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Long Island: The
Suburban Experience
Edited by Barbara
M. Kelly
"These essays examine the almost
archetypal role Long Island has played in the suburbanization of the United
States as well as the impact of that suburbanization on the development of Long
Island. From the early nineteenth-century settlement of Brooklyn Heights as
a bedroom suburb for merchants in lower Manhattan, to the postwar proliferation
of subdivision suburbs typified by Levittown, Long Island has been in the forefront
of America's continuing transition from a rural/urban to a megalopolitan region.
"As Manhattan became New York City and then Greater New York, the suburban ring
around the city has extended steadily eastward across Long Island. As several
of the authors demonstrate, that progression has not been without its negative
side effects. Small towns have evolved into commuter suburbs as transportation
and industry have made Long Island more and more attractive as a residential
area. As the population spread, the commuter suburbs have created a demand for
supplies and services, which in turn has transformed the suburban landscape.
The Long Island suburban communities of 1960 bore little resemblance in form
or function to their nineteenth-century forebears. . . .
"As the authors show, Long Island has, throughout its history, recapitulated
the evolution of the American suburb. As its suburban nature gives way to a
new form -- a composition of 'urban villages' suffering from overdevelopment
and a sense of loss of both identity and control -- Long Island stands at the
forefront of change, as another chapter in the suburban experience is underway."
-- Barbara M. Kelly, "Introduction."
Editor:
Barbara M. Kelly is Director of the Long Island Studies Institute and
Director of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Hofstra University
Libraries. She is the editor of the companion volume, Suburbia
Re-examined (1989), and author of Expanding the American Dream:
Building and Rebuilding Levittown (1993).
Publication and Ordering Information:
Long Island: The Suburban Experience, edited by Barbara M. Kelly, was
published by Heart of the Lakes Publishing under the auspices of the Long Island
Studies Institute of Hofstra University. The 107-page, indexed conference volume
is available in paperback ($10) and hardcover ($20) editions (ISBN: 1-55787-065-9,
paperback; 1-55787-065-9, cloth; LC 90 30804).
Mail orders will be filled by Heart of the Lakes Publishing, P.O. Box 299, Interlaken,
NY 14847, e-mail HLPbooks@aol.com, (607)
532-4204, fax (607) 532-4684); and the Suffolk County Historical Society, 300
W. Main Street, Riverhead, NY 11901, histsoc@suffolk.lib.ny.us,
(631) 727-2881, fax (631) 727-3467. Schools, libraries, and museum shops can
order from the Long Island Studies Institute, Hofstra University, West Campus,
619 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11549; LISI@Hofstra.edu,
(516) 463-6411, fax (516) 463 6441.
Of related interest: Suburbia
Re-examined (the companion conference volume); Contested
Terrain: Power, Politics and Participation in Suburbia; and Nassau
County: From Rural Hinterland to Suburban Metropolis.
Contents:
Introduction: Long Island A Suburban Place
Classical Suburbs: Brooklyn and
Queens
The Suburbanization of Brooklyn: Persistence
Without Plan, by Joseph Dorinson
Suburban Growth, Urban Style: Patterns of Growth in the Borough of Queens, by
Jeffrey A. Kroessler
Arcadian Retreats: The Suburban
Gold Coast
The Evolution of the Gould/Guggenheim
Estate at Sands Point, by Richard A. Winsche and Gary R. Hammond
Stony Brook Before and After Ward Melville's 1940 Shopping Crescent Project,
by Nicholas Langhart
Urban Villages: The Postwar Automobile
Suburbs
Levittown as a Utopian Community,
by Jenni Buhr
Growth in the Outer Fringe and the Suburban Ideal: Three Approaches, by Margaret
F. Boorstein
Suburbanization and the Decline of the Shellfish Industry in New York, by Jeffrey
Kassner
Suggested Reading on Suburbia, by Natalie A. Naylor
Excerpts from Reviews:
"One of the shortcomings of much Long Island history written today is the unwillingness
of authors to deal with the post-1945 period, that is, the era of massive suburbanization.
. . . [But] to ignore the story of Long Island's suburban experience is to ignore
a process which has been operating for over one hundred years and the one which,
for better or worse, has created the Island on which we now live. . .
"The journal-sized book features seven articles preceded by a fine introduction
by editor Kelly. Although all the articles have different authors and deal with
separate areas and issues, the importance of the transportation revolution runs
through most of them. From Queens to Montauk, Long Island as we know it today
would not exist without the railroad, subway and, of course, the automobile.
"Although most of the Island's suburban development occurred haphazardly, one
of the revelations in this volume is how many suburban sections were actually
attempts at planned communities. . . . Jenni Buhr makes a convincing case that
Levittown, often the epitome for suburban mediocrity, was actually a planned
community which not only met the housing needs of working class peoples but
attempted, with considerable initial success, to create an organic, traditional
identity as well. . .
"Long Island: The Suburban Experience is attractively produced and contains
illustrations and maps. Those seeking a greater understanding of contemporary
Long Island history and the suburbanization process in general, will find it
enlightening reading." --Carl Starace, Editor, The Long Island Forum,
53 (Summer 1990): 107
"Footnotes to the seven papers,
together with a list of suggested readings on 'Suburbia' (the earliest work
listed is Harlan Paul Douglass The Suburban Trend (1925), constitute
a useful selection of pertinent sources for Long Island history, as well as
general readings on American 'suburbs.'
"The Long Island Studies Institute of Hofstra University is to be commended
for organizing and hosting a conference which produced two valuable publications.
Suburbia Re examined furnishes some essential reading for students of
recent urban change. Ten dollars for the paperback edition of Long Island;
The Suburban Experience is a bargain. The book deserves its place in the
growing list of the Long Island Studies Series. --Eric E. Lampard, SUNY at Stony
Brook, Long Island Historical Journal, 3 (Fall 1990): 136-37.
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