By JOSEPH KELLARD
"We're very proud of the progress that's been made with this project, but the pace has been maddeningly slow," said Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who in 2002 helped secure $100,000 to renovate the Oceanside triangle site at Long Beach Road and Davison Avenue, and to build a new police booth.
While the police booth has since been built in a nearby parking lot and the lighthouse was finally raised last year, issues involving the structure's paint color and other items planned for the site's new nautical motif continue to delay the project's completion.
"When government is involved and every minute detail takes a conference and a consensus, it's just a process that is frustrating to work with," Toback said. "Things are not always as simple as they may appear."
One issue involved the eight steel-reinforced wooden pilings installed around the lighthouse to protect it from errant drivers, several of whom over the years had damaged or destroyed various objects at the triangle site, including a police booth. Bob Towers, president of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, which uses and maintains the county-owned property, said he wanted the pilings installed closer to the street to protect more of the site which serves as a bus stop.
"We wanted the pilings further out from the site to protect the people who may be in the triangle," said Towers, whose wife, Kathy, in 1998 first drew up the renovation plans for the historical landmark which was the site of Trolley Stop 102 in centuries past. "The county said this would create a traffic problem and is more dangerous. I can't see how that's more dangerous."
The county engineer contended that if the pilings were installed where the chamber wanted them, cars were more likely to bounce off them and into oncoming traffic.
"Public safety is always our first concern," Toback said, "and the county traffic engineer [made the decision on the location] of the pilings, and the people at the chamber who designed the aesthetics have another opinion, and we tried to balance the two without compromising the safety."
Another point of contention is the color of the lighthouse. A section at the top of the structure is painted yellow, which Towers said is the wrong color. "We want to make it brown so it looks like a rustic type lighthouse [rather] than a modern one," he said, adding that brown was in the plans.
Dov Hadas, an Oceanside architect who volunteered his time and labor for the triangle project, said there was a simple misunderstanding about what the color should be, since the original renderings were not necessarily in color. "When color was discussed, I wanted a brighter red, but one member of the lighthouse committee told me it should be more monochromatic," Hadas said.
The chamber has now decided to change the color itself, using paint donated from a local hardware store, Hadas said. "We're going to have to change it ourselves, and that's what we're working on right now," Towers said, adding that the chamber will also pay for a sign that will read, "Oceanside Chamber of Commerce Liberty Lighthouse."
The chamber's other major concern is the eight bronze plaques that must be made and mounted above and around the four-foot stone base of the 25-foot lighthouse, a project the county has yet to put out for bid. The plaques will honor Oceanside's houses of worship and service and veterans organizations, memorialize the Sept. 11 victims and the rescue personnel from Oceanside who also died that day and honor legislators and County Executive Tom Suozzi for making the project possible. Towers estimated that the plaques will cost about $6,500.
Other concerns involve the positioning of a new 14-foot evergreen tree at the triangle site, finding and purchasing a fishing boat that will double as a planter and reinstalling the brick pavement.
Asked once again when they expect the project to be completed, Towers said he hopes by early October, and Toback said by late summer or early fall. "The bottom line is, good things come to those who wait,² the legislator said, ³and when this project is all done, it's going to be a wonderful asset to Oceanside."
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
