Goldblatt's Sand Pit

Joseph H. Goldblatt’s East Hempstead Sand and Gravel Corporation began operations in 1927, its business centering on the mining and sale of minerals.  By the end of the first year, his sand pit breached the water table and it covered 20.2 acres with an average depth of 25 feet.  At some points, water depth reached over 40 feet.  Mining continued beneath the water table and the corporation used property across the street for general operations and storage.  In 1931, Goldblatt changed the company name to East Meadow Realty Corporation and modernized with the developing “transit mix” industry.  By the following year, the corporation engaged in cement mix operations, which required large trucks to enter and exit the property.  The name was later changed to Builders Sand and Gravel, under which Goldblatt and his son Herbert operated through numerous legal challenges after the Town of Hempstead passed updated zoning laws. Joseph passed away in December 1954.  Herbert took over Builders Sand and Gravel and his father’s other business, Heroe’s Excavating and Contracting Company.

Goldblatt and seven officers of six other corporations were indicted under charges of price fixing in April 1939. The allegations were that the companies conspired to rig prices on sand sold to Nassau County for WPA projects (at $1.25 per yard) and orchestrated strikes of workers at firms who did not participate in the scheme. The defendants pleaded not guilty. After a two-week trial that June, the jury found all the defendants not guilty.

Town of Hempstead passed Ordinance No. 16 in 1945, prohibiting mining in residential neighborhoods. In 1956, State Supreme Court Justice L. Barron Hill permitted Herbert Goldblatt to continue his “nonconforming” operations because the business began before the ordinance was enacted.  In May 1958, homeowners who lived near the sand pit appeared at a town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting to prevent Goldblatt from continuing a cement mix operation, which they claimed polluted their homes with particulate matter.  Interestingly, the homeowners’ attorney was State Senator Edward Speno, who advocated using the land for a park.  This park, later constructed, was named in his honor.

Goldblatt ran into further trouble in 1958 when the Town of Hempstead amended Ordinance No. 16, which prevented disruption to the water table by prohibiting underwater dredging.  Goldblatt was ordered to fill in the mine, which he estimated would cost him $1 million.  He refused to comply, even after losing on appeal.  The town also enacted a series of more stringent requirements surrounding fences, retaining walls, and slope of the mine.  In June 1959, the Town of Hempstead again attempted to shut down Goldblatt’s business over violation of these ordinances.  Goldblatt argued that the town took no such action against nearby mining operations and was therefore discriminating against his business. A case against the town reached the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. In Town of Hempstead v. Goldblatt (1961), Justice J. Burke wrote the majority opinion affirming the lower court’s ruling that the ordinance was constitutional. Justice J. Van Voorhis, writing the dissenting opinion, argued that violations had been corrected, the pit was safe, and the Goldblatts had invested heavily in improving the property. He felt that the town’s ordinance was directed squarely at Goldblatt.

Throughout these cases, Goldblatt and his attorney, Edward Miller, believed the town would eventually obtain the property. They thought the town authorities were continually challenging the viability of the business in attempts to devalue the land prior to condemnation.  Goldblatt also claimed that local authorities were violating his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights because he was unable to earn a living from property he owned. Meanwhile, the sand pit continued as a popular hangout spot for neighborhood families who used the manmade lake for swimming in the summer and ice skating in the winter.

At the time, flooded sandpits had come under intense scrutiny in Nassau County, with newspapers publishing stories about how they attracted mischievous youngsters and contributed to accidents. On a Saturday night in August 1944, Richard Gerlach, a 16-year-old visiting his friend, drowned while swimming in the pit. Three summers later, fourteen-year-old Alfred Steenhuizen nearly drowned, before being heroically rescued by his friend Hartley French. Complying with an ordinance, Goldblatt built fences with barbed wire, making the sand pit safer. Walter Lowden, from one of the oldest families in East Meadow, remembers that parents warned their children not to go to the “forbidden” sand pit. Many youngsters swam instead in the East Meadow Brook, a shallow stream on the Barnum property known as the “BAB” or Best American Beach.

A lawsuit against the town (Goldblatt v. Town of Hempstead) reached the United States Supreme Court in 1962.  Justice Tom C. Clark wrote the Court’s unanimous decision that the town ordinance was constitutional even if it deprived Goldblatt of his property or the ability to run his business. According to the high court, it was reasonable for the Town of Hempstead to exercise its police power to shut down what they believed to be a danger.  Clark opined that, “If this ordinance is otherwise a valid exercise of the town's police powers, the fact that it deprives the property of its most beneficial use does not render it unconstitutional.”  The court did note, however, that it was difficult to ascertain the reasonableness of some of the regulations. It also questioned the prohibition of further excavation below the water table. Though Goldblatt was ordered to backfill the pit, further developments did not make that necessary.

In 1963, the Town of Hempstead Board embarked on an ambitious project to expand parkland within the town’s borders.  After voting in March to acquire the Hoeffner property for the purpose of constructing a park and swimming pool, the Board voted on April 23 to purchase 18 acres of Goldblatt’s sand pit to build the future Speno Park.  The remaining twenty acres of Goldblatt’s property was acquired by Nassau County for water drainage.  The property was to be acquired through eminent domain and both parcels were condemned that year for public acquisition.  Goldblatt, who was already embroiled in a dispute over local zoning and use of his sand pit, valued the land at $1,815,000, saying he would have developed the property.  The issue at hand was the ease of filling in the sand pit to make the land flat enough to construct either public works projects, such as a hospital, or individual housing lots.  Following a four-year legal dispute with town and county administrations, who valued the land at a combined price of $245,000, State Supreme Court Judge Howard Hogan awarded Goldblatt a total of $507,795.

After years of planning and budgetary setbacks, 18 acres taken by the town in 1963 were finally transformed into Speno Park.  When it opened in October 1989, the new park had taken twelve years of planning and construction at a cost of over $2.5 million.  The remnants of the sand pit have been incorporated into a county storm basin north of the park.  In 1997, the artificial lake and surrounding property was transformed into a nature preserve and bird sanctuary, off limits to the general public and maintained by Nassau County and the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations (CEMCO).  Trees in this unique East Meadow location have since matured, creating an unlikely oasis in the middle of dense suburban development.  The idea of a wildlife sanctuary was first voiced by Edmund Trunk in 1963.

Local organizations such as Kiwanis help CEMCO clean up the preserve twice a year and Eagle Scout projects have studied environmental impact through science classes, documented its history, cleared trails, and improved the sanctuary through the construction of bat boxes, which help control the mosquito population.  Other projects by Troops 469 and 362 include the construction of bird, owl, and wood duck nesting boxes, the creation of a “bug hotel” and mason bee houses, planting a pollinator and Long Island Little Bluestem native prairie grasses, and building shelters for amphibians, reptiles, and fish. These individuals and groups have helped restore a sense of East Meadow’s rural landscape in a place where the land itself had been ravaged, giving it a much brighter future. 

© Scott Eckers