Long Island Our Story

In 1778, two years after the British forced the Continental Army out of New York City, George Washington and his subordinates organized a secret spy network to gather intelligence in Manhattan and Long Island. Known today as the "Culper Spy Ring," Patriots like Abraham Woodhull and Robert Townsend risked their lives to report on British military operations in the region. Vital reports clandestinely traveled from New York City across the East River to Setauket and were rowed on whaleboats across the Long Island Sound to the Connecticut shore. Using ciphers, codes and invisible ink, the spy ring exposed British plans to attack French forces at Newport and a plot to counterfeit American currency. Author Bill Bleyer corrects the record, examines the impact of George Washington's Long Island spy ring and identifies Revolutionary War sites that remain today.

For more than five centuries, the waterways surrounding Long Island have profoundly shaped its history. Familiar subjects of lighthouses, shipwrecks and whaling are found alongside oft-forgotten oddities such as Pan-American flying boats landing in Manhasset Bay in the early days of transatlantic flight. From the British blockade and skirmishes during the American Revolution to the sinking of merchant vessels by Germany in World War II, the sea brought wars to these shores. By the later part of the 20th century, Gold Coast millionaires commuted in high-speed yachts to Manhattan offices as the island's wealth grew. Historian Bill Bleyer reveals Long Island's nautical bonds from the Native Americans to current efforts to preserve the region's maritime heritage.

The story began hundreds of millions of years ago when continents collided. It evolved over centuries until the rising sea finally encircled a fish-shaped pile of sand that had been pushed together by a retreating glacier as tall as a skyscarper and as wide as a continent.

Boats were used to transport the liquor that came from outside the United States, predominately from Canada and the Bahamas. Long Island had irregular coastlines with an abundance of discrete inlets for boats to hide, facilitating the smuggling of liquor to the island and Manhattan. With some of the wealthiest communities in the country and the close proximity to Manhattan, Long Island was a natural spot for the illegal activity. Long Island soon became the one of the largest areas of transport and consumption. Prohibition on the Gold Coast offers readers a glimpse of what life was like on Long Island during the 1920's. Readers will be provided with a view of the underground passages during prohibition, rum running from the waters and brought through underground tunnels to mansions, speakeasies and pickups for the gangster routes into Manhattan, the remnants of Gatsby Country today, and introduced to colorful figures who contributed to organized crime, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nicky Ornstein, Arnold Rothstein, Leggs Diamond, Bugsy Siegel, and the Real McCoy. In this new perspective of the history of Long Island readers will find hidden secrets about our beloved Gold Coast.

Growing up a stone's throw away from New York City in a small house on suburban Long Island, Richard Olsen-Harbich always dreamed of being a farmer. After graduating from Cornell with a degree in viticulture, he found himself back on the Island at the heart of an emerging wine region that was struggling to find itself. Starting from the ground up with little information or experience, Olsen-Harbich began a lifelong quest to master the art and science of growing wine grapes less than 90 miles from Manhattan. In the last half-century, the North Fork's bucolic seaside towns and humble potato farms were transformed into one of this country's most compelling agricultural success stories, garnering praise from wine critics around the world. Olsen-Harbich charts the meteoric rise of North Fork winemaking from the historic failures of colonial times to the modern triumph of becoming one of the most important wine-producing districts on the East Coast. Through a poetic interweaving of personal anecdotes with scientific reporting about climate, soils, geology, and botany, Olsen-Harbich drills deep into the topic, giving the world a new language for talking about wine. In doing so, he redefines what it means to make wine in the New World.

Long Island was transformed from a pastoral rural community to a modern suburban behemoth by playing an integral role in the homefront of World War II. Dozens of Nazi spies infiltrated industry throughout the island and communicated industrial secrets back to Germany as the FBI chased them down. Long Island held the record for producing the most fighter planes in the country with the rapid rebirth of its aviation sector. Five Medal of Honor recipients called the region home. At the close of the war, the United Nations established itself in a weapons factory in Lake Success. Author Christopher Verga charts the rise of Long Island and its role in World War II.

A trip into the Long Island history of ships, lighthouses, ports, shipbuilders, shipwrecks and much more. Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “maritime” as, “on, near or living near the sea”, so you can see that the basic membership requirement to be a part of the story is easily satisfied. Just having an address in either Nassau or Suffolk County pretty much meets the criteria, and then the things that you do with your time can determine how big a role you play in this tale. Own a boat and fish from it? That gives you an even greater claim to being a “nautical” or “maritime” person. Go clamming in the bays, sail in regattas, help clean up a beach, be a member of a yacht club etc.? I think you get the point, and hopefully have by now come to realize that your very existence on Long Island is tied in with the pioneers who taught us how to prosper on this amazing island, and enjoy a lifestyle that is almost unique in the entire United States.

Beyond its crowded highways, Long Island serves up a plentiful, eclectic bounty with a side of history. Enticing appetites from Nassau to Montauk, food writer and Long Island native T.W. Barritt explores how immigrant families built a still thriving agricultural community, producing everything from crunchy pickles and hearty potatoes to succulent Long Island duckling. Experience the rise and fall of Long Island's bustling oyster industry and its reemergence today. And meet the modern-day pioneers--in community agriculture, wine, cheese, fine dining and craft spirits--who are reinventing Long Island's food landscape and shaping a delicious future.