Update:Kleiner’s Korner - An Interesting Long Island Map from 1929 & the KKK in Queens
Update at the end of the original post.
The map included the Motor Parkway, airports, roadhouses, golf clubs, the LIRR, estates, sporting venues and many other interesting notes about Long Island.
Art Kleiner
The Purpose of the Motor Parkway
Wrong!!! A common thought as to the real purpose for building the Motor Parkway was that it was to be converted into a railroad line associated with the Vanderbilts. This account had Willie K. interested in extending his railroad interests to an envisioned Montauk harbor.
Time's association between Vanderbilt and Montauk in the late '20s might have resulted from Willie's friend Carl Fisher developing Montauk as the "Miami Beach of the North".
An article a few years earlier also reported the use of The Motor Parkway as an extension of the Vanderbilt railroad interests possibly to Montauk. (The Suffolk County News Nov. 16, 1925)
" . . . persons in the know". A future post will detail these and other earlier accounts of how The Motor Parkway might have been used. (New York Daily News May 1, 1927)
Other Interesting Entries
The key on the Time map.
35, 000 motors per day each paying 50 cents to cross the Holland Tunnel; might the proposed tunnel be the Queens Midtown Tunnel? "Quarantine" on the map refers to a section of New York Harbor near Staten Island where ships were inspected before proceeding to their intended piers.
"world's longest bridge" (under construction the as yet to be named George Washington Bridge), rival NY baseball stadiums and the zoo! "Splendid duck shooting"?
Coney Island - the birthplace of "hot dogs" and "hokey-pokey" (the ice cream, not the dance), John Philip Sousa, a Jewish spa (Long Beach), a summer place and the home of law enforcer Geo. W. Wichersham.
Curtis, Mitchell, Roosevelt, Webb and Sperry airfields, Belmont Park. Meadowbrook Polo fields and a dog racing trace. But who is Walter Travis?
Estate owners including Clarence Mackay, W. P. Chrysler, Eddie Cantor, the Marx Brothers, Vincent Astor, Lindbergh patrons the Guggenheims and other prominent Long Islanders. Several golf courses are marked.
the "original inhabitants" (very few left) and mileage to the Hamptons (with commentary on how each was viewed).
UPDATE: " Flushing - Klu Klux Klan hot bed"
An observant reader of this column requested additional information about an entry in the Time map - "Flushing - Klu Klux Klan hot bed". The reader was familiar with the area but was unaware of Klan activity in the 1920s. Here's Kleiner's Korner report.
I'm not an expert on the KKK but the following newspaper articles give an interesting view of how the organization was viewed in the 1920s, some people even considering it mainstream. The articles are from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Suffolk County News, the Nassau Daily Review, the New York Times, the Daily Worker, the Northport Observer, alamy.com and gilderlehrman.org.
Queens
The Queens KKK seems to have been focused in Richmond Hills and Jamaica but on several occasions ventured out to Long Island (sometimes with police escort) for recruitment purposes and for rallies.
Long Island
Parades and Politics
The articles are just a few I've found pertaining to the Klan's involvement in political scandals and its participation in Memorial Day and July 4th parades in NY. Several others indicate its involvement with making donations for more positive value (albeit probably to foster good will among those it wished to recruit and as a front for its not so positive beliefs and activities).
The Klan viewed itself as a social entity with political overtures with its members contributing to socially minded causes (i.e., the church) and politicians willing to give it a voice for their votes.
Harry A. Styles - Leader of the Queens Klu Klux Klan in 1929.
Klan Membership
Hope this update provided additional information about the social and political environment in which the users of the Long Island Motor Parkway lived.
Comments
The name under Mackay, Nicholas Brady, owner of the 4th largest private residence in the country, “Inisfada”, (Gaelic for “Long Island”) later Inisfada was used as The St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat House before it was controversially sold and demolished in 2013.
Thanks Greg. Here’s some pics of Inisfada, in its glory days and all that’s left - the gates that now stand across from Christopher Morley Park in Roslyn.
Two more.
Beautiful Art! I pass the gates all the time since my mother just moved into the Estates gated community on what used to be Inisfada’s property.
Wish the mansion still stood, but understand why they took it down. It was just too large to serve in any capacity to financially sustain the building.
Great post Art! Love this LI history stuff.
Very interesting about the possible railroad angle. Is that possible that might have been part of the original plan?? Howard?? Have you ever come across that question??
It does bother me when these classic Gold Coast mansions get torn down. Some of these owners donated their estates to the church for tax purposes for sure but also for preservation and kindness to the church. The church accepts the donation but then cashes In on the sale of the property. That’s not right. Inisfada was an amazing estate. I’m really surprised nothing has been built there yet. It’s been several years and that is a prime location and with the real estate market as it currently is…it’s hard to believe it just sits abandoned.
Did anyone notice that south of Corona, approximately where Elmhurst would be situated, the map says, “Ku Klux Klan hot bed” with a burning cross depicted? I have read that the Klan had been active on Long Island, but Queens, in this period? I am astounded. And perhaps as much so the map’s creator would note it.
Regarding Tom Padilla’s comment: In 1922 the Freeport KKK was formed; The Daily Review would regularly post articles about KKK meetings in Freeport and Hempstead in 1924 & 1925. In 1926 a huge KKK Rally was held in Washington, D.C., which encouraged the spread of the Klan, including here on L.I. In Mineola a Klorero [rally] was held on the Mineola Fair Grounds, from July 3-6, 1926. In October 1926 the “Bethpage Social Club” was chartered in Farmingdale as the local Klan, while as late as 1930 the “Theodore Roosevelt Klan” was still active in Roosevelt. Local newspapers recount parades of Klansmen in full regalia, including the funerals of local members. One account is for the annual lighting of a community’s Christmas Tree. These are just some of the mentions of the KKK here on L.I.
Dave- 6 or 8 or so homes were just approved for the property and construction is set to start soon.
My Mom, who was born in Great Neck spoke of a KKK Cross Burning on Steamboat Rd. in the late 20’s about 100 yds from her home. Scared the life out of her as she was 10 yrs old. Steamboat Rd was inhabited by a lot of Eastern European Catholics and Southern Blacks. There’s a notation about it in the Hofstra archives somewhere.
Art, Walter Travis was the Bobby Jones of golf around the turn of the 20th century. Never tuned professional, died sometime in the late 1920’s
Walter Travis was not only the leading amatuer golfer as Al notes, but he was a golf course designer. That map reference seems to be to the Garden City Golf Club course that Travis redesigned to much acclaim to host the U.S. Open in 1908 (and later, again, in 1913) and which still exists today.
Art, looking forward to your future post my own research, which I hope to publish next year, suggestions for or proposals about the Motor Pkwy ROW were often feints to affect railroad development and ownership or to support land speculation and development. In a manner of speaking, there was a purpose behind those purposes!
See the update to this post following the original posting.
First, thanks for all the additional material on, especially, KKK activity in Queens.
And, to David Stephan: I look forward to your research on LIMP ROW and railroad development and speculation. One of the subjects of my research is S. Osgood Pell, whose Fifth Avenue real estate company had branches in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau between 1899 and 1913, when he died tragically. Pell was often described as a real estate speculator. He had an estate in Wheatley Hills that is now a part of the LIU Post campus. His firm S. Osgood Pell & Co. survived him. Pell was a good friend of Willie K and was out to dinner with him the night Pell was killed.
Great update-coverage Art of the klan in Queens and eastward. I was unaware of this activity in my own hometown. Thank you Howard for reinforcing. As always great historical content here to be found and shared
Robert-
I grew up in Great Neck and know that story well. I also recall seeing more than a few photos of the Klan on Steamboat Rd, but couldn’t locate them online (our house was just down the block from Steamboat)
An account of the incident Robert and Greg noted. One newspaper elected not to mention it while the Record (Great Neck?) ran it as a front page story. Not yet able to track down an on-line edition. And two articles from 1921 and 1931 showing KKK “mainstream” activities on Long Island.
Greg & Art, the incident on Steamboat Rd. GN , the cross burning, took place at the now area called Park Circle, a development of homes just about 100yds west off of Steamboat Rd. according to my Mom , my Grandfather had his farm at # 56 Steamboat Rd. The area was quite undeveloped at that time. I’d be interested in finding where the klan HQ’s were as I lived there till 1962 an knew many of the residents
This map shows what eventually became the Links Golf Club in Searingtown.
One of the 2 Private entrances to Motor Parkway depicted.
Thank you Leo. Where did you find it?
Art, The Links Golf Club was located on the west side of Shelter Rock Rd. The Parkway Country Club rendering has their course located on the east side of Shelter Rock Rd. on property owned by the Cedar Heights Association at the time the Motor Parkway was built. Perhaps the Parkway Country Club morphed into the Shelter Rock Country Club which opened in the early 1920’s and was located at the north west corner of I. U. Willets and Searingtown Rds. There was a Southern Parkway Golf Club in north Valley Stream during the 1930’s.
This sites’s Jun 18 2013 blog post talks about The Links Golf Course, designed by Macdonald & Raynor. This a Emmet & Tull course, the Emmet that my Walter Travis comment on this page mentions.
Emmet did not take on Tull as a partner until 1929, seven years after the Shelter Rock Club opened. So Al’s guess about morphing is wrong even as the Shelter Rock course was also designed by Emmet!
The Parkway Country Club does not show up on any list of Emmet-designed courses and is not mentioned as a recently completed course in Emmet’s obituaries from December 1934 (the 1931 Huntington Crescent course was mentioned).
My best guess is that this course was never built, but, as Art asks, it would be interesting to learn where Leo found this!
Here’s a 1926 of the area
The Links Golf Course just to the west, 1926