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Partly Cloudy County: Tackapausha Museum to remain open
Despite reports to the contrary, officials plan to reopen center in April
Mary Bellissimo-DeGregorio of North Bellmore grew up in Seaford, not far from Nassau County’s Tackapausha Museum and Preserve on Washington Avenue. The mother of a 24-year-old and a 6-year-old said that admission to the museum cost 25 cents when she was a child.
“If I had a quarter in my pocket,” Bellissimo-DeGregorio said, “I was coming up to Tackapausha.” She loved to play with the animals that were kept at this natural-history museum, which is set on 84 acres and is named for the Tackapaush Indians who inhabited the area in the 1600s.
Bellissimo-DeGregorio said she was distraught when she heard recently that the museum might close because of county budget cuts. In December, the museum’s director was laid off, escorted from the building by county officials. And for weeks the museum has remained closed to the public.
On Feb. 17, Bellissimo-DeGregorio and other members of the Friends of the Tackapausha Museum and Preserve, a new group formed to save the outdoor education center, received good news. The museum, which operated in 2011 with a $250,000 budget, will remain open, according to Eileen Krieb, a community service representative for the county Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums.
Krieb spoke at a rally attended on Friday by about 75 museum supporters, including Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, and environmental activists Richard and Lisa Schary of North Bellmore, who started the Friends of the Massapequa Preserve 12 years ago.
“Nassau County is not walking away from this museum,” Krieb said, adding that the museum is now closed to complete final renovation work on the interior. Krieb noted that the county has invested $1.8 million in Tackapausha in recent years, funded by county Environmental Bond Act monies, which voters approved in 2006; the county’s hotel/motel tax, 3 percent of which goes to maintain parks and museums; and the county’s capital budget.
Krieb said the county plans to reopen the Tackapausha Museum in April, in time for Earth Day on April 22. The preserve, a narrow strip of woodland and freshwater wetland that runs north to south behind the museum, with houses on its east and west sides, is now open.
