Jerry Seinfeld was in my gym class. Alec Baldwin’s father was my social studies teacher in 12th grade. Dick Van Dyke and Andre Eglevsky of the Eglevsky Ballet lived down the street from us. Neil Diamond wasn’t too far away. I grew up in Massapequa,_New_York after we moved from Westbury in 1960 when I was 7 years old. What is it about Massapequa that produced so many notable_Massapequa people, actors, comedians and musicians?
Brian Setzer, Steve Guttenberg, Rob Nelson, the Baldwin brothers, Elliot Easton of the Cars, Joey Buttafuoco, Jessica Hahn and many more people who graced the headlines at least a few times. For a town of only 22,000 that’s pretty impressive. Massapequa is firmly nestled in the southeast corner of Nassau County on Long Island. It is bordered by Queens to its west and Suffolk County to its east. Suffolk, of course, is home to the Hamptons which gets a lot more press for its center of wealth and power but also includes Montauk Point, Orient Point and the gilded North Shore where Gatsby took hold of the American imagination during the Roaring (and Flapping) 20s.
Back when I was a kid, I had quite a large playground to discover. My friends and I would bike down to the south shore of the Great South Bay where the money homes were located and go clamming or boating and water skiing and hang out at the beach clubs. There were many open areas that were not yet developed along the shore and we could use as our own beach. Of course, that didn’t last long as real estate developers began snapping up any available plot and we watched as the McMansion boom began to prosper.
But before that, we’d also ride over to Bar Harbor, an adjacent neighborhood where there was just sand, reeds and sand dunes scattered along the bay. Bar Harbor’s undeveloped area stretched far and wide. The whole southern part of it abutted the bay and was in its natural state. And my friends had a perfect backdrop for playing Army – after all, World War II had ended in 1945 and most of us were born between 1952 and 1954. So, memories and family accounts of the war were still fresh in those days. Influenced by the TV show, “Combat” and many WW II movies, we would bring our air rifles to “the Dunes” and play out our war games.
Back then, Suffolk County seemed like a sleepy and rural part of Long Island. As a bunch of 10 year-olds, we were not yet in tune with the whole Hamptons thing. We were more likely to go with our families for a day trip to the beach, Montauk or perhaps Sagamore Hill, home of Theodore Roosevelt (which was pretty cool and still is). As much as Suffolk seemed far away, it is a sizeable county, running 84 miles from Amityville to Montauk and containing 2,373 square miles.
And then the Great Development began. When we were all young, we would often go with our parents to local farms to purchase fresh corn (Long Island corn was fantastic), potatoes and other fresh produce. One by one, all the local farms were bought up and within 20 years, they had transformed Nassau County from a bucolic setting into one large shopping mall. Strip stores and malls were everywhere. The spaces I once lazed in or adventured became high-priced waterfront neighborhoods, including Bar Harbor. Suddenly, Nassau County was bumper to bumper in traffic as new development far outpaced existing infrastructure.
So why so many celebrities from these formative years? What was in the water supply we all were drinking? I’m sure part of it was cultural. A day trip to Manhattan with our family was easy as it was only one hour by train or car. So many of us were used to seeing the latest Broadway shows, the Bronx Zoo or the myriad of museums and art galleries throughout NYC.
Part of it was social awareness – we were constantly bombarded with the news and latest fads in popular culture. Where some geographic areas may have been more protective, Long Islanders seemed to embrace the arts a bit more. You couldn’t escape it, it was so pronounced, not submerged by our elders. So we became super-charged on many facets of pop culture. Although all our parents seemed to be Republicans, Long Island seemed to be identified as increasingly liberal as the 1960s progressed.
And now? I love Long Island but I dread returning there because of the traffic. I find it suffocating to sit in so much traffic, waiting for the lights to change, the cars to begin moving again.
It’s also a lot ruder but so is the rest of the country. Back in the day, everyone seemed so pleasant. Yeah I know, I was just a kid back then, what did I know? But my 93 year-old mother agrees. She recalled how neighbors talked and mingled; now many don’t even know their neighbors. I see that as well in my town in PA where we’ve lived now since 1998.
And I listen to the Town Board here lecture us that development is mandated in the Town Charter and blah blah blah. I want to stand up at the monthly township meeting and show my neighbors and residents before and after pictures of Massapequa, showing the farms and open space of the 1950s contrasted to the concrete and lack of any open spaces of today. But they don’t listen; after all, a few of the Board members are real estate developers. The fix is in: we’re doomed to another Long Island fiasco right here in southeast PA and I suspect your neighborhood, too.
When we moved here in 1998, there were an unusual number of golf courses for such a tiny burg. Now most of them have been sold for huge profits as each 18 hole golf course represents a huge potential “55 or older retirement community.” We’re getting another new convenience store as well as a shiny new Mickey D’s – all on one corner, a new hybrid concept. Oh Boy!
Soon there won’t be any green left. We had so many farms when we moved here – and now they too are being plowed under to build more new developments. Wait, I liked the farms! I liked that big empty land on the east side of Rt 378! Too bad, that’s now under construction and is almost “move-in ready.”
Progress, that’s what they always tell us. And all I see is southeast Lehigh County becoming southeast Nassau County, where the wheels of progress began spitting out rural open spaces and cramming in more and more cement and asphalt. Massapequa was a really cool place to grow up but it is so crowded now as is the entire county. I realize you cannot stop progress but more and more houses don’t make a town better. It takes balance. Opportunities arise when a region develops something unique, an identity. We have plenty of stores, gas stations and restaurants. What we need is a moratorium on building and increased interest in drawing residents together into community centers to rediscover the arts, activities and community dialogue.
Chris Ebel
12/14/21
Photo credit: @Renaudeh