From Baldwin to Red Bank: Michael White Keeps Long Island memories alive through his artwork

Though he now lives in Red Bank, New Jersey, Baldwin native Michael White, 54, maintains a strong connection to his Long Island roots from 70 miles away — through his art.

The works of White, a 1987 graduate of Baldwin High School, adorn the walls of the high school cafeteria and the Baldwin Long Island Rail Road station — a depiction of the beloved Nunley’s Carousel amusement park, which once stood at the corner of Milburn Avenue and Sunrise Highway. The attraction opened in 1940 and operated until 1995, when it closed and the land was sold to Pep Boys.

At the high school, White’s legacy is a mural that represents the spring season, with sketches of plant life and trees around the high school in an idealized ancient Greek landscape, in Cafeteria B.

In New Jersey, where he is a professional artist, White fields inquiries from residents of Baldwin, Garden City and communities on Long Island, who commission paintings of their childhood homes, business establishments or historical buildings.

This all started eight or so years ago, when White was living in Garden City and was asked to paint a mural for a commercial building in Long Island City. The mural, of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, 20 feet wide and 15 feet high, was painted directly on the sheetrock wall of the building.

White recalled climbing to the roof of a building a block and a half away from the bridge and being surprised by how close it was. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s going to be my mural,’” he recalled.

He worked from photos that he took, and it was his first foray into detailed architectural artwork, igniting a passion that resonates with residents of his hometown and its surroundings who want to capture the essence of their cherished memories.

“I realized I had a certain affinity for this kind of art-making,” White said. “It felt like it came naturally to me. Surrounded by a lot of incredible historical buildings (in Garden City), with some built in the 1870s, I would admire them. I said to myself, you know what? On a nice day, when the sun strikes this building, I’m going to stop and take photos and use one of them for artwork.”

One painting eventually became 30, of Garden City homes and municipal buildings, including the Cathedral of the Incarnation, which opened in 1871. Paintings of other historical houses followed.

It wasn’t until last year that White drew his first Baldwin house, his friend Nick Avallone’s childhood home. He had worked with Avallone on the mural in the high school cafeteria when they were seniors there.

Avallone’s sister, Kate Avallone-Serra, contacted White and asked if he could do a painting of their home, once owned by their mother, who died two years ago.

“It was an enormous, emotional time for them,” White said. “They’ve had that house for 60 years or so — six decades.”

White agreed, but ran into some trouble.

“She provided me with a photo of the house as it looked, maybe in the 1960s or ’70s,” he explained. “It used to have these external eaves and certain hedges around it, but this was how she remembered it.”

In order to create the most accurate painting, White came to Baldwin and took a photo of the house himself.

“I’m a stickler for being accurate,” he said. “I took a trip there, took photos from … the same angle, but more detail, and I could combine the two photos to get a very accurate complete photo.”

As he has done with his other building and house portraits, White started with an ink drawing and eventually added watercolors, a process that took 15 to 20 hours to complete.

“It was the center of our childhood,” Avallone-Serra, who now lives in Albany, said of their home. “It’s a perfect storm of artistry to have Michael do this particular work.”

The idea came to them during Thanksgiving dinner in 2022, she added, and they received the finished work early last year.

“You can absolutely see the love in it,” Avallone-Serra said. “It was a very big emotional thing for me, and we had prints made for my siblings, and surprised them with it.”

White has painted four Baldwin homes in the past year, and has fielded inquiries from people in Rockville Centre and Northport as well. But his work encompasses more than just childhood homes. His portfolio is diverse, and the finished products depend on what is asked of him to create.

“They ask for drawings or paintings — mainly paintings,” he said. “It’s one of the lines of my work. I also do portraiture, landmarks in Long Island, and details I remember as a kid.”

“It’s cool stuff, vintage — it’s like childhood-style,” he added. “But the one that was in Baldwin,” he said, referring to Nunley’s, “is the kind of sacred one.”

For more information on White’s work, visit michaelwhitestudio.com.