Wyandanch, New York
127399
226173605
2008-07-17T04:09:07Z
24.184.230.106
{{Infobox Settlement
|official_name = Wyandanch, New York
|settlement_type = [[Census-designated place|CDP]]
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|pushpin_label_position =none
|pushpin_map_caption =Location within the state of New York
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|mapsize = 250px
|map_caption = U.S. Census Map
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|subdivision_type = [[List of countries|Country]]
|subdivision_name = [[United States]]
|subdivision_type1 = [[Political divisions of the United States|State]]
|subdivision_name1 = [[New York]]
|subdivision_type2 = [[List of counties in New York|County]]
|subdivision_name2 = [[Suffolk County, New York|Suffolk]]
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|area_total_km2 = 11.3
|area_land_km2 = 11.3
|area_water_km2 = 0.0
|area_total_sq_mi = 4.4
|area_land_sq_mi = 4.4
|area_water_sq_mi = 0.0
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|population_as_of = [[United States Census, 2000|2000]]
|population_footnotes =
|population_total = 10546
|population_density_km2 = 930.8
|population_density_sq_mi = 2410.8
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|timezone = [[North American Eastern Time Zone|Eastern (EST)]]
|utc_offset = -5
|timezone_DST = EDT
|utc_offset_DST = -4
|elevation_footnotes =
|elevation_m = 17
|elevation_ft = 56
|latd = 40 |latm = 44 |lats = 50 |latNS = N
|longd = 73 |longm = 22 |longs = 6 |longEW = W
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|postal_code_type = [[ZIP code]]
|postal_code = 11798
|area_code = [[Area code 631|631]]
|blank_name = [[Federal Information Processing Standard|FIPS code]]
|blank_info = 36-83294{{GR|2}}
|blank1_name = [[Geographic Names Information System|GNIS]] feature ID
|blank1_info = 0971769{{GR|3}}
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'''Wyandanch''' is a [[political subdivisions of New York#Hamlet|hamlet]] (and [[census-designated place]]) in [[Suffolk County, New York|Suffolk County]], [[New York]], [[United States]]. The population was 10,546 at the 2000 census.
As a New York City suburb Wyandanch is a community in the [[Babylon (town), New York|Town of Babylon]]. Located within the same exits of [[Lindenhurst, New York|Lindenhurst]], [[Amityville, New York|Amityville]] and [[Huntington, New York|Huntington]].
==History==
Wyandanch and Deer Park evolved out of what was originally known as lower Half Hollows,in the Town of Huntington, which was first settled by Jacob Conklin in 1706 after he purchased land from the Indians. Conklin's "Pirate House," (1710) was the first house built in what became the Town of Babylon. (Babylon separated from the Town of Huntington on March 13, 1872 and the town line was located one mile north of the LIRR track). It was situated on the southern slope of the Half Way Hollow Hills terminal moraine (formed by the melting waters of the last glacier about 20,000 years ago)in what is now known as Wheatley Heights. The historic Conklin homestead was destroyed by fire on December 17, 1918 after being inhabited for 208 years. The area became known as West Deer Park about a decade after the Long Island Railroad's Main Line track to Greenport reached Deer Park in 1842. The original English settlers-the Conklins,the Bartletts, the Seamans, the Browns and the Whitsons-lived on productive farms in Half Hollows located north of Colonial Springs Road and the Old Country Road-Seaman's Road, (now Main Avenue). This section of West Deer Park was more elevated,safer, less fire prone, broad leaf forest land. The Conklin family cemetery and the famous Colonial Spring-flowing out of the hillside- can be seen on the grounds of the USDAN Center for the Performing and Creative Arts-Henry Kaufmann Camp Grounds in Wheatley Heights. One can still look out and view the distant blinking Fire Island Light from the top of the moraine in Wheatley Heights across from the Wheatley Heights Post Office. Colonial Spring water was bottled in small blue "West Deer Park" bottles by the Colonial Springs Mineral Company after 1845. The bottlers claimed it had special medicinal properties. Millions of building bricks were baked at the Walker & Conklin and W.H. and F.A. Bartlett brickyards on the north side of Colonial Springs Road after 1850 using the unique cretaceous clay and fine sand found in the area. The bricks were shipped out by rail using a LIRR spur which ran along North 23rd Street-sometimes called "Bartlett's turnout." In October 1888, Henry H. Palmer's Wyandance Brick and Terra Cotta Corp.(capitalized at $200,000) was organized on the site of the abandoned Walker and Conklin brickyard to produce solid and hollow building bricks.In 1875, the best "hard" Wyandance bricks were selling for $7 per 1,000 delivered. One might wonder why the Deer Park (established about 1853 by Charles Wilson) and West Deer Park railroad stations were located only a mile and a quarter apart? The Long Island Rail Road built the rustic wooden two story 18' x 35' West Deer Park railroad station at the corner of Straight Path and Long Island Avenue in May 1875 at the request of General James J. Casey, a brother-in-law of President U. S. Grant. The 1875 West Deer Park station (demolished in 1958) was the same as the lovely railroad station in St James. The restored St. James station is now the second oldest LIRR station on Long Island. Casey had purchased the 1,100 acre Nathaniel Conklin estate in January 1874 and wanted a station nearer his hillside estate. On August 23, 1875 the West Deer Park Post Office was established within the LIRR railroad depot. The first West Deer Park postmaster was LIRR station agent, Charles W. Conklin, a wheelwright and local farmer. President U. S. Grant toured Casey's "farm" in West Deer Park in late August 1874 after the famous general enjoyed dinner in the renowned Watson House in Babylon village. The original filed real estate map with 3,900 lots in Wyandanch was located near the railroad station and were mapped and sold in the 1872 land boom as "North Breslau" or Schleierville by Charles Schleier, the realtor who developed Breslau, later called Lindenhurst. About 500 lots were sold in the 1870's at prices ranging from $15 to $25 per lot. In the early 1890's, the property south of the Long Island Rail Road and west of Straight Path in Wyandanch was mapped and sold as 25' x 100' "City lots" in Wyandanch Spring Park by Frederick W. Dunton and George E. Hagerman's New York and Brooklyn Suburban Investment Corporation. In April 1903, the historic 1,343 acre Conklin/Casey estate and historic cemetery was sold to Bishop Charles Edward McDonnell of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. Mc Donnell was the second bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese. In the late 19th Century the LIRR operated a squat, round wooden water tank on the west side of Straight Path at Long Island Avenue. The tank stored gravity fed spring water in a two-inch iron pipe 5,300 feet from the Colonial Spring into the LIRR's coal-burning steam engines. West Deer Park was the only LIRR "watering station" on the Main Line between Mineola and the Manor in Brookhaven. The West Deer Park post office was named Wyandance-one of many spellings of the Montaukett sachem's name- from December 20, 1888 until the spring of 1893, when the brickworks was destroyed by fire. The LIRR station at West Deer Park was named Wyandance from December 1888 until June 1892-when it reverted to West Deer Park. On February 11, 1903, the LIRR permanently changed the West Deer Park station name to Wyandanch (another variation of Montaukett's name) to avoid confusion among passengers departing at the West Deer Park and Deer Park stations.On March 8, 1907, the Wyandanch post office was moved from the LIRR depot to Anthony F. Kirchner's General Store and Hotel on Merritt Avenue diagonally across from the LIRR station. Families such as the Watkins, Stacks, Browns and Andersons lived on the north side of the railroad near the depot and the general store/post office. Before 1900, almost no one lived in Wyandanch south of the LIRR tracks and west of Straight Path because the pitch pine and scrub oak Pine Barren forest there was frequently swept by destructive forest fires-many of which were ignited by sparks and burning embers from the LIRR's coal burning engines. About a hundred German and Austrian families lived in Sheet Nine of the City of Breslau in what is now the Pinelawn Industrial Park section of Wyandanch between Otis Street and Wellwood Avenue and between Grunthal Avenue (now Edison Avenue( and Grunwedel Avenue) now Patton Avenue. Many members of these families-such as the Neumanns, Arfstens, the Mitzlaffs and the Langs- were skilled workers and servants on the nearby 1,000 acre August Belmont estate and horse breeding farm (1865) at Belmont Lake in North Babylon.
The main roads in West Deer Park in the horse and carriage era were: Little East Neck Road, Straight Path, Belmont Road (now Mount Avenue),Colonial Springs Road and the Old Country Road-Kings Highway (Main Avenue from South 28th Street to Straight Path). A section of William K. Vanderbilt's Long Island Motor Parkway toll road (1908)- introducing the automobile era to the area- ran through Wyandanch with concrete overpass bridges crossing Little East Neck Road and Colonial Springs Road (across from the Wheatley Heights Post Office) until the parkway was dug up in the late 1950's for the Westwood Village housing estate in Wheatley Heights. Vanderbilt's "Castle" estate and mansion in Wheatley Heights- with its famous "Black Tower"- between Burr's Lane and Bagatelle Road is now the campus of the Sisters of Good Shepard's Madonna Heights School. Dr. Herman Baruch, financier Bernard Baruch's brother, later improved the Vanderbilt estate and named it "Bagatelle." Baruch also developed the famous Bagatelle Nursery-where the Koster Blue spruce tree was developed by Peter M. Koster, a resident of Wyandanch, who died in 1944. The large and varied upscale nursery stock of the Bagetelle Nursery was shipped in and out by rail from a siding just west of the Wyandanch railroad station. Thus, working class Wyandanch was sandwiched in between the wealthy estates of plutocrats such as the Belmonts, the Corbins and the Guggenhiems in North Babylon and the Vanderbilts and the Baruchs in Wheatley Heights. What is now known as Wheatley Heights was mapped out as real estate sub-divisions of Wyandanch (including Wheatley Heights Estates and Harlem Park, 1892) by Bellerose developer, William Geiger, (as in Geiger Lake park and pool) in 1913 following the development of the the Long Island Motor Parkway. The filed lot sub-divisions south of the LIRR and east of Straight Path was known as the Colonial Springs Development Corp. These lots ran from Straight Path to the Carll's River. Peaches, poultry and cucumbers were the most productive West Deer Park farm products. The earliest homes in Wyandanch south of the LIRR track were built by German-Americans such as the Herman Donner and N. Austin families on Upper Belmont Road (now Mount Avenue) just south of Straight Path in the late 1880's, and by the Prohaska, Heisman, Wilson, Moore and Avolin families on the east side of Straight Path just south of Mount Avenue between 1901 and 1915. Numerous individuals were killed in accidents involving crashes with Long Island Rail Road trains-especially the "Cannonball" express trains from Greenport- at the unguarded grade-level rail crossings at Straight Path, 18th Street and Little East Neck Road in Wyandanch.In 1934 the Public Service Commission (PSC) ordered the LIRR to provide crossing guards at the 18th Street and Straight Path crossings during school hours on school days so the school children living north of the LIRR could walk safely to the 1913 school house at 20th Steet The oldest home in Wyandanch today is the Henry Amherst Brown home "Tranquillity"(ca 1865) on the north side of Main Avenue at Linden Street. Henry A. Brown, a Justice of the Peace, lived in Wyandanch for 77 years and was the only Wyandanch resident ever to serve as supevisor of the Town of Babylon, 1912-13, after the death of supervisor Edward Daily. Wyandanch south of Main Avenue was part of the Deer Park School District # 7 until the Wyandanch Union Free District #9 separated from Deer Park in 1923. The Deer Park school district built a two-story wood frame elementary school in Wyandanch in 1913 at Straight Path and South 20th Street following protests by Wyandanch residents that traveling back and forth to the Deer Park school was too difficult and to fulfill the progressive impulse to bring education "within reach of all." There is some evidence that Deer Park operated a school in the Wyandanch Athletic Club at Straight Path and Grand Boulevard and in a home in Sheet Nine before 1913. The children of families living north of Main Avenue-Colonial Springs Road attended school in the Half Hollow District # 8 school on Straight Path just north of the Babylon Town line. The Town of Babylon created Wyandanch Park on the east side of Belmont Road (Mount Avenue) and Parkway Boulevard in 1915 and established a baseball field there in 1937. Between 1900 and 1940 the dominant ethnic group in Wyandanch were German-Americans and Austrian-Americans with families such as the: Hasslachers, Griems, Becks, Vogels, Laegans, Luthers, Roelafs, Krauses, Nyholms, Schnieders and Prussners living in the community. Brosl Hasslacher opened the Chateau Lodge (later the popular Chateau Restaurant) off Conklin Street in the Carinthia Heights section of Wyandanch in 1940. Beginning in the 1920's and extending into the 1930's, intrepid settlers began building small homes in the dangerous pine barrens bounded by Straight Path, Long Island Avenue and Little East Neck Road. John Douglas Sr. amd John Douglas, Jr. built the first house in the dangerous Wyandanch pine barrens in 1923 west of Straight Path at the southeast corner of South 29th Street and Jamaica Avenue. Soon after, George Wood, an African American veteran of World War I, built a house on South 29th Street just south of the Douglas home. Irish-American families such as the McGintys, the Mc Glincheys, the Mc Gunniness', the Hardings and the Bonners joined Douglas and Wood and literally built their own modest bungalows on property they had purchased in the 1920's land bubble in Wyandanch Spring Park or in Harry Levey's Home Acres between Brooklyn Avenue and Patton Avenue. The Douglas' built their home with lumber purchased from Charles Watkins Lumber Yard on Long Island Avenue between Straight Path and 18th Street. The newcomers wanted to get away from the crowded depressed conditions of the city and enjoy the fresh pine air and privacy of rural Wyandanch, yet be within a hour of Manhattan by railroad. The most prominent Irish-American families in Wyandanch, the Mc McMahans,the Harrigans, the O'Briens and the Donahues lived closer to the "village." Catherine "Kitty" Mc Mahan was postmaster in Wyandanch for many years. On the south side of the triangle, pioneering African-American families such as the Davidsons, Cumberbachs, Farias, Browns, Youngs, and Hesters also began building their own homes-to fulfill the African-American dream of having their own land, farms and homes- on property in the Upper Little Farms section south of Grunwedel Avenue (now Patton Avenue) they had purchased in the 1920's, originally from Herman E. Hagedorn, a Rockland County realtor who had a falling out with Harry Levey, and later from Ignatius Davidson, a pioneering Black businessman in Suffolk County. Ignatius Davidson and Mortimer Cumberbach opened their pathfinding C and D Cement Block Corp. on Booker Avenue at Straight Path on December 6, 1928. Other, African-American families such as the Greens, the Gordons, the Colemans and the Matthews' bought sizable plots of land and built their own individual homes in the "Little Farms" section of West Babylon between Little East Neck Road and Straight Path in the late 1920's well before the Southern State Parkway reached Wyandanch in 1941. Elizabeth "Betty" Green Mountain, who lived on Gordon Avenue and Little East Neck Road, pioneered African-Americans studying at the State Institute of Applied Agriculture- now SUNY Farmingdale- when she was the first African American to graduate from the school (1940). There would not be another African-American graduate at SUNY- Farmingdale for at least twenty-five years. When August Belmont II died in 1925, his widow, philantrophist Eleanor Robson Belmont, a leading lady of the American theatre and a grand dame of the Metropolitan Opera, donated a sturdy building on the Belmont estate - the only surviving part of the original Belmont mansion (1865)- as a Community Clubhouse for the African-Americans in Wyandanch. The building still exists and is located at the "Five Corners," at the intersection of Little East Neck Road and Straight Path. With the increased home building south of Long Island Avenue, and the need for fire protection throughout Wyandanch, Edwin Mason and John Prohaska organized the Wyandanch Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. in 1925 to protect the lives and property of community residents from the all-too-present danger of ferocious fires. The Wyandanch Fire Department was incorporated by the Town of Babylon on May 18, 1928. The original two-truck, wood-frame, stucco-covered firehouse was built in 1929 on land on Straight Path between South 17th and 18th Streets donated by realtor, Harry Levey. Many of the larger forest fires were extinguished with the help of Army troops stationed at Republic Aviation or tented at summer camp on farmland north of the US National Cemeter or by Long Island Lighting Company and New York Telephone Company workmen. The Long Island Lighting Company provided the first electric service to Wyandanch in December 1928 meaning that houses in the community could replace oil or kerosene lamps with electric lights. Electricity also meant families could replace pitcher water pumps with electrically-driven water pumps. Each homeowner had to drill their own water well or have one drilled. The "points" at the bottom of the wells clogged every eight to ten years due to the very "hard" water and had to be laboriously replaced. Homeowners had to pay to have electric and telephone lines strung to their homes. This meant paying for the utility poles as well. Telephone service with the Midland 3 exchange became commonplace in Wyandanch in the 1940's. Property owners who wished to build homes in Wyandanch often had to pay to have the "roads" opened to their property. Many of these unpaved roads became muddy bogs with the spring rains since the Town of Babylon refused to accept responsibility for paving and maintaining what it called "paper streets" in "cheap lot" sub-divisions. A LILCO natural gas line ran along Long Island Avenue as early as the 1920's. In the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's Italian-American families such as the Mazzas, the Tafuris, the Barillas, the Ardizones, the Messinas, the Cioffis, the Russos, the Taglieris, the Sommeses, the Frangapanis, and the Guidos moved into Wyandanch. In the 1930's and 1940's most businesses in Wyandanch were owned and operated by German-Americans or Italian-Americans. The Conservative (propane) Gas Company was established on North 18th Street in 1929 and had its own rail siding. The Italian-Americans, the Irish-Americans and the Catholic German-Americans tired of taking buses on Sundays to attend masses in St. Kilian's Roman Catholic Church in Farmingdale and asked the Most Right Rev. Bishop Thomas E. Molloy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn to establish a parish and church in Wyandanch. The first Catholic Mass was celebrated in Wyandanch in June 1932 in Harry Levey's real estate building (formerly the Wyandanch Athletic Club) on Long Island Avenue and Grand Boulevard by Father Ernest Fries of the Benedictine Fathers in Farmingdale. Only 29 of the 57 original parshioners were year round residents. This underscored the fact that in the 1920's and 1930's many of the houses in Wyandanch were "summer bungalows" and usually occupied only on week-ends in bthe warmer months. In November 1934, newly appointed Father Steven A. Cuddeback celebrated the Catholic Mass in the Community Hall Restaurant on Straight Path at Belmont Road. Within two years, the dynamic Father Cuddeback organized the planning and fund-raising which resulted in the opening of the Little Mission Chapel of the Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic parish in Wyandanch at Levey Boulevard and Straight Path on June 28, 1936 on land purchased from Harry Levey. An adjacent Parish Hall was erected in 1941. In June 1937, Protestants in Wyandanch of German, Austrian and Scandanavian ancestry opened the Trinty Evangelical Lutheran Church on South 20th Street and Jamaica Avenue on property donated by Mrs. Clara Olsen with the Rev. Frederick E. Pruess serving as pastor. Lutherans in Wyandanch had held services in the Wyandanch Republican Hall on Merritt Avenue since 1932 where the Wyandanch-Wheatley Heights Ambulance building now stands. On November 17, 1937 the modern one story red-brick $120,000 Wyandanch Elementary School opened for classes on Straight Path across the street for the Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic Church and along side the Town of Babylon Highway Department sand pit and debris dump. $54,000 of the construction cost was provided by the New Deal's Public Works Authority (PWA). The school had seven classrooms and 280 pupils as well as an auditorium which sat 400 people. The principal was Jesse K. Chichester, Jr. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administation (WPA) financed the laying of sidewalks on the east side of Straight Path so school children could walk safely to school. In February 1937 private bus service was established between Wyandanch and Lindenhust. The 1913 Wyandanch School was purchased by the Wyandanch Post 2912 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)and used as its headquarters. The first polling place in Wyandanch was established in the Wyandanch Fire House for the 1932 presidential election. Previous to the Great Depression, Wyandanch trended Republican politically but the community was solidly Democratic after 1932 with FDR defeating Alf Landon there in 1936 by a 318-200 vote. Law and order was maintained in Wyandanch by Troop L of the New York State Police, which had their headquarters at Belmont Lake State Park in North Babylon. The State troopers had a Pistol Range on a hillside in what is now Wheatley Heights. There were stores and businesses in Wyandanch such as Anthony Tafuri's liquor store and service station, Joseph Bulin's Eagle Meat Market, Tom Ardizone's Italian-American Grocery, Emil Moeller's Grocery, John Barilla's Lumber Yard and Charles Watkins Lumber Yard, but Wyandanch residents shopped primarily in Farmingdale, Lindenhurst and Bay Shore villages and to a lesser extent in Babylon, Amityville or Huntington. Most shopping was done on Friday night or Saturday. Shopping malls did not exist before the late 1950's. Some rode the LIRR to shop in Jamaica or on 34th Street in Manhattan near Penn Station (Macy's especially. The larger purchases were delivered by United Parcel. Residents went to hospitals in Huntington and Bay Shore,and visted doctors and dentists in Farmingdale, Lindenhurst, Amityville or Huntington. Other than the churches, the Wyandanch Bar and Grill (across from the railroad station), the Community Hall (at Straight Path and Mount Avenue)and the VFW Hall at S. 20th Street and Straight Path were spirited social centers for whites-especially after Prohibition ended- and the Wyandanch Colored Community Club (as it was known in the 1930's) at the Five Corners was the main social center for African-Americans in Wyandanch. 1941 was a historic year for transportation in Wyandanch. On January 6, 1941 the main highway from Wyandanch to "The City," Route 24-Hempstead Turnpike was blocked at the rapidly expanding Republic Aviation factory at Broad Hollow Road (Route 110) and Conklin Street in East Farmingdale severing auto traffic into Wyandanch via Long Island Avenue and limiting economic development along Long Island Avenue in Wyandanch. Conklin Street would not be reopened until 1965. Later in 1941, however, Robert Moses' ultra-modern Southern State Parkway was opened to Straight Path (Exit 36) in West Babylon. The opening of the Southern State Parkway made the African-American community in Little Farms in southern Wyandanch less isolated and more accessible to future settlers. African Americans in Wyandanch had much social interaction with the older, more established, North Amityville African-American community- mainly attending church services there. White and black youngsters went to school together in the Wyandanch Grade School but otherwise lived in mostly separate social spheres. The massive expansion of Republic Aviation, Grumman, Ranger Engine and Liberty in Farmingdale-Bethpage before the U.S. entered World War II, and during the war, provided greatly expanded job opportunities for Wyandanch residents. The testing of airplanes by Grumman 1932-37 and by Seversky-Republic 1935- and by the U.S. Army Air Corps lead to several spectacular airplane crashes in Wyandanch. The most famous was the collision of two Curtiss P-40 fighters over Wyandanch on February 6, 1941, which killed an army pilot. One plane crashed on Main Avenue, the other came to earth on Long Island Avenue near Little East Neck Road.On July 20, 1943,W.J. Forrest, Brosel Hasslacher, Harry Roalef and Mrs. J. B. Smith saved a badly burned Army fighter pilot whose plane had crashed west of Conklin Street and south of the Motor Parkway. They suffered burns and lacerations as they used axes to cut the injured pilot out of his downed and flaming plane. Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) order and the wartime labor needs of the airplane factories opened job opportunities for African-Americans and women in Wyandanch-West Babylon. Other Wyandanch residents worked in Pilgrim State or Central Islip State Hospitals, at the American Field of Honor, the U.S. National Cemetery in Pinelawn, which opened in 1938, or at the other cemeteries in Pinelawn: St. Charles, New Montefiore, Wellwood , Mount Ararat Cemetery or Pinelawn Memorial Park. Most, however, worked in skilled laboring trades, such as: plumbing, carpentering, painting, or as masons, roofers or mechanics. Most women did not work for wages outside the home but were preoccupied with traditional child rearing and homemaking. For recreation, there was swimming in Wyandanch Lake in the summer and skating in winter. Hunting in the hills and picnics and baseball games in Wyandanch Park and Belmont Lake State Park were popular. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in Wyandanch hiked and camped and cooked out overnight in the hills in Wyandanch during the summer months. Bay and surf fishing in the Great South Bay and on the barrier beaches were also popular. Most residents reached the Fire Island State Park by taking the ferry from Babylon village dock. Others drove to Jones Beach State Park via the Southern State Parkway and the Wantagh Parkway. The population of Wyandanch increased during the Great Depression of the 1930's as people left the more expensive "City" and lived without rent and with low property taxes in Wyandanch. Wyandanch was a very small community in 1941, yet 201 men and women from Wyandanch served in U.S. armed forces during World War II. Three, William M. Farley, Edward H. Green and Mary Isanzaniro, died serving their country during the war. At least one Wyandanch resident, Pfc. Leif Jahnsen, was held as a prisoner of war by the Germans on December 16, 1944. The job boom at the nearby aviation factories in Farmingdale-Bethpage (Republic, Ranger, Liberty and Grumman)-accessible by train- for those who could not drive due to wartime rationing of gasoline and tires- lifted Wyandanch out of the Depression and attracted defense workers to the community who wanted to live inexpensively be near their jobs. In the 1930's and 1940's, other pioneering families such as: the Zotters, the Cookes, the Robertsons, the Dannemeyers, the Mingins, the Burgans, the Krauses, the Prokopiaks, the Lords, the Gregorys, the Martins, the Carlsons, the Conns, the Wards, the Leas and the Spadys joined the Irish-American pioneers in the dangerous pine barrens in Wyandanch Springs Park west of Straight Path and S. 18th Street. Other families in Wyandanch in the 1930's were: the Lyons, the Frieds and the Ryders. After World War II the population of Wyandanch grew slowly but steadily on a house by house basis because most of the community had been divided into small lots by realtors in the 1870's, 1890's and 1920's and large plots of land were difficult to assemble for large sub-divisions. The increased school population necessitated adding lower grade classrooms (Grades 1-5) and a gymnasium to the Wyandanch Elementary School. The new facilities were opened in September 1949. As World War II ended, Town of Babylon officials tried but failed to have Conklin Street at Republic Aviation re-opened the general public. The US Navy had built an airplane engine factory in the Conklin Street roadbed for Ranger Engine, a subsidiary of Fairchild in 1942. Babylon's request that the US Government pay for a by-pass around Republic-Ranger was rejected by Washington. In May 1945, Babylon Town officials first looked at a 20-acre site in the middle of Sheet Nine in Wyandanch between Grunthal (Edison) and Grunwedel (Patton) Avenues as a possible location for the town incinerator and ash dump Babylon was contemplating after Lindenhurst residents rejected the future Babylon incinerator being located at Sunrise Highway and the LIRR crossing in North Lindenhurst. Just before the town wide referendum on the incinerator in November 1945, residents in Sheet Nine and in Wyandanch fruitlessly objected to the proposed incinerator claiming it would attract rats, generate smoke and odors and depreciate property values. They were assured by Babylon officials that the "modern" facility would be odorless, that the ash would be trucked away and no outdoor dumping of garbage would be allowed. The $125,00 incinerator was appproved by voters in November 1945. In April 1946, Babylon awarded a $104,000 contract to the Nichols Engineering and Research Corp. of New York to build the incinerator. In July 1945, the Town of Babylon decided to obtain permission from the owners of Geiger Lake (Wheatley Heights Estate, Inc.) on Grand Boulevard between Wyandanch and Deer Park and develop it as a protected lake beach. Previously, Wyandanch younsters had to pay 15 cents for a bus to Lindenhurst and then walk two or three miles to Babylon's Venetian Shores Beach park. In the spring of 1946, Wyandanch and West Babylon residents were pressuring the Town of Babylon to assume responsibility for paving and maintaining the miles of "private" roads in the unincorporated sections of Babylon Town. Homeowners claimed the streets were muddy and frequently impassable when the Spring thaws and heavy rain sets in. They said their children could not get to school and that doctors visits, fire protection and food deliveries were sometimes impossible. In the late 1940's and early 1950's Dr. Leon Schultz and Dr. Patrick Salatto had medical offices in Wyandanch. In the mid-1940's residents in isolated Wyandanch had milk and dairy products delivered by the Evans Dairy, bread and cakes by the Duggan Bakers, and eggs and chickens by Rudy Hoegner. Cars often had to be pulled out of the muddy bogs in the numerous unimproved road by Town Highway Department machinery. Babylon replied that existing law would not allow the town to spend money on the umimproved roads and said residents would have to pay for their own improvements. In July 1946, the Wyandanch Taxpayers Association filed a lawsuit in Supreme Court in Riverhead to force the Town of Babylon to take responsibility for improvements to "many poorly constructed development roads." The six streets which assistance were called for were: S. 29th Street, Jamaica Avenue, Lake Drive, Bedford Street, Irving Avenue and State Street. Later, 10 additional streets and roads in Wyandanch were added to the petition.In September 1946, a State Supreme Court Justice dismissed the Wyandanch residents request that Babylon assume responsibity for maintenance of unimproved roads in Wyandanch. In October, the Wyandanch residents decided to appeal the Supreme Court decision to the Appelate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. In 1946, Andrew and Jack King of 24th Street and Long Island Avenue sought permission from the Town of Babylon to establish their Kings Hardware business. Ignatius Davidson also sought permission for a re-zoning to allow him to erect a modern C & D cement block factory at Booker Avenue and Straight Path where he and Mortimer Cumberbach had been making concrete blocks since 1928. Industrialization started in Wyandanch in October 1947 when the James F. Walsh Paper Corp. purchased 54 acres east of Straight Path and along the LIRR from the Anderson and Watkins families for a paper mill. The mill was expected to employ 500 workers and make plastic impregnated paper. Watkins and Geiger owned all the property from Straight Path to the Carll's River and from Acorn Street to Nichols Road. In October 1949, Dr. Herman Baruch, the former Ambassador to the Netherlands and former director of the Texas Gulf Sulpher Company, was married to Anne Maria Baroness MacKay at Bagatelle, Dr. Baruch's country home on Burr's Lane in Wyandanch. The bride was the daughter of Dirk Rynhard Johan Baron MacKay of The Hague, the Netherlands. One of the attractions in Wyandanch in the late 1940's was the Carusos family 14-acre Blueberry Farm in the rich boggy soils of the Wyandanch side of the Carll's River behind the Wyandanch Park. In March 1951 the Fairchild Guided Missiles Division broke ground for a $1,750,000, one-story, 155,000 square foot factory on the east side of Straight Path north of the LIRR. With the prospects of 1,000 workers at Fairchild Guided Missiles, civic leaders in Wyandanch pressured the Public Service Commission to have the LIRR install flashing lights and safety gates at the dangerous rail crossings at 18th Street and at Straight Path.During the suburban building boom of the 1950's demand was great for high quality sand and gravel for concrete. Thus, strip sand miners began digging into the hillsides of the Wheatley Heights terminal moraine to easily mine fine sand and stone. Constant streams of heavy trucks roared along 18th Street and Straight Path endangering residents-especially the children. Led by the forceful Hermann Griem of the Wheatley Heights Civic Association, mothers in Wyandanch organized baby carriage brigades and blocked the sand trucks in an effort to have the Town of Babylon regulate strip sand mining in the hills. Entire hills were removed by the strip miners before these practices were brought under control. The miners never restored the scarred hillsides. The LIRR installed the lights and gates at a cost of $35,000. Workers at the Fairchild Guided Missiles factory in Wyandanch built the Lark anti-aircraft missile for the US Navy. Also in March 1951, Taca Homes offered four-room homes for sale on a "non-racial" basis at the Carver Park development at Straight Path and Booker Avenue in Wyandanch. This property was one of the very few large enough for a major housing development. The homes with basement, hot-water heat and tile baths sold for $7,290 and were eligible for Federal Housing Administration loan insurance. By June 1952 builder Henry Taca was erecting 183 homes in the second section of Carver Park. The building of Carver Park and Lincoln Park housing development on Parkway Boulevard between Straight Path and Mount Avenue in 1956 triggered the transformation of Wyandanch from a mostly white community in 1952 to a mostly African-American community in 1960. Many of the whites who lived south of the LIRR moved away and lower middle class African-American families bought individual custom built homes in Wyandanch Springs Park and in the "Tree streets" area east of Straight Path. Upwardly mobile African-American families such as the Boxhills, Edwards, Levis, Williams, Allaways, Hicks, Megginsons, Colemans, Punters, Smiths, Jarmonds and Taylors established homes in the Triangle area of Wyandanch in the late 1940's and 1950's. Many of these families purchased homes in Wyandanch because they were denied opportunities to move into other fast developing housing tracts on Long Island-such as Levittown due to exclusionist real estate practices. The Wyandanch School Board opened the Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School on Mount Avenue in 1956-perhaps the first so named on Long Island- to make room for the increased school enrollment. Where Wyandanch had 386 students and 34 teachers in Grades 1-8 in 1950-1, there were 1002 students and 34 teachers in 1957-8. In 1954, developer Max Staller built a shopping center with a Blue Jay Supermarket, a Security National Bank office, a tavern, a luncheonette and a dry cleaning establishment on the north side of the LIRR at Straight Path and Acorn Street. In 1955, Wyandanch voters rejected a proposal to consolidate Wyandanch into the Half Hollow Hills and Deer Park school disticts. In the late 1950's. "North Wyandanch" above the LIRR track was still predominantly white and the stores on Merritt Avenue and Straight Path were mostly white owned. Dr. Mallie Taylor, dentist Dr. Henry Dunbar and pharamist George Greenlee were Arican-Americans who established professional medical offices and Greenlee's Drug Store on Straight Path in the 1950's and serviced black and white patients and customers. In 1956-7 the Babylon Town Highway Department enlarged Geiger Lake on the Wyandanch side to allow additional swimmers. In June 1958, the LIRR demolished the 1875 Wyandanch railroad station and replaced it with a non-descript concrete block depot on Long Island Avenue about 500 feet west of the 1875 station. The New York Times reported that the Wyandanch railroad station "had been used as the setting for several Western motion pictures in the pre-Hollywood era. In August 1958, the Wyandanch Board of Education led by board president Charles Moeller (who owned a deli on Straight Path at Mount Avenue) began planning the development of a Junior-Senior High School for Wyandanch, which was scheduled to open in September 1961. The School District obtained ten acres between South 32nd Street and Little East Neck Road and between Garden City Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue by condemnation for the high school and its athletic fields. Previously, graduates of the Wyandanch Grade School had attended high school in Lindenhurst, Amityville, West Babylon and Hauppauge. In October 1966 the $1.3 million, 29-room, Milton L. Olive Elemetary School was opened at Garden City Avenue and South 37th Street with 870 pupils. The school was named for Milton L. Olive, a 19-year old Private First Class in the US. Army from Chicago, who gave his life in Vietnam on October 22, 1965 to save four of his comrades. James Ellison, an African-American realtor in Wyandanch and a veteran of the US Army, suggested that the Board of Education name the new school in honor of Pfc. Olive because Private Olive "had given his life to save fellow soldiers, without worrying about their race, creed or color." 70% of the students in the Wyandanch School District were African-American in 1966
Renowned rapper [[Rakim]] was born and raised in Wyandanch.
Wyandanch also was home to George Cooper, a star running back for the Wyandanch Warriors and later the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Also the home and origin of B.D.M
==Geography==
Wyandanch is located at {{coor dms|40|44|50|N|73|22|6|W|city}} (40.747098, -73.368275){{GR|1}}.
According to the [[United States Census Bureau]], the CDP has a total area of 4.4 [[square mile]]s (11.3 [.. [km²]]), all land.
Formerly known as Half Way Hollow Hills, West Deer Park, (1875) and Wyandance, (1888) the area of scrub and pitch pine barrens south of the southern slope of Half Hollow terminal moraine was named Wyandanch by the LIRR and the US Post Office in 1903 to honor the sachem of the Montaukett Native American tribe, who deeded much of Suffolk to the English. Historic Wyandanch was bounded by the Huntington Town line on the north, the Carll's River on the east, the Southern State Parkway (1941) on the south and Wellwood Avenue and Little East Neck Road on the west. Topographically, Wyandanch's loam and sandy soils are part of the outwash plain which was formed as the last glacier melted about 20,000 years ago. The plain slopes gently towards Belmont Lake State Park from the Half Way Hollow Hills terminal moraine (the edge of the debris left when the glacier melted)and from Little East Neck Road. The lower land in Wyandanch extends east diagionally from North 22nd Street and presents drainage problems in the area from South 23rd Street to the Carll's Creek where the water table is very close to the surface. Unfortunately, Wyandanch does not have sewers. In the mid and late 20th Century, the Wheatley Heights area (Half Hollow Hills School District) developed as a separate community but is still served by the Wyandanch Fire Department, Inc. Much of the Pinelawn Industrial Park is now thought of as West Babylon or East Farmingdale although a significant portion of this area is included in the Wyandanch School District.
Wyandanch also boasts one of the most successful high school basketball programs in New York State. The Warriors are a consistent competitive force throughout Long Island and upstate New York.
==Demographics==
As of the [[census]]{{GR|2}} of 2000, there were 10,546 people, 2,525 households, and 2,113 families residing in the CDP. The [[population density]] was 2,410.8 per square mile (931.8/km²). There were 2,776 housing units at an average density of 634.6/sq mi (245.3/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 3.9% [[White (U.S. Census)|White]], 77.7% [[African American (U.S. Census)|African American]], 0.01% [[Native American (U.S. Census)|Native American]], 0.01% [[Asian (U.S. Census)|Asian]], 0.01% [[Pacific Islander (U.S. Census)|Pacific Islander]], 6.26% from [[Race (United States Census)|other races]], and 4% from two or more races. [[Hispanic (U.S. Census)|Hispanic]] or [[Latino (U.S. Census)|Latino]] of any race were 16.35% of the population.
There were 2,525 households out of which 46.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.7% were [[Marriage|married couples]] living together, 35.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 16% were non-families. 11.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 4.14 and the average family size was 4.25.
In the CDP the population was spread out with 35.6% under the age of 18, 10.5% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 6.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females there were 89 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $40,664, and the median income for a family was $41,857. Males had a median income of $29,344 versus $26,831 for females. The [[per capita income]] for the CDP was $13,153. About 13.4% of families and 16.4% of the population were below the [[poverty line]], including 16.8% of those under age 18 and 19.5% of those age 65 or over.
==References==
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==External links==
{{Mapit-US-cityscale|40.747098|-73.368275}}
{{BabylonNY}}
[[Category:Babylon (town), New York]]
[[Category:Census-designated places in New York]]
[[Category:Hamlets in New York]]
[[Category:United States communities with African American majority populations]]
[[vo:Wyandanch]]