Syosset Scrapbook Part Eleven

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Left, Westbury High School, under construction, 1935
(Edward J. Smits, Nassau Suburbia, USA, Friends of the Nassau
County Museum, Syosset, New York 11791, 1974)
Right, Carle Place High School

Syosset students attended other high schools, including the five above, before
Syosset High School opened in 1956.

Play performed at Hicksville High School, c. 1932
From left, Stella Nowak (5th), Nellie Nowak (17th)
Other students from Syosset are in the cast.
(photo courtesy of Stella Nowak Berg)

Mildred Knettel of Syosset graduated from Hicksville High School in 1933.
(from Mildred Knettel Vanstane's album,
image courtesy of Diane Vanstane Oley)

Senior Class Hicksville 1933
Class picture at Mount Vernon
Mildred Knettel is in 2nd row, 6th from right.
Her classmates autographed the back.
Note all the girls wore hats and some of the boys held walking sticks.
[Scroll down and side-to-side.
If you are using Internet Explorer's Automatic Image Resizing, click the Automatic Image Resizing icon in the lower-right corner
of the picture, which will expand it so you can see the detail.]
(image courtesy of Diane Vanstane Oley)

Charles Ferri of Syosset
in his classroom at Hicksville High School c. early '80s
Mr. Ferri taught Chemistry there for many years.
(images courtesy of Stephanie Ferri Green)

Raymond Burckley's retirement c. 1979
Mr. Burckley of Syosset (left and far right) taught at Hicksville High School for many years.
(images courtesy of Stephanie Ferri Green)

Guckenberger's Luncheonette menu, Hicksville, c. 1935
Memento from Mary Wencko of Syosset's first real date.
(image courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

Oyster Bay High School Commencement Program
June 28, 1949
Graduate John Alfred Pennington is the grandson of Charles Alfred VanSise, Syosset's postmaster 1892-1896 and 1905-1927.

Left, St. Dominic's R.C. Church and Parsonage in Oyster Bay
Center and right, St. Dominic's Church, c. 1911 and 2004
Before St. Edward's was built, many Syosset Catholics attended St. Dominic's.

Florence Wencko's Senior Prom ticket, May 20, 1936
$1.00 per couple.
(image courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

Left, invitation to the Commencement Exercises of Saint Dominic's High School, June 26, 1936
Right, Gordon McAuliffe, graduate
(images courtesy of Maureen McAuliffe Smith)

St. Dominic's Third Grade 1949-50
One Teaching Sister to 64 Students.
Syosset students: Middle row, Norris Miller (2nd), Maureen Hakker (5th), Marjorie Langa (7th), Florence M. Kwiatkowski (16th);
Top row: Chucky Martin (end of row)
(image courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

Intersection of Routes 25A and 106 in East Norwich,
before and after the street widening in 1964
While this caused the destruction of an historic general store,
Rothmann's restaurant (1907) on the right was spared.
(April 8, 1966 news clipping courtesy of Diane Oley)

Ad for the Camelot Restaurant at the Pickwick Motor Inn, c. 1974
"DINNER FOR TWO—$4.44"
"JACKETS FOR MEN, DRESSES FOR LADIES"

1970 scenes from Smiley's Happyland in Bethpage
(aka Nunley's, aka Jolly Rogers)
Hempstead Turnpike and Hicksville Road
Left and Right, Vincent Ferri on a ride and on the merry-go-round
Center, the organ
(images courtesy of Stephanie Ferri Green)

Mid-Island Plaza, Hicksville, 1957
(photos courtesy of The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection:
left, LC-G613-71033; right, LC-G613-71035)

Aerial view of Mid-Island Plaza, Hicksville, c. '70s
(August Viemeister, An Architectural Journey through Long Island,
Kennikat Press Corp., Port Washington, N.Y./London, 1974)

The tugboat Syosset, locations unknown
(image on left, from the website, "TugBoats: From my time in the Industry")
"Beginning in the 1880s, freight cars were floated across New York Harbor between riverside railroad terminals in New Jersey and Long Island, ending the expensive and time-consuming process of transferring freight from railroad cars to barges and back to cars at the other end. All of the railroads involved soon acquired their own tugboats and carfloats. In 1899, the L.I.R.R. purchased its first steel-hulled tug, the Syosset, from Cramp's Shipyard in Philadelphia...."
text from THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD in Early Photographs,
Ron Ziel, 1990, Dover, page 87

"Water-Cure at Syosset, L.I."
This July 7, 1847 letter published in the New-York Daily Tribune (July 19,1847) extols Dr. Joel Shew's hydropathic cure and the charming village of Syosset with its exhilarating springs (and ladies).
"Syosset" is really the hamlet of Oyster Bay which was called Syosset between 1845 and 1848.
(If you are using Internet Explorer's Automatic Image Resizing, click the Automatic Image Resizing icon in the lower-right corner of the picture, which will expand it and you can scroll to see the detail.)

Left, the entrance to Sagamore Hill (pre-1915 postcard)
Right, the Roosevelt Memorial Birdbath Fountain

President Theodore Roosevelt is greeted by a huge crowd in Oyster Bay upon his triumphal return from his expedition to the heart of the Amazon basin in 1914.
(Candice Millard, The River of Doubt : Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, Bantam Dell Pub Group, 2005)

Film clip of the Prince of Wales placing a laurel wreath on TR's grave, Nov. 21, 1919
View using Internet Explorer. If you see an X instead of the video, click on it.
(Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recording Sound Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)

Program for the exercises on the first day of issue of the commemorative postage stamp honoring Sagamore Hill, September 14, 1953
The address was given by Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey (1882-1959);
Syosset lawyer Benjamin Zipper was on the Commemorative Stamp Committee.

Left and center, the Fish Hatchery in 1930s, Cold Spring Harbor
Right, Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum (courtesy of the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum)

St. John's Episcopal Church on Route 25A, Cold Spring Harbor
(photo on right, August Viemeister, An Architectural Journey through Long Island,
Kennikat Press Corp., Port Washington, N.Y./London, 1974)

Loggia from Laurelton Hall, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, ca. 1905
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933)
American Limestone, ceramic, Favrile glass, 21 x 23 ft. (640 x 701 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Gift of Jeanette Genius McKean and Hugh Ferguson McKean, in memory of Charles Hosmer Morse, 1978 (1978.10.1)
(www.metmuseum.org)

Tiffany Foundation artist, 1937
"In 1918 Tiffany established a foundation to which he deeded Laurelton Hall with the aim of establishing a program to nurture young artistic talent. Not intended as a place for technical instruction, Laurelton Hall was a haven for fostering creative freedom."
(text from www.metmuseum.org)

Vintage postcard from the Eugenics Records Office of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The postcard contained a request for a copy of a schedule—"Record of Family Traits"— that the ERO used to document these traits..
From 1910 to 1940, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory housed this infamous and discredited office which had become a major advocate of eugenic sterilization in the United States. The Carnegie Institution ordered it to stop its efforts in 1939, and withdrew funding for it.

Letterhead and signature of Alfred D. Hershey
His discoveries involving viral DNA at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the early '50s won him the Nobel prize in 1969.
Although his letterhead reads "Syosset", the address actually is in Laurel Hollow, which uses the Syosset post office.

Home of Mrs. E. F. Hutton
Hickory Lane, Laurel Hollow, June 26, 1967
(photos courtesy of The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection,
clockwise from top left: Exterior, LC-G613-81347; Exterior of porch, LC-G613-81327; Hall, LC-G613-81342; Library, LC-G613-81343)

Laurel Hollow
Left, Bus Lambertson and daughter Helen, 1937;
center, Don and Bob Boslet, 1937;
right, c. 1956

Boslet's service station, Jericho Turnpike, Ellwood, L.I., c. 1937
Clockwise from top left: pumps, car and trailer;
view of station; Bob Boslet; Joe Boslet, unidentified and Don Boslet

Andrew Wencko kept his home in Syosset but he also had a farm in Huntington from 1941 to 1945, where he died.
Above is a 1941 letter from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture re acreage planted.
(image courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

Selective Service Occupational Questionnaire sent to Andrew Wencko, 1942
(images courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

1945 postcard asking Andrew Wencko if he wanted to hire Jamaicans for farm labor
(images courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

1945 postcard asking Andrew Wencko if he wanted to hire Jamaicans or POWS for farm labor
(images courtesy of Florence Kwiatkowski Sendrowski)

Left, Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport
Right, Vanderbilt Planetarium
Back of postcard reads: "Long Island's first and only major planetarium, one of the world's largest and best equipped; its main sky projector shows 11,369 stars—2,459 more than any other."

Dahlstrom's Green Tree Lodge, c. '30s-'40s
Jericho Turnpike in Huntington Station
"A favorite of my family and my first introduction to smörgåsbord and glögg outside of my home. I remember it was still there in 1962." John Delin

Smith St. Greenlawn, c. 1900
Back of postcard reads "Miss Laura Smith Syosset L.I."
Laura Smith, her siblings and parents, Henry and Carrie, moved from Greenlawn to Syosset. Mr. Smith became the superintendent of the McGuire Pickle Works.
(postcard courtesy of Diane Oley)

Vintage ad for the Bagatelle Nursery
It was owned by Dr. Herman Baruch who supplied azaleas to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in 1947.
It was located on Bagatelle Road in the Half Hollow Hills area.
"My father and I searched for the Bagatelle Nursery for years. We kept following the signs for it, to no avail. We finally stumbled on it in the late '50s and once found, the challenge was over." John Delin