The Long Island History Project

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 won the respect and support of some of the biggest names of the Big Band era. Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby (to name a few) toasted Jack's efforts to keep the music and style of the 1930s and 40s alive....

George Munkenbeck, Islip Town Historian, discusses the history of the town from it's possibly piratical origins to its surprising connections to WW I and the Suffragist movement.

On this bonus episode, NASA astrophysicist emeritus Daniel Gezari talks about his research, his studies at Stony Brook, his meeting with Albert Einstein and more.

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 of Albert Einstein on the walls and various collections of insects and you're starting to get an idea of life at Zvi and Temima Gezari's home in Rocky Point.

The De La Salle Christian Brothers moved their all-boy Christian military academy to Oakdale in 1926 and graduated their last class in 2001. On today's episode we'll here from alum Denis McGee about two decades in that storied history. Denis graduated in 1974 during the tail end of the Viet Nam War. His father, Arthur McGee, graduated in 1943 and went on to serve in World War II with the 94th Infa...

Mark Rothenberg oversees the Celia M. Hastings Local History Room at Patchogue Medford Library. On this episode he relates the story of the Queen City of the South Shore, from mill town to resort destination. Along the way we encounter members of the Culper Spy Ring, Confederate sympathizers and proponents of the bicycle-driven monorail.

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 of his exploits, there's a good chance he's either Batman or a Vanderbilt. Meet William K. Vanderbilt II circa 1910. Just after the turn of the last century, William (or Willie K.) was heir to the Van...

Rob Boehm, past president of the Puppet Guild of Long Island, walks us through the world of puppetry and puppet theater since the 1950s, including his early interests and later experiences as a puppeteer. Both he and our own Connie Currie studied with Carol Fijan, the Great Neck-based master puppeteer who greatly influenced the development of puppet theater. They discuss Carol's teachings and writ...

Bill Colson was a stand-out basketball player from Sayville High School ('47). In the Korean War he served as an Air Force cryptographer until, stricken by polio, he returned to the States paralyzed from the waist down. That's where his story begins.

Women in most states could still not vote at the turn of the last century. The suffrage movement was stalled and icons such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were dead. So what turned things around? How did the movement revitalize itself to the point that, by 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed and women's suffrage was the law of the land? Part of the answer lies with two women from L...

Genealogist Rhoda Miller and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island recently published Jewish Community of Long Island from Arcadia Press.  The book tracks the development of Jewish communities across Long Island from the late 19th century through the 1970s. Throughout the book Rhoda not only documents the rise of specific communities but also uncovers many personal stories. On this episod...

George Davies' younger days would be the envy of any boy. During the Great Depression in Oakdale, he and his brothers had the run of Pepperidge Hall, a giant 19th-century mansion in walking distance of a swimming hole and the Great South Bay. Plus they had a pet duck. On this episode you'll hear excerpts […]

What better way to celebrate National Preservation Month than by interviewing Jason Crowley, Preservation Director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquties (SPLIA)? Jason comes to Long Island by way of Vermont, Charleston, Columbia University and years of work on the front lines of preservation. You'll hear his take on the unique […]

National Poetry Month is almost over but we have time for one more power ballad. This time, we're looking over the body of work of Paul Bailey. Bailey was a newspaperman from Amityville (founder of the Amityville Sun ) as well as the publisher of the Long Island Forum . His dedication to Long Island history ran deep as he was also president of the Suffolk County Historical Society and Suffolk Coun...

Back when men were men and railroads were railroads, Charles M. Murphy challenged a locomotive and lived to tell the tale. He rode behind a Long Island Railroad locomotive in 1899 and clocked a mile in under 58 seconds, earning him the immortal nickname Mile-a-Minute Murphy.   On today's episode we look back at Murphy's accomplishment through the eyes of Si Tannhauser. Who was Si Tannhauser, you a...

We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month with our second Long Island power ballad from the past. This time out we are looking at "A Babylonish Ditty" by Frederick Swartwout Cozzens (writing as Richard Haywarde). Few will remember New York wine merchant-turned poet Cozzens and his heyday as a humor writer in the mid 1800s (although you should try his Sparrowgrass Papers , something of a...

It's National Poetry Month and we're celebrating with a series of poetry/history mashups that we like to call Long Island Power Ballads. We're dusting off some deserving yet obscure poems (and poets) dealing with Long Island history and giving them another look. Over the next few weeks you'll hear stories of broken hearts, tragic deaths, and the indomitable human spirit. But when we say obscure, w...

Folklorists would make good podcasters. They are used to finding interesting people and getting them to tell good stories. Take Nancy Solomon for example. As the executive director of Long Island Traditions , she has spent years collecting and studying the stories of baymen, offshore fishermen, boat builders and the like. Today we'll talk to her about a number of those stories revolving around the...

We return to our conversation with investigative journalist Karl Grossman, picking up his career after the memorable fight against the Fire Island road in the 1960s. For a journalist, what story could top that? Cut to: Shoreham Nuclear Power Station #1. It's the 1970s and the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) is building the first of up to eleven proposed nuclear power plants, poised to turn Lo...

It's 1962 and a Nor'easter has just torn through Long Island. In its wake is another storm, Long Island Parks Commissioner Robert Moses with his plan to build a road down the middle of Fire Island. It will stabilize the beach, he says. It will provide beauty and ease to the motorist, he says. But local builder Murray Barbash notices that the road will run right through his new development of Dunew...

Karl Grossman has been an investigative reporter on Long Island since the early 1960s. Barely in his twenties, he cut his journalistic teeth at the Babylon Town Leader taking on one of the most powerful men in New York State: Robert Moses. Karl covered the developing story of Moses' plan to build a highway down the middle of Fire Island. Although the plan horrified local residents, many on the Isl...

St. David AME Zion Church in Eastville. Photo courtesy of the Eastville Community Historical Society. Eastville endures. Through the rise and fall of the whaling industry, over the long slow death of slavery, past the rising tide of development on the East End of Long Island. From the early 19th-century this small collection of streets and houses east of Sag Harbor, anchored around the St. David A...

Shinnecock (2013). Photo courtesy of Thom Hoffman When something piques Thom Hoffman's interest, he starts asking questions. Then he tries to work out the answers through film. The result has been an eclectic mix of documentaries (three to date) that share some common traits: his desire to educate and his love of Long Island history. Brother, Can You Spare a Dollar? (2012).Photo courtesy of Thom H...

Suffolk County Historian Peter Fox Cohalan is back in session for part two of our interview. This week we get deeper into the history of Islip, traveling all the way from the bottom of the Bay (and who really owned it) back to Islip, England and the ancestral home of the Nicoll family. We also get Peter Fox's insight into historic preservation at the local and regional levels as well as the unique...

Peter Fox Cohalan was named Suffolk County Historian in 2012 but in many ways he's been preparing for the role his whole life. In fact, the Cohalans and history go way back. The first Cohalan in America arrived with Lafayette during the Revolution. One branch of the family led to a Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, another to the first Catholic priest on Long Island. In his own storied career, Peter F...