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| SUNDAY, AUG. 3, 2014 | NORTH HEMPSTEAD-OYSTER BAY
INSIDE
NEWSDAY
HOMES G23
EXPLORE LI
WEEKENDG15
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coverstory
BY JOHN HANC
Special to Newsday
M
oses parted
the political
waters and
Jones
Beach
appeared.
Well,
eventually, and with the help
of some unlikely bedfellows in
the 1920s.
Tomorrow marks the 85th
anniversary of Jones Beach
State Park, whose beachfront
not only attracts millions of
visitors annually but was re-
cently voted by more than
500,000 Long Islanders as the
second-most iconic thing
about Long Island. (Singer
Billy Joel won the top spot.)
But were it not for compro-
mise, negotiation and trust on
the part of a developer and
two Republican politicians in
Hempstead Town, Jones Beach
would never have even been a
contender.
Opposition on LI
For developer Robert
Moses, his greatest creation
the impeccably designed,
fastidiously maintained, ocean-
front park in Wantagh reached
by parkways laid through the
shallow bays of the South
Shore owes its existence to
then Hempstead Town Super-
visor G. Wilbur Doughty and
Assemb. Thomas McWhinney
of Lawrence.
In 1924, when Albany an-
nounced its intention to create
a series of parks around Long
Island, as part of an overall
expansion of the state park
system, local politicians react-
ed with anger. As they saw it,
the new parks would bring the
teeming masses of New York
City streaming into their bucol-
ic communities, turning Long
Island into Coney Island.
Besides, the idea of the state
strong-arming towns, villages
and private landholders into
giving up their land not
only for Jones Beach, but for
the entire system of parks that
was being proposed by Moses
was offensive.
They are here to make
plans for all of us on Long
Island, Babylons Assemb.
John Boyle said in a meeting
with Moses present. We dont
want people coming in and
telling us where we shall have
parks, when there is no public
demand for them.
The opposition extended to
the printed page.
Babylon wants this land
which is hers . . . for nearly a
century and a half before the
state came into existence,
thundered the Babylon Leader,
a local newspaper at the time.
Keep it . . . never surrender
an inch.
The crown jewel of the
proposed new parks system
was Jones Beach, then a re-
mote, oft-flooded stretch of
sand only reachable by boat.
The land for the park was
owned by three townships in
two different counties: Baby-
lon in Suffolk, the Town of
Oyster Bay in eastern Nassau
and the Town of Hempstead in
western Nassau, which owned
the majority of the land that
now constitutes Jones Beach
State Park.
Babylon had made its posi-
tion on the issue clear. Oyster
Bay followed suit: Thousands
of residents joined a Save Our
Beaches committee that was
organized to stop Moses ef-
Robert Moses,
above, at a
dinner in1979
markingJones
BeachState
Parks50th
year, once
recalledatime
whenitsfuture
looked
absolutely
hopeless.
Constructionof
theWest
Bathhouseand
pool, left, were
completedin
1931.
ON THE COVER. Cars
proceed down the parkway
toward the Jones Beach water
tower on Independence Day in
1936.
Jones Beachs secret saviors
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The unlikely GOP allies who buckedthe tide tosaveRobert Moses plan
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J
ones Beach State Park
was a work in progress
when it opened on a
windy Aug. 4, 1929. The
East Bathhouse where
the opening ceremonies
took place was the only
one of what would be-
come the parks signa-
ture structures that was
already complete.
1930: Opening of Jones
Beach Marine Stadium
open-air venue that was
the site of water shows
and circuses.
July 2, 1931: NewYork
State Gov. Franklin D.
Roosevelt returns for the
opening of the West
Bathhouse.
Oct. 27, 1934: Meadow-
brook Parkway becomes
the second major route to
the beach.
1936: Original Jones
Beach Restaurant opens
on the boardwalk.
June 26, 1952: Mike
Todds ANight in Ven-
ice is the first showin the
newJones Beach Marine
Theater.
1960: In anticipation of
continued growth in
beach attendance, West
End 1, a newparking and
bathing facility on the
western end of Jones
Beach, is opened.
1961: The even larger
West End 2, with 3,200
parking spaces, opens.
July 1975: The 4.5-mile
Jones Beach Bikeway
welcomes cyclists. It is
also known as the Ellen
Farrant Memorial Bikeway
and nowextends to
Tobay Beach.
May 2004: As part of
the commemoration of
the parks 75th anniversa-
ry, the first Bethpage Air
Showis held. Attendance
usually averages about
400,000.
November 2012: Dam-
agefromsuperstorm
Sandycloses theboard-
walk. It reopens Memorial
Dayweekendin2013.
forts to get control of their
slice of Jones Beach.
In a referendum on Election
Day in 1925, voters of the
Town of Hempstead were
asked whether they wanted to
turn over to the state their
5-mile strip of land on Jones
Beach and part of what was
then called Short Beach (now
the West End) for the new
park.
Voters soundly rejected it
by a count of 12,106 to 4,200.
Moses was crushed by the
defeat.
It looked like wed lost
Jones Beach, he told biogra-
pher Robert Caro years later.
See COVER STORY on G7
Throngs crowd the sand at Jones
Beach on a July day in 1940; millions
have visited the park each year since
its founding. More photos at
newsday.com/lilife
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The start
and what
came later
saviors
Hempstead Town Supervisor
G. Wilbur Doughty, above,
agreed to support the building
effort. An umbrella man on
duty in an undated photo, right.
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CELEBRATE 85!
To mark Jones Beachs 85th
year, there will be birthday
cake and cupcakes at Field
5 at 8 p.m. tomorrow, at
the conclusion of the
Summer Run Series race.
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Annual Jones
Beach events:
Nassau versus
Suffolk police in
their tug-of-war
championship,
left. The U.S.
Navy Blue
Angels, right, at
the Bethpage
Air Show, held
on Memorial
Day weekend.
Jones
Beach
today
The East
Bathhouse,
newly restored,
about 2006. It
was the first of
the signature
structures built
at the park,
opening in 1929.
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A view of one of
the many
concerts held
this year at the
Nikon Theater
at Jones Beach.
The original
theaters stage
floated
beyond a moat
separating it
from the
audience. M
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Performers at the Jones Beach pool in the 1930s demonstrate the
art of synchronized diving from multiple platforms.
Construction workers brought the parkway to Jones Beach across
a windswept landscape. This photo was taken about 1930.
Opportunities
to exercise
have always
been a Jones
Beach draw. A
calisthenics
class was well
attended in
the 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 GOP
bosses in what would become
known as the Nassau Republi-
can machine. At the urgings of
fellow Republican McWhinney
a man who, Moses later
said, grasped the scope of
what he was proposing
Doughty agreed to meet with
the developer.
It was an eyebrow-raising
move, considering that Moses
was the protege of Gov. Al
Smith, a Democrat who would
serve four terms and become
the first Irish Catholic to be
nominated for the presidency.
Yet, during a series of off-the-
record meetings, Doughty
began to see what Moses was
proposing: a world-class public
facility that could not only
allow breathing space for city
residents, but that might also
be good for business on Long
Island.
Doughty agreed to support
the effort to create a state park
on Jones Beach. (What he got
out of it, Caro suggests in his
Pulitzer Prize-winning book
The Power Broker, was a
construction contract on the
project for his brother-in-laws
firm.)
Moses also agreed that
representatives of the Town of
Hempstead would have a say
in the planning for Jones
Beach. That representation
came in the person of McWhin-
ney, with whom Moses would
develop a close friendship.
A year later, in November
1926, the referendum, with
some slight modifications, was
again put to voters. In a stun-
ning change of heart or
collective twist of arm they
overwhelmingly supported the
bill to give Jones Beach to the
state.
In an editorial, The New
COVER STORY from G4
See COVER STORY on G8
At theageof 85, still full of activity
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coverstory
York Times, a supporter of the
project, praised the Town of
Hempstead for its good work
on behalf of state parks.
The park opens
Amonth after the referendum
passed, state parks historian
Chester Blakelock later wrote,
the first engineering stake was
driven into the sands of Jones
Beach, at the precise spot where
the water tower stands. While
legal battles over ownership of
other parts of Jones Beach con-
tinued, a 3
1
/2-year construction
project ensued.
At a final inspection of the
newfacility a fewweeks before
it opened, Moses not only ex-
tolled his vision of the newpark
but, perhaps cognizant of the
bitter opposition he had faced,
sought to reassure any doubters
that Jones Beach would be
unlike any other seaside resort.
There would be no carousels, no
sideshows, no hotels.
We want to get away from
the idea of an amusement
park, he told The Times. We
want to give the people of
New York and suburbs a place
where they can spend a day
quietly at the beach.
On Aug. 4, 1929, Jones Beach
State Park was officially opened.
In a ceremony at the newEast
Bathhouse, Moses stood next to
Smith and then-NewYork Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt. But there
were also two Republican fig-
ures on the mostly Democratic
stage that day McWhinney,
by then a Long Island State
Parks commissioner, andDough-
ty, who, instead of taking credit
as he could have, admitted to
the audience that he had be-
lieved the whole project was a
pipe dream.
The opening was also memo-
rable for a literal dustup.
There was a lot of wind blow-
ing that day, and sand blew
into many of the carburetors
on celebrants cars, causing
many of them to stall. As a
result, the state planted beach
grass to anchor the sand.
In 1930, its first full season,
the park attracted 1.5 million
visitors. By 1933, that number
had more than doubled. By the
end of the decade, Jones Beach
was known worldwide and
today attracts 6 million to 8
million visitors a year. They
come not only to splash in the
Atlantic Ocean but to attend
concerts at the music theater
and enjoy the annual air show,
which features the Navys Blue
Angels flight team, the Armys
Golden Knights parachute
team and vintage airplanes.
Lawrence Levy, executive
dean of the National Center
for Suburban Studies at Hof-
stra University in Hempstead,
believes the actions of the two
long-ago Republican legisla-
tors are worth remembering.
The lesson for us today is
that it isnt possible to do great
public works . . . and theres no
active park greater than Jones
Beach . . . unless men and
women fromdifferent parties
and ideologies are willing to put
aside their differences, he said.
Neither Doughty, who died
in 1930, nor McWhinney, who
died in 1933, lived to see Jones
Beach at its zenith. Moses, not
a man generally inclined to
share credit, never forgot
them: Faded plaques honoring
the two Republican legislators
stand to this day on the north
side of the West Bathhouse.
COVER STORY from G7
Visitors pass the restaurant on the boardwalk on July 25, 1937.
The pool at Jones Beach was a big attraction for those with the
right coinage on July 4, 1957.
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Skiers performin the Jones Beach theaters moat in the 1930s. The moat was later filled.
Under the sunat Jones Beach
G8
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