor
It’s a preservation party and you’re all invited! We’ve teamed up with Preservation Long Island to help celebrate their 2020 Preservation Awards. Over the next week we’ll be posting interviews […]
Category: 20th Century
John Warren’s Almanack
We travel this week to the Adirondacks (virtually speaking) to talk with John Warren, founder and publisher of New York Almanack. Formerly known as the New York History Blog, the […]
Where Old New York State Newspapers Live On
Our sojourn through the hallowed pages of the Suffolk County News from 1920 hit a speedbump this week when it turned out that no digital copy was available online. To […]
Suffolk County News, May 14, 1920
We wade once again into the cool stream of the digital past to fish for items from the Suffolk County News of 1920. Today is Friday, May 14th in the […]
Suffolk County News, May 7, 1920
If this is Friday, than it must be 1920! We continue mining the seam of digitzed microfilm out of the New York State Historic Newspapers site, looking at the Suffolk […]
We Were the Whalers
We return today to the sea to consider the whale. More specifically, we talk with Brenna McCormick-Thompson of the Whaling Museum and Education Center in Cold Spring Harbor. Brenna is […]
Suffolk County News, April 30, 1920
If it’s Friday and we’re still in self-isolation, then this is another edition of the Suffolk County News, give or take one hundred years. We’re reading through the newspaper as […]
Suffolk County News, April 23, 1920
The latest edition of last century’s Suffolk County News is here, for April 23rd, 1920. We continue easing our home isolation by reading what was going on in our region […]
Suffolk County News, April 16, 1920
We continue our trek through the local news of a century gone by. Today we read the Suffolk County News from April 16, 1920. We find stories of bootleggers, war-torn […]
Suffolk County News, April 9, 1920
We continue our journey through the past, reading our way through the Suffolk County News of one hundred years ago. Today we cover Friday, April 9, 1920. Cars are quickly […]
Suffolk County News, April 2, 1920
We’re using our home isolation to look back – reading issues of the Suffolk County News of 1920 week by week. For April 2, 1920: Al Smith, Fatty Arbuckle, and a cow […]
A Light in the Undark
Today our guest, Erin Elizabeth Becker, recounts the story of her great grandmother, Marion Murdoch O’Hara, who worked for the US Radium Corporation in New York City. Through genealogical and […]
Suffolk County News, March 26, 1920
We’re using our home isolation to look back – reading issues of the Suffolk County News of 1920 week by week. They had quarantines back then too, it turns out, […]
The Noble Experiment
America tried something new from 1920 to 1933: outlawing the production, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors. In that same spirit of social experimentation, we made this episode something new. […]
Remembering Gene Horton
We were saddened by the recent news of the passing of Gene Horton, Blue Point historian, former social studies teacher, tour guide, storyteller, friend and colleague. To honor Gene’s memory […]
A Field of Dreams in the Sky
Imagine a world with a private airport around every corner and an airplane in every garage. Where your form of ID could just as easily be a pilot’s license as […]
Working on the Rail Road
David Morrison knows his railroads, from his six books on LIRR history to his extensive research collection to his years overseeing thirty-nine stations. With his seventh book due out from […]
The Year Broadway Went on Strike
The life of an actor is never easy, so it’s not surprising that many early Broadway stars made a point of vacationing in solitude on Long Island whenever they could. […]
Clarence H. Robbins: All About the Horses
Clarence H. Robbins was a master of hounds and horses, a gentleman jockey and trainer, and a member of Brooklyn’s Gilded Age elite. Come explore this forgotten Long Island figure […]
Come for the beach, stay for the local history lecture.
More than a beach or a brand, Southampton has a history that stretches back thousands of years with the Native Americans in North America. The coming of English settlers in […]
Genealogy and You
Linda Metzger is the Long Island Genealogist. On today’s episode, you’ll hear how she turned a hobby into a career working to uncover the lost, complicated, and often forgotten stories […]
Still Waters Run Deep
 The waters of Lake Ronkonkoma have seen it all: Native Americans, English settlers, Broadway actresses, 20th century resort-goers and automobile racers. No one knows this better than Evelyn Vollgraff, […]
The Local History of Ghosts and Spirits
 Don’t call her a ghostbuster. Kerriann Flanagan Brosky approaches her investigations of the paranormal on Long Island with a photographer’s eye and a historian’s perspective. She has long been […]
The Night That Dowling Burned
 In honor of Labor Day, we return to the subject of Long Island volunteer firefighters. Last episode, Tom Rinelli and Connie brought up the infamous 1974 fire at Dowling […]
Fighting Fires, Saving History
 Who knew that firehouses were such deep sources of local history? In the town of Islip, they are overflowing with trophies, photos, devices, and mechanisms going back to the […]
Long Island’s Notable Women
 Behind every great woman is another great woman and Natalie Naylor is bringing them to light. Her book Women in Long Island’s Past (History Press, 2012), highlights the accomplished […]
Postcards from Huntington
 PJ Novak wrote the history of Huntington on a postcard. A librarian, archivist and dedicated deltiologist, she is also the author of Huntington from the Postcard History Series of […]
Ducks on Ice
 The Long Island Ducks personified an era and a brand of hockey. From 1959 to 1973, they fought, checked, and slashed their way through the Eastern Hockey League and […]
Remembering Gil Bergen
 On this episode, we honor the memory of Gil Bergen, superintendent of the Connetquot River State Park Preserve, and his long service to the Park and the memory of […]
We Bought a Newspaper
 Mary Lou Cohalan and her husband bought the Suffolk County News along with three other couples in the late 1960s. Her resulting career as the first woman editor of […]
Chris Bodkin’s Book of Sayville
Chris Bodkin is a man with a keen eye for detail and a deep love for his hometown of Sayville. We’ve published our interview with him in three parts – […]
Time in a Bottle
Mark R. Smith saves time in a bottle, literally. His antique bottle collection preserves the memory of local dairies, pharmacies, hotels and more. It also tells the story of a […]
Mother Newsday
Bob Keeler wrote the book on Newsday, a candid history detailing the origin story of Long Island’s original tabloid. Started in 1940 as the “toy” of Alicia Patterson, the paper […]
The Soldier City of Suffolk County
Imagine a city rising from the fields of Suffolk County in the early 20th cenutry, a wooden metropolis covering almost 20,000 acres. It has its own post office, theater, library […]
Making Gatsby Great
Few authors are more synonymous with a place and point in time than F. Scott Fitzgerald. His Great Gatsby came to define the 1920s and cast a golden aura across […]
Longwood Stories
Melanie Cardone-Leathers is the Local History Librarian at the Longwood Public Library. Today she regales us with tales covering three centuries and many locations. There is Benjamin Tallmadge burning the […]
In the Heart of Roosevelt
Carol Gilliam is the Black Heritage Librarian at Roosevelt Public Library where she oversees a collection dedicated to black culture and history. On this episode we discuss the growth and […]
Out of Bayville, Endlessly Rocking
Bill Bleyer has a knack for finding history – or maybe it finds him. He had front row seats for Woodstock, did battle with Robert Moses, and got tear-gassed at […]
The Hurricane of 1938
We’re looking back to the Hurricane of 1938 on this episode. Called “The Long Island Expresss” by some, “The Great New England Hurricane” by others, remembered by all who lived […]
SPLIA’s Endangered Historic Places 2017
Sarah Kautz, preservation director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, joins us to discuss their new list of most endangered historic places on Long Island. From […]
The Colored Girl from Long Island
Today we talk with Sandi Brewster-walker about her life and her family’s history. Not only do the Brewsters have deep ties to North Amityville and the Native American community on […]
Sayville’s Gilded Age Boss Architect
Isaac H. Green, Jr. was the man to call if you needed a house built around the turn of the last century on the South Shore of Long Island. As […]
If Seeds Could Talk
Long Island was once known as “The Garden of the States.” Farms and nurseries and orchards filled the landscape from Queens to Quogue and everywhere in between. Many interesting questions […]
Morton Pennypacker: Long Island Spy Hunter
Frank Knox Morton Pennypacker was many things: author, printer, collector, antiquarian, and…godfather of AMC’s hit Long Island historical drama Turn? It was, after all, Pennypacker’s diligent research into (and just […]
Jack Ellsworth, Long Island’s Big Band Man
Jack Ellsworth, born Ellsworth Shiebler, won acclaim and a loyal following over a 60-plus year career in broadcasting on stations from WHIM to WALK and WLIM. Just as importantly, he […]
Rocky Point, Einstein and Me
What’s a summer bungalow without a machine shop, a kiln and a working loom in the living room? Add in piles of beach stones waiting to be sculpted, framed pictures […]
La Salle Military Academy
Things were changing on the south shore of Long Island in the 1920s. In the area of Oakdale, a prototypical Gold Coast, the great mansions of the last century were […]
Patchogue: Queen City of the South Shore
If you wanted something back in 19th-Century Long Island, chances are they made it in Patchogue: lace, twine, lumber, crinoline, wrapping paper, blankets, award-winning yachts. A sprawling arrangement of brick […]
The Coolest Field Trip You’ll Ever Take
When an athletic, thrill-seeking millionaire builds a mansion hideaway on the outskirts of the city, stocking it with a technologically advanced fleet of cars, boats and airplanes along with trophies […]
Making Puppets Come Alive
If the Muppets are all you know of puppetry then this episode will be an eye opener. Beyond the antics of Kermit the Frog and earlier popular acts such as […]