NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
THE ATLANTIC SEASHORE DEVELOPMENT 
Article VI—Long Island—The South Shore. 
‘““The Bowery’’—one has but to 
speak the crass and ribald phrase 
and all the ‘‘old timers’’ of New 
York wake up, and every mind re- 
verts to but one place, for there 
never was but one ‘‘Bowery.’’ And 
the same may be said of Coney 
island, the Bowery of the Atlantic 
seashore. 
No place has been an illustration 
of a ‘“‘horrible example’’ of summer 
dissipation more than this noted re- 
sort on Long Island’s shore. And yet 
no place has been such a blessing for 
the tired poor and their wan-faced 
children .as a recreation spot. And 
today, although it has lost little of 
its free and easy lures, a change is 
wrought in its newer aspect as the 
city’s seashore park and playground. 
Every one has visited Coney Island, 
some in dread of moral defilement, 
but today none need dread it more 
than the erstwhile primitive mining 
camp of the West. Coney Island, 
like the Bowery, is becoming civil- 
ized, almost respectable, when a half 
million dollars is paid for a narrow 
strip of sand that sold a few years 
ago for eight thousand dollars. It 
has thus evolved from the garish into 
the golden. 
Just beyond are the famous Man- 
hattan and Oriental hotels, always 
luxurious, the resorts of noted men 
and women and fine orchestras and 
caravansaries soon to be eclipsed by 
modern structures of granite, mar- 
ble and cement, filled with every 
imaginable device for the gratifica- 
tion of the swells of the world’s 
capitals that resort hither. Here are 
to be seen the wonderful Pain’s fire- 
works, duplicating in most realistic 
manner on a vast open-air stage the 
the war scenes of history, ancient 
and modern. Here also a noted race 
track, once the resort of grafters and 
gamblers, evolves into a_ pretty 
bungalow colony by the sea. 
Beyond are the Rockaways, now 
among the world’s well known re- 
sorts and many other seashore towns, 
hke dissolving pictures, are blossom- 
ing into pretty ‘suburban centers 
combining all the pleasures of the 
Atlantic with the comforts of a per- 
manent home. 
A conservative estimate of ten 
million population for New York 
City in fifteen years is steadily gath- 
ering along this coast line as the line 
of least resistance and the greatest 
attraction creating here unique sub- 
urbs as far as Montauk Point. If 
only half the projects of railroad, 
city, state, and nation, aside from 
scores of big corporate schemes, are 
carried out, farms along the South 
Shore will disappear, as did the 
squatters and the goats on the rocks 
of upper Manhattan before the ad- 
vancing tide of population. 
Long Beach, founded on the pre- 
tentious lines of Atlantie City, in a 
few years must exceed that great re- 
sort on account of its location; also 
its inception has taken advantage of 
all the best things in the slow growth 
of other’ places. The extent and 
artistic planning of great hotels and 
elaborate homes and avenues and es- 
planade now well advaneed war- 
rant this forecast. And no more mag- 
nificent. stretches of hard, white 
sands, with their long gradual slope 
into the Atlantic, can be found any- 
where. ; 
Babylon, a fashionable town and 
summer resort, 1s composed largely 
of wealthy financiers and prosper- 
ous merchants of the metropolis, a 
center of magnificent homes, and 
with a reputation at home and 
abroad for its Westminster Kennel 
Club. 
Just beyond, at Bayshore, a Vene- 
tian colony, one of several others, is 
erowing rapidly along the seashore 
and its pretty inland canals, and 
gives promise of a future artistic 
center undreamed of in home build- 
ing a few years ago. 
Oakdale, further on, the seat of 
William K. Vanderbilt, an estate of 
royal proportions, and Great River 
and Sayville, form a territory of 
many other elaborate estates eom- 
prised of hundreds of acres, each 
with their abundant game preserves 
gathered round the world, and with 
their clubs and aristocratic execlu- 
Siveness indicate posterior holdings 
that has already taken square miles 
of choice lands from the market 
practically for all time to come. 
Near the home of these American 
aristocrats is the home of the aristo- 
cratic bivalve, the Blue Point oyster, 
a neighbor in keeping, famed for its 
delightful quality and flavor. 
Patchogue is worthy of note as the 
fastest growing town on Long Island 
and is in close touch with the city by 
through express trains and it has a 
promising future. 
All along the shores of the great 
South Bay there is a continuous pano- 
rama of interesting old towns, hotels, 
boat clubs, summer colonies and_ es- 
tates, the waters here being a mecca 
for equatic sports, fishing, and duck 
and water fowl shooting in the mi- 
erating season. These events give 
place to winter pastimes upon the ice 
until ‘‘dull seasons’’ on the South 
Shore are no more. 
Protecting these great bays by 
natural breakwaters are the immense 
sand keys stretching far out through 
the Atlantic connected with the 
mainland by steamers that ply be- 
tween the shores and the reefs where 
are located the lighthouse, lifesaving 
and wireless stations of the U. S. 
government, and where ocean beach 
colonies are also growimeg, composed 
of those that love at once both the 
safety of land-locked waters and 
the thrilling pleasures found in the 
pounding surf. 
The most remarkable reef is Fire 
Island, where Fire Island Light, with 
twenty-three million candle-power 
beams, the most powerful light along 
the Atlantic, is a constant source of 
interest to boating parties. Here 
New York is developing a state park 
that shall be the finest pubhe sea- 
shore park in the world. 
So, whether it be boisterous Coney 
Island, the luxurious Manhattan, the 
noted Rockaways, the. ambitious 
Long Beach, the exclusive Oakdale, 
or the vast sand keys dividing the 
Atlantic, there is a charm here so 
varied as to be irresistible to all. 
The mainland almost touches these 
sand keys at Smith’s Point. The 
Tangiers Company have bought nine 
thousand aeres here, the holdings of 
the Smith family for generations, 
comprising miles of ocean, bay and 
river frontage, where a summer 
Venice-by-the-sea is planned that 
shall carry out dreams of develop- 
ment never attempted before, where 
every imaginable summer and _ fall 
and winter recreation can be found 
by the possessor of the talisman of 
gold. Here is one corporate holding 
of almost sixten square miles of sea- 
shore territory absorbed in one lump. 
From here on to the beautiful and 
famous ‘‘Hamptons’’ it is simply a 
repetition of the coast to Smith’s 
Point, hitherto the only gap in the 
shoreline development. 
Westhampton and its companion 
colony at Quogue are rapidly in- 
creasing in favor and in beautiful 
summer homes and estates, the for- 
