FIA will arrange free water taxi service for communities east of Point O’Woods and West of Atlantique. A schedule will be posted here and sent to community websites when it is made final. Reserve in the usual way by phoning 665-8885 about an hour before the scheduled departure and mention you are going the FIA meeting in Ocean Beach, and there will be no charge. When embarking, advise the captain and/or crew to the same effect.

Fire Island’s Natural Neighborhoods

By Bob Spencer

An island in the ocean – with its mystique enhanced by being a bit isolated – offers essential treasures to those who seek peaceful freedom of mind.

Fire Island’s barrier beach island – 32 miles long, bordering the south of Great South Bay — has millions of people living within 50 miles of it, yet is largely unknown to most.

Fire Island – has 17 “neighborhoods”– which are small, and individualistic hamlet-communities of only 4,000 homes, scattered like rare beach glass treasures along that natural sand stretch, each hamlet averaging less than 1% of total Fire Island’s space.

All the rest of this special island – more than 80% consists of open beaches, and day-visitor parks. This includes our largest park – the Fire Island National Seashore. This particular park even includes an eight-mile Wilderness natural area that’s larger in area than all the hamlets combined. The Seashore also offers a unique “Sunken Forest,” a historic lighthouse, along with a number of centuries-old legends. Nice balance.

Fire Island has many moods. On a sunny day one can spy out into the Atlantic for many miles and inspire some day dreaming, envisioning the life teeming just below the surface. There can be stormy days when the wind-chopped water and somber sky can scour a scare or two up. Thunder storms over the ocean or bay can knife down electric bolts and startle even the worldly whales and tough minded seagulls. Each day or night is never exactly the same — one day quietude and on the next spirited fascination.

I guess, even with all its natural beauty, the island is hidden in isolation. That’s why this Isle of Fire remains somewhat unknown. If you’re not day-visiting a park, then you’d have to ferry over to your rental lodging, all of which are pretty close to nature as well.

Nature appreciation needs civilization nearby

Oceans alone, which cover over 70% of our planet, are mysterious wildernesses to begin with. Then, being an island open to the sky, without heavy foliage, massive buildings or raucous highways, there’s no hindrance to a clear view at night out to the greatest wilderness of all – the starry universe full of trillions upon trillions of stars that are all basically back in time.

It’s a universe that’s “ungraspable” and can inspire an observer to stare and ponder. It’s a natural stimulus to the mind.

As Long Islander Herman Melville put it, “it is this image of the ungraspable phantom of life, and this is the key to all.”

We can attempt to grasp meanings, and that is the beauty of trying, especially at night from a vantage point within those 17 hamlets — the Fire Island communities. Have you ever noticed – after a few days following a full moon – when it is pitch black and the Milky Way is out over the Atlantic, and surrounded by our more neighborly stars less light years away, that when the moon rises out of the ocean – an hour later every night – that it often triggers inner mental queries? The triggers are working when on Fire Island.

If we didn’t have a number of homes on Fire Island where the hamlets were neighbored by total or near- wilderness, then who would ever appreciate the winders of the natural world? We should be happy that our communities stay as scattered neighbors.

Every one of these hamlet communities has a slightly different reality, albeit they might all seem to have a common love for the island’s overall natural-style of living. Some have small homes that have been carefully styled. Others have homes that express true personalities, and might be surrounded by driftwood and indigenous foliage. These might be called “beachy.” A few homes are anchored in elegant magnificence, but even here these vantage-views into the overall wilderness do not seem out of place.

The mesh of hamlet communities working in harmony

Those who live on Fire Island all year long or seasonably, mostly get there by a ferry boat ride. Also don’t expect taxi service when they arrive across the Great South Bay. There are no paved roads on this island, albeit a dew essential service vehicles crunch through the sand. This fact alone helps preserve the natural “beachy” feelings that surround residents and visitors alike.

When you arrive in a community, there’s not a heavy presence of organized government or pressure to conform. On the other hand, island people are generally friendly and commonly fling off a smile at passers by. Most communities are governed by volunteer homeowners associations that keep in touch with the community pulse. Then there’s another level of volunteerism in an association of homeowner associations. Volunteerism of those who love the island’s rhythms – is what it is all about.

Communities in harmony with wilderness

Fifty years ago, the 17 communities that still exist today were a bit smaller than today. Then by the late 50’s there was an early awakening to the uniqueness of the island, and more continuing development.

In March 1962 a monster slow-moving nor’easter crawled along the coastline, ripping out pieces of some communities and causing some developers to start promoting a four-lane highway-dike down the island, with heavy development potential. Luckily, those few thousand who lived on the island, and their friends got together and focused on getting most of the island designated a National Seashore by Congress in 1964. The threat of over-development was thwarted then.

It’s now a park monument as to what citizens can do when they loved a unique and eternal spot on this planet.

Those that now live on Fire Island will continue on the heritage of caring enough to protect the natural wild-beach feeling. This feeling surrounds the neighborhood-communities that were allowed to cohabitate the island with the terns, piping plovers, ducks, white-tailed deer and other wildlife.

This is the natural essence of Fire Island. Grasp at it.

Bob can be reached at spencerbob@msn.com

Copyright Robert H. Spencer

Photo 1

Growing anxiety about safety and security, and quality-of-life matters, led three Fire Island Association Directors to the Patchogue office of County Legislator Jack Eddington in February (photo 1). The issue was brought to the fore last August by Fire Island’s representative in the State Assembly, Ginny Fields, when she led a large delegation of concerned islanders to a meeting in Hauppauge with County Executive Steve Levy and Police Commissioner Richard Dormer.

At the meeting with Mr. Eddington was FIA President Jerry Stoddard, Suzanne Goldhirsch, President of the Seaview Association, and John Lund, President of the Davis Park Association, both of the latter are Vice Presidents of FIA. Ms. Goldhirsch stated the issue: the issues of crime and safety are of growing importance on Fire Island, and incidents are becoming more frequent and more serious. After describing a few of them, she said a visible increase in police on patrol would start to address this issue. In addition to criminal activity, Ms. Goldhirsch is concerned that older residents, especially, feel isolated on Fire Island and fearful of not getting prompt transport to mainland hospitals in a medical emergency.

Mr. Eddington chairs the County Legislature’s Committee on Public Safety, which includes review of the Police Department budget. One of several suggestions he made was that island communities work with the Marine Bureau to form Neighborhood Watch groups to advise of potential problems before they get out of hand. He also said the islanders should meet with police officials and urge restoration of the summer police contingent to former levels. He acknowledged this would be a problem in light of cutbacks being urged by the County Executive to balance the budget.

In March, an expanded group acted on Legislator Eddington’s advice, meeting with Nicholas Mango, Chief of Patrol; Patrick Cuff, Assistant Chief of Patrol; John Meehan, Deputy Chief of Patrol; and Deputy Inspector Harold Jantzen, Commander of the Marine Bureau. FIA Officers included included the above mentioned, joined by Hugh O’Brien, Trustee of Saltaire; Tom Ruskin, Seaview’s Vice President for Security; and Bartley Horton, Ocean Bay Park Community Manager (photo 2).

At the meeting, the island representatives related details of their concerns. The police officials, while forthright about the budget constraints they operate under, showed a reassuringly detailed familiarity with the special problems of the various Fire Island communities.The meeting brought out that last year’s experiment with assigning the west end sector car to the 1st Precinct (Babylon), while keeping the crew as part of the Fire Island contingent, was not effective and won’t be continued. Also, there are expected to be ten seasonal patrol officers (virtually all of them with island experience) assigned to Fire Island for the 2010 season. This compares to six seasonals in 2009, plus the crew from the west end sector car. The group hopes to meet with Inspector Jantzen for an update following the Memorial Day weekend, typically the most problematic of the summer.

One request from the police: response times will be improved if all house numbers are clearly shown on the sidewalk. For houses that are rented, detailed instructions of how to report an emergency should be posted near the telephone. If 911 is dialed from a landline, the police will know how to locate the house; if the call is from a mobile phone, the system for doing that will not work.

Photo 2

The meeting will begin with a power point presentation by Superintendent Soller and National Park Service Planner Ellen Carlson on the process to be followed in revising the GMP, the document that sets forth guidelines followed by the National Seashore in managing the park.  This is an opportunity for residents, businesses and visitors to provide input to the park’s deliberations. Other stakeholders will have a similar opportunity as the process moves forward. This will be the first GMP revision since the present plan went into effect in 1978. It is important that the people who care most about the island are part of the discussion.

The meeting will be held on Thursday, February 18, at All Souls Unitarian Church, Lexington Avenue at 80th Street, New York City. There is a stop on the Lexington Avenue subway line at 77th Street. The meeting will convene at 7 p.m. and end at or before 9 p.m.     

For more information, call FINS at (631) 687-4750 or FIA at (212) 929-6415.

Jerry:

As we have discussed, I know there have been concerns and questions raised
regarding the Fire Island Community Character/Visioning Project.  Attached
is a letter I have written that I hope will lay to rest a number of
questions and concerns raised regarding the project.  We are also extending
the deadline to participate in the project to January 15, 2010.  I hope
that you and the others members of the Fire Island Association Board of
Directors and Fire Island Community Association leaders would distribute
this letter to your members and members of the various community
associations.  Hopefully it will reinforce our desire to work with the Fire
Island communities and to engage Fire Islanders in the issues that we are
all involved with now and in the future.

Jerry, I would like to thank you and all the Board of Directors for your
continued support.  Over the next year, as the National Seashore presents
the draft alternatives on the General Management Plan, refines the
alternatives and presents a preferred alternative for public review and
comment, the participation of the FIA and the Communities in this dialogue
will be extremely valuable.  We look forward to your continued involvement
in this process.  Again, many thanks.

Chris Soller
Superintendent
Fire Island National Seashore
National Park Service

To read Mr. Soller’s letter, click on “more”

In October a letter went out over my signature encouraging people to participate in the “Fire Island Community Character/Visioning Project.” This is a project the National Seashore is undertaking with A. Nelessen Associates as part of our General Management Planning process. This on-line visual preference exercise has generated a great deal of discussion by many individuals who have already completed it. It has also prompted a number of questions as to what certain terms mean and how the National Seashore plans to use the project results. I am writing today to respond to some of those concerns and questions.

First, and most importantly, this is a planning exercise that offers everyone the opportunity to provide valuable feedback to the National Seashore. The communities are important elements of Fire Island and their unique qualities contribute to the overall character of the National Seashore. The project is designed to help residents identify the physical characteristics that appeal to them, as well as those aspects that they find unappealing.

There are no right or wrong answers to the questions being asked by the Visioning Project. The Project is meant to capture attitudes and preferences. The National Seashore has no preconceived ideas about what the answers should be. There are no plans to rewrite the Seashore’s zoning regulations in response to project’s results. The information being collected is meant to start a discussion on Fire Island about the physical environment of the Island’s communities. Our goal is to develop strategies that can enhance what everyone likes, or find ways to make improvements or changes where needed.

Additionally the visual preference exercise has used various terms for responses to questions. Words have different meanings to different people and some words have loaded meanings. The words “appropriate” and “inappropriate” are examples of such words and their use in the visual preference exercise has raised concerns by many Fire Islanders. The term “neutral” has also raised questions. In this exercise the term “appropriate” means “likes/does not object to”; the term “inappropriate” means “dislikes/objects to”; and the term “neutral” means that the viewer has no opinion one way or the other or is not concerned about the issue.

Ideally this project would have been done in a workshop setting and people could have asked questions directly of the project manager. Unfortunately due to time constraints of this past summer the project was revised and a decision was made to proceed with the project via the internet. When the results of the visual preference exercise are tabulated there will be a public meeting to present and discuss the findings.

In order to encourage maximum participation, we have extended the Fire Island Community Character Visioning Project deadline to January 15, 2010. For more information and instructions on participating please visit the project website: www.visionfireisland.com. As a part of the project participants will be asked some questions related to resident status, time spent on Fire Island, socioeconomic status, and on attitudes and opinions related to the Island’s natural and built environment. Participation in all aspects of this project is purely voluntary and all responses are anonymous.

Once A. Nelessen Associates have completed their analysis of the project results we will host a public workshop in a convenient location to share the results and get additional feedback on the project. Community participation in this effort is critical to its success. No one knows a place as well as the people who spend time there and are passionate about it.

Thank you in advance for your support in this effort. Please call or email Ellen Carlson, NPS Project Manager, at (617) 223-5048 or ellen_carlson@nps.gov, if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

K. Christopher Soller

Superintendent

Fire Island National Seashore

John Lund

But tides piling up in the bay pose another threat as well: if there is a low, flat area (and Fire Island has several of them) once there is enough water in the bay it won’t wait around for the tide to go out, it will seek the quickest way to the ocean, and that means through the island. It didn’t happen this time but it sure pointed up the need for the Corps of Engineers and New York State to get together on an emergency program for maintenance dredging at the inlets, especially the Fire Island Inlet.

As for the ocean side, Fire Island did not escape unscathed; and one shudders to think of what might have happened but for the 2009 community nourishment projects. From east to west, Bob Spencer (Davis Park) reported very high tides and mainland flooding. On the ocean side, he reports severe scarping in the persistent “erosion hot spot” that afflicts about 500 feet toward the western part of that community. Unless a period of westerly winds rebuilds the area, more nor’easters “could be real nasty,” Bob says.

Fire Island Pines experienced severe erosion at the eastern end, according to Jay Pagano. One set of stairs was lost. In another context, Steve Keehn, the ’09 project engineer, noted that the eastern ends of all of the projects are exposed to northeast winds, and the experience at the Pines seems to bear this out.

Ocean Bay Park came through “in pretty good shape”, according to Steven Jaffee. Stairs and fencing are all still standing, although a lot of sand was lost, he added.  He noted that Seaview (which adjoins Ocean Bay Park to the west) seems to have lost several hundred feet of sand fencing.

Ocean Beach had flooding up as far as Midway, Love the Plumber reports. There was a foot or more of water near the water tower, but the area near the court house was dry by comparison.

Robbins Rest, to the west of Ocean Beach, was very pleased with the performance of its new bulkhead. Still, water came up from the bay about 100 yards, the Association reported.  

If you have further information, please add it in a comment to this post.