The Long Island History Project

The preservation awards ceremony continues! Today we speak with Erinn McDonnell of the village of Sea Cliff in Nassau County. Erinn managed the restoration of their 1931, Tudor revival-style firehouse on Roslyn Avenue, challegened to restore the building's distinctive steel casement windows without disrupting the operations of a working firehouse. With a mix of funding support from state and local...

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 with each of the five honorees, discussing their organizations and the histories that they are fighting to preserve. And stick around for the after party! At the end of each episode, Sarah Kautz, Preservat...

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 Almanack delivers stories and information about all aspects of New York State history as well as the Adirondacks region. John has pursued history in many forms, including his degree in Public History and his work produc...

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 help us sort things out, we called on Chuck Henry. Chuck is the IT Coordinator for the Northern New York Library Network (NNYLN). Part of his job is helping to keep things running at the New York State Historic Newspapers website, sh...

The places we live are filled with the stories of our lives, told room by room like chapters in a book. So how do you read a home? That's what Kendra Gaylord does on her podcast, Someone Lived Here. She explores historic houses to find the people who inhabited them, from poets and photographers to inventors and musicians. Today she takes us on a tour of her podcast and introduces us to the people...

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 last century and we find glimpses of lost silent films, more automobile accidents, and the dismantling of one of the great estates of the South Shore.  

Welcome back to our exploration of the Suffolk County News , bringing tales of life from a century ago. This week, there is some bad hooch going around, the hometown team wins their opener, and Will Rogers has a new movie out.  

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 the Curator of Education at the museum and helps tell the story of Long Island whaling to visitors of all ages. Our discussion covers the important role Long Island played in the development of the whaling industry i...

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 it appeared in 1920 and pulling out the highlights, the miscellany, and the unjustly forgotten. In today's paper we find a case of suspended animation, high sugar prices, and the birth of a new highway. Further Research N...

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 all those years ago. This week: a strange burglary, more coffee, and hints of an eighties superband.

Two museum directors, one public librarian, an artist, a researcher and a journalist. We're spending time today catching up with past guests to see how they're faring. The result is a small glimpse into the lives of six people from the region and how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted them and their jobs. Also - the return of Connie Currie! Thanks to all of our guests and we hope that everyone...

We continue our trek through the local news of a century gone by. Today we read the Suffolk County News from Arpil 16, 1920. We find stories of bootleggers, war-torn France and two spinster sisters freed from an insane asylum after a decade of confinement.  Further Research Hal B. Fullerton Photo Exhibit (Heckscher Museum of Art) Audio Footnotes On Mile a Minute Murphy Long Island and Prohibition

The Freemasons have been with us since the beginning of our country. And no, they do not have secret repositories of hidden gold. They do have a long history of service, community-building and camaraderie that persists to the present. Today we welcome Ron Seifried to the podcast to explore the history and development of Freemasonry in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Further Research Long Island Freem...

We're continuing our look at the news from 1920. Today, the Suffolk County News from Friday, April 9th. Animosity between Sayville and Patchogue on a number of levels, a case of the mumps going around, and warrior musicians returning to life during peacetime. Further Research NYS Historic Newspapers Mumps (CDC) " From Horse Power to Horsepower " by Eric Morris. Access Magazine , 2007.

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 with no tail lights. Stay tuned for more news of 1920 next week! Further Research NYS Historic Newspapers Enrico Caruso Audio footnote:  Episode 60: The Soldier City of Suffolk County

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 historical research, Erin discovered a powerful and unforgettable member of her family who was tied to a dark chapter of American history.   In the 1920s, many young women eagerly signed up to work as "radium...

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, along with corsets and a lot of poultry.  Stay tuned for more news of 1920 next week! Further Research NYS Historic Newspapers NYC Mayor LaGuardia's Legendary Radio Readings (NPR) Audio footnote:  Episode 69: We Bought a Newspaper

The LaGrange Inn was a storied stopping point along Montauk Highway from the 1700s when it opened for business with a Higbie at the helm. It remained a local landmark, operating under many different proprietors, into the 21st century.  Now, thanks to many dedicated people in the community (and to CVS), a part of the LaGrange survives as the West Islip Historical Society Museum. Today, Harry Higbie...

History is not the full story if not everyone gets to tell it. And in places where the traditional records are scarce or silent, where do you look for answers? Today we speak with anthropologist Christopher Matthews about his work in Setauket helping the people of a traditionally Native American (the Setalcotts) and African American community uncover more of their past. Working with Robert Lewis o...

Warren McDowell, former publisher of The Fire Island Tide, has been pondering the mystery of how Fire Island got its name all his life. This burning question has been answered in many ways over the years. Many myths, legends and theories have been proposed but Warren wanted sources. He turned his newspaperman's eye to every old map he could find. The result is an eye-catching cartographic, geograp...

Mark Smith, bottle collector extraordinaire last heard on episode #63, returns to reveal his other Long Island history passion: pottery! We get an inside look at his private collection of crocks and jugs (and butter churns) documenting the evolution of pottery on the Island. We'll dive into the history of Huntington's pottery industry in particular, tracing the rise and fall of a speicifc business...

Theresa Dodaro survived a life-threatening illness, waking from a coma determined to make the most of the time she had been gifted. One of the promises she made to herself: write. Since then, she has published four books and is working on her fifth. On this episode we discuss her journey and her process, how she combines her love of Long Island history with a desire to promote healing and communic...

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. It's a joint production of the Long Island History Project and Bar Crawl Radio. Our guest is Jonathan Olly, a curator and public historian from the Long Island Museum. Our topic is Prohibition on...

We take a look back at the Revolutionary War on Long Island, courtesy of the Brentwood Public Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Peter Ward, the library's local history librarian, served as host. The Institute funded it; Peter Carmona, librarian trainee, recorded it. Historians Joanne Grasso of NYIT and Peter Bales of Queensboro Community College were the experts on the...

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 and his passion for Long Island history, we're reposting here excerpts from two interviews we conducted with him over the years. One is from 2006 and the other from 2014. Our condolences go out to his family an...