jones beach 85 years

8/12/2019 Jones Beach 85 Years

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MAKING A SPLASH Open water swimming on Long Island exploreLI.com/recreationNEW

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| SUNDAY, AUG. 3, 2014 | NORTH HEMPSTEAD-OYSTER BAY

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BY JOHN HANC

Special to Newsday

Moses partedthe politicalwaters and

JonesBeachappeared.

Well,eventually, and with the helpof some unlikely bedfellows inthe 1920s.

Tomorrow marks the 85thanniversary of Jones BeachState Park, whose beachfrontnot only attracts millions ofvisitors annually but was re-cently voted by more than500,000 Long Islanders as the

second-most iconic thingabout Long Island. (SingerBilly Joel won the top spot.)

But were it not for compro-mise, negotiation and trust onthe part of a developer andtwo Republican politicians inHempstead Town, Jones Beachwould never have even been acontender.

Opposition on LIFor developer Robert

Moses, his greatest creation

the impeccably designed,fastidiously maintained, ocean-front park in Wantagh reachedby parkways laid through theshallow bays of the SouthShore owes its existence tothen Hempstead Town Super-visor G. Wilbur Doughty andAssemb. Thomas McWhinney

of Lawrence.In 1924, when Albany an-

nounced its intention to createa series of parks around LongIsland, as part of an overallexpansion of the state parksystem, local politicians react-ed with anger. As they saw it,the new parks would bring theteeming masses of New York

City streaming into their bucol-ic communities, turning LongIsland into Coney Island.

Besides, the idea of the statestrong-arming towns, villagesand private landholders intogiving up their land notonly for Jones Beach, but forthe entire system of parks that

was being proposed by Moses was offensive.

They are here to makeplans for all of us on Long

Island, Babylons Assemb.John Boyle said in a meetingwith Moses present. We dontwant people coming in andtelling us where we shall haveparks, when there is no publicdemand for them.

The opposition extended tothe printed page.

Babylon wants this landwhich is hers . . . for nearly acentury and a half before thestate came into existence,thundered the Babylon Leader,

a local newspaper at the time.Keep it . . . never surrenderan inch.

The crown jewel of theproposed new parks systemwas Jones Beach, then a re-mote, oft-flooded stretch of

sand only reachable by boat.The land for the park wasowned by three townships intwo different counties: Baby-lon in Suffolk, the Town ofOyster Bay in eastern Nassauand the Town of Hempstead inwestern Nassau, which ownedthe majority of the land thatnow constitutes Jones BeachState Park.

Babylon had made its posi-tion on the issue clear. OysterBay followed suit: Thousands

of residents joined a Save OurBeaches committee that wasorganized to stop Moses ef-

Robert Moses,above,at adinner in 1979markingJones

BeachStateParks50thyear, oncerecalleda timewhenits futurelookedabsolutelyhopeless.ConstructionoftheWestBathhouse andpool, left, werecompleted in1931.

ON THE COVER. Carsproceed down the parkwaytoward the Jones Beach watertower on Independence Day in

1936.

Jones Beachs secret

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TheunlikelyGOP allieswho bucked the tide to saveRobertMoses plan

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Jones Beach State Parkwas a work in progresswhen it opened on a

windy Aug. 4, 1929. TheEast Bathhouse wherethe opening ceremoniestook place was the onlyone of what would be-come the parks signa-ture structures that wasalready complete. 1930: Opening of JonesBeach Marine Stadiumopen-air venue that wasthe site of water showsand circuses. July 2, 1931: New York

State Gov. Franklin D.Roosevelt returns for theopening of the WestBathhouse. Oct. 27, 1934: Meadow-brook Parkway becomesthe second major route tothe beach. 1936: Original JonesBeach Restaurant openson the boardwalk. June 26, 1952: MikeTodds A Night in Ven-ice is the first show in the

new Jones Beach MarineTheater. 1960: In anticipation ofcontinued growth inbeach attendance, WestEnd 1, a new parking andbathing facility on thewestern end of JonesBeach, is opened. 1961: The even largerWest End 2, with 3,200parking spaces, opens. July 1975: The 4.5-mileJones Beach Bikeway

welcomes cyclists. It isalso known as the EllenFarrant Memorial Bikewayand now extends toTobay Beach. May 2004: As partofthe commemoration ofthe parks 75th anniversa-ry, the first Bethpage AirShow is held. Attendanceusually averages about400,000. November 2012: Dam-age fromsuperstorm

Sandycloses the board-walk.It reopens MemorialDayweekendin 2013.

forts to get control of theirslice of Jones Beach.

In a referendum on ElectionDay in 1925, voters of the

Town of Hempstead wereasked whether they wanted toturn over to the state their5-mile strip of land on JonesBeach and part of what wasthen called Short Beach (nowthe West End) for the newpark.

Voters soundly rejected itby a count of 12,106 to 4,200.Moses was crushed by thedefeat.

It looked like wed lostJones Beach, he told biogra-

pher Robert Caro years later.

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Throngs crowd the sand at JonesBeach on a July day in 1940; millionshave visited the park each year sinceits founding. More photos atnewsday.com/lilife

NEWSDAY

The startand whatcame latersaviors

Hempstead Town SupervisorG. Wilbur Doughty, above,

agreed to support the buildingeffort. An umbrella man onduty in an undated photo, right. NE

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CELEBRATE 85!To mark Jones Beachs 85thyear, there will be birthdaycake and cupcakes at Field

5 at 8 p.m. tomorrow, atthe conclusion of the

Summer Run Series race.

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Annual JonesBeach events:Nassau versusSuffolk police intheir tug-of-warchampionship,

left. The U.S.Navy BlueAngels, right, atthe BethpageAir Show, heldon MemorialDay weekend.

JonesBeachtoday

The EastBathhouse,newly restored,about 2006. Itwas the first ofthe signaturestructures builtat the park,

opening in 1929.NEWS

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A view of one ofthe manyconcerts heldthis year at theNikon Theaterat Jones Beach.The originaltheaters stage

floatedbeyond a moatseparating itfrom theaudience. M

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Performers at the Jones Beach pool in the 1930s demonstrate theart of synchronized diving from multiple platforms.

Construction workers brought the parkway to Jones Beach acrossa windswept landscape. This photo was taken about 1930.

Opportunitiesto exercisehave alwaysbeen a JonesBeach draw. Acalisthenicsclass was well

attended inthe late 1930s.

It looked absolutely hope-less.

Hope came in an unlikely

form: Doughty, the portly,mustachioed town supervisor,one of a long line of GOPbosses in what would becomeknown as the Nassau Republi-can machine. At the urgings offellow Republican McWhinney a man who, Moses later

said, grasped the scope ofwhat he was proposing Doughty agreed to meet withthe developer.

It was an eyebrow-raising

move, considering that Moseswas the protege of Gov. AlSmith, a Democrat who wouldserve four terms and becomethe first Irish Catholic to benominated for the presidency.Yet, during a series of off-the-record meetings, Doughty

began to see what Moses wasproposing: a world-class publicfacility that could not onlyallow breathing space for cityresidents, but that might also

be good for business on LongIsland.Doughty agreed to support

the effort to create a state parkon Jones Beach. (What he gotout of it, Caro suggests in hisPulitzer Prize-winning bookThe Power Broker, was aconstruction contract on theproject for his brother-in-lawsfirm.)

Moses also agreed thatrepresentatives of the Town ofHempstead would have a say

in the planning for JonesBeach. That representationcame in the person of McWhin-ney, with whom Moses woulddevelop a close friendship.

A year later, in November1926, the referendum, withsome slight modifications, wasagain put to voters. In a stun-ning change of heart orcollective twist of arm theyoverwhelmingly supported thebill to give Jones Beach to thestate.

In an editorial, The New

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York Times, a supporter of theproject, praised the Town ofHempstead for its good workon behalf of state parks.

The park opensA month after thereferendum

passed, stateparks historianChester Blakelock laterwrote,the firstengineering stakewasdriveninto thesands of JonesBeach,at theprecise spot wherethewatertowerstands.Whilelegalbattles overownershipofother parts of Jones Beach con-tinued, a 31/2-year constructionproject ensued.

At a final inspection ofthenewfacilitya fewweeksbeforeit opened, Moses notonly ex-tolledhis visionof thenew park

but, perhaps cognizantof thebitter oppositionhe had faced,sought to reassure any doubters

that Jones Beach would beunlike any otherseaside resort.There would be no carousels, nosideshows, no hotels.

We want to get away fromthe idea of an amusementpark, he told The Times. Wewant to give the people ofNew York and suburbs a place

where they can spend a dayquietly at the beach.

On Aug. 4, 1929, Jones BeachStatePark was officiallyopened.Ina ceremonyat the new EastBathhouse,Moses stood next toSmith andthen-New York Gov.Franklin D. Roosevelt.But therewere also twoRepublican fig-ures on themostly Democraticstage that day McWhinney,by then a Long IslandStateParks commissioner, and Dough-ty,who,instead of takingcredit

as he could have, admitted totheaudiencethat he hadbe-lievedthe whole project wasa

pipedream.The opening was also memo-

rable for a literal dustup.There was a lot of wind blow-ing that day, and sand blewinto many of the carburetorson celebrants cars, causingmany of them to stall. As aresult, the state planted beachgrass to anchor the sand.

In 1930, its first full season,the park attracted 1.5 millionvisitors. By 1933, that numberhad more than doubled. By the

end of the decade, Jones Beachwas known worldwide andtoday attracts 6 million to 8

million visitors a year. Theycome not only to splash in theAtlantic Ocean but to attendconcerts at the music theaterand enjoy the annual air show,which features the Navys BlueAngels flight team, the ArmysGolden Knights parachuteteam and vintage airplanes.

Lawrence Levy, executivedean of the National Centerfor Suburban Studies at Hof-stra University in Hempstead,believes the actions of the two

long-ago Republican legisla-tors are worth remembering.

The lessonfor us today is

that it isnt possible to do greatpublicworks . . . and theres noactive parkgreater than JonesBeach . . . unlessmen andwomenfrom different partiesandideologiesare willing to putasidetheir differences,he said.

Neither Doughty, who diedin 1930, nor McWhinney, whodied in 1933, lived to see JonesBeach at its zenith. Moses, nota man generally inclined toshare credit, never forgotthem: Faded plaques honoring

the two Republican legislatorsstand to this day on the northside of the West Bathhouse.

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Visitors pass the restaurant on the boardwalk on July 25, 1937.

The pool at Jones Beach was a big attraction for those with theright coinage on July 4, 1957.

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Skiers perform in the Jones Beach theaters moat in the 1930s. The moat was later filled.

Under the sun at Jones Beach

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jones beach 85 years

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