Long Island Hidden Histories and Mysteries 3

A Currier & Ives print depicts a pair of shipwrecks off the South Shore in the 1830s.

Courtesy Art Mattson

A white obelisk in Lynbrook commemorates the victims of two shipwrecks that occurred in 1836-37.

Courtesy Art Mattson

The facade of the original Long Beach Public Library has been preserved atop Sutton Place. The decor inside features bookshelves.

Chris Connolly

Three counselors from the Town of Hempstead’s Camp Anchor died in a car wreck between exits 7 and 8 along the Meadowbrook Parkway. This tree has been decorated by their friends and families.

Chris Connolly

The reason Oceanside’s town square is a triangle is that a set of trolley tracks originally converged on the spot.

Chris Connolly

The Jones Beach Tower is much more than the anchor for a roundabout.

Chris Connolly

A lightpost honors Danny Bobis, above. A bench inscription, below.

Chris Connolly

Chris Connolly

This weathered green bicycle pump stands near the middle of the Long Beach boardwalk. It was endowed for public use in 2008 by Bill and Mary McCaffrey, who wanted everyone to enjoy the beach as much as they did.

Chris Connolly

The original Jones Beach Theater used the bay water as a stage. The venue hosted water ballets, aquacades and demonstrations by Olympic swimmers.

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The Long Beach boardwalk: cloister of memories
There’s something about the beach, the place where the land ends and the eternity of the sea begins, that lends itself to quiet reminiscence. Given this, it is not surprising that the Long Beach boardwalk is studded with monuments, tributes and commemorations. Almost every bench along the 2-mile stretch, built in 1914, celebrates a beach lover’s life. Some denote how much the dedicatee enjoyed the ocean; others are inscribed with poems, pledges or reminders to the living. A bench near the middle of the boardwalk urges the donation of bone marrow; another says, “you had the brightest eyes and you baked the sweetest pies.” One bench, facing west to admire an endless succession of sunsets, is dedicated in a single word: Papa.

If one looks up from the hundreds of benches, one sees even more monuments. A couple named Bill and Mary McCaffrey, who presumably spent many happy hours pedaling up and down the boardwalk, endowed a bicycle pump in 2008 so their fellow riders could inflate their tires. “Enjoy your 2.1 mile ride along one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Long Beach, NY,” the plaque reads. The Herald asked several LBPD officers, a dozen beachgoers and a handful of beach cashiers if they had heard of the McCafferys. None had. But a woman named Monica, who was filling a tire at the pump, summed up the situation nicely. “I don’t know them,” she said with a distinct Spanish accent, “but it is a nice thing they did.”

A few hundred yards east of the McCaffrey pump is a better-known monument. The spot where Laurelton Boulevard hits the sand has been renamed Danny Bobis Beach in honor of Bobis, a teacher and surfer who drowned in Indonesia last year. The street sign, affixed to a lamppost, serves as the crown atop a collection of more personal dedications. A white T-shirt, hand decorated by students and reading “Mr. Bobis, We will remember and love you forever,” has graced the post since his death was confirmed. On Aug. 7, the one-year anniversary of a memorial held on the beach, the base of the post was decorated with candles, flowers, seashells and a baby’s purple pacifier.